Veteran defender’s performance can be a silver lining in an otherwise abysmal night for Real Madrid | OneFootball

Real Madrid visited London to face Arsenal in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie and this trip turned out to be quite a horrid affair for the Merengues.

Although they were not really the favourites, the Los Blancos fans would definitely have been expecting their team to put in a strong performance in their favourite competition, especially after the disappointing loss against Valencia last weekend.

However, this away game turned out to be an even bigger disappointment as the reigning UCL champions were beaten 3-0 by Mikel Arteta’s team.

Two free-kick goals from Declan Rice and another goal from the Spaniard Mikel Merino mean Carlo Ancelotti’s men have quite an impossible task of making it to the semi-finals when the two sides meet again at the Santiago Bernabeu next week.

The first leg saw the Merengues underperform on both ends of the pitch. The frontline, especially Kylian Mbappe, missed several chances, while the defence also struggled a lot to contain the English team’s attack, and it was only Thibaut Courtois whose saves kept the deficit limited to three goals.

In the backline, Antonio Rudiger was uncharacteristically poor on a big night, as he partnered with Raul Asencio in the centre of the defence.

David Alaba played on the flank as Ferland Mendy is still out with an injury, and Ancelotti decided to utilize the Austrian defender’s experience on the left-back position.

Clearly, this has not been Alaba’s favourite position lately. However, he still emerged as one of the better performers in the Real Madrid defence against Arsenal.

As Sofascore has noted, the former Bayern Munich star made 2 clearances, 2 tackles, and 1 clearance off the line, while blocking another shot from the hosts.

However, he was below his expected standards in terms of passing, as he recorded only an 81% success rate in this regard. Similarly, his 1 attempted cross was not accurate and also only 1 of his 3 attempted long balls successfully found its target. Still, he was able to put in 1 key pass in a game in which attacking opportunities were few and far between for the Merengues.

But in addition to these contributions and deficiencies, one important factor for the Austrian was that he was able to play for 80 minutes in such an intense game, that too in a position that is not his strongest.

Thus, even though the Merengue’s UCL campaign might already have been doomed, this game proved that Alaba is getting closer to his best physical level after such a traumatic injury that kept him out of action for more than a year.

Hopefully, he will be able to contribute and help Real Madrid in this crucial stage of the campaign to end this season with at least 1 big trophy.