Xabi Alonso began life
in La Liga
as Real Madrid manager with a 1-0 win over Osasuna at the Santiago
Bernabéu on Tuesday night. They may have
secured victory, but did they impress?
Xabi Alonso may have played 74 league games at the Santiago
Bernabéu, but he experienced his first from the dugout on Tuesday
night, along with all the pressure and scrutiny that comes with
being the manager of one of the biggest clubs in the world.
“Tiki-Taka bores the Bernabéu,” said Marca (a
phrase we thought had been buried years ago). At Real
Madrid, winning every game is expected. The bigger debate is
mostly about how you win.
A Flat
Performance
Alessio Lisci’s 5-3-2 frustrated Madrid. Coming to the Bernabéu
is a daunting prospect in your first game in charge of a new club,
but his compact defensive system was enough to make it a slog for
the home side.
Real Madrid’s numbers tell the story. They totalled just 0.86
non-penalty xG, held 71% possession and faced no shots on target.
But Osasuna
did grow bolder after conceding to Kylian
Mbappé‘s penalty even if they still produced just 0.36 xG from
two shots.
“We struggled to find spaces,” Alonso admitted. “They sat deep
in a 5-3-2. We got down the left with Vini [Vinícius Júnior] and
[Alvaro] Carreras but couldn’t find the final pass.”
Alonso pointed to the short two-week pre-season. Understandable,
but the performance was still underwhelming. Does this sort of
control and utter dominance suit their best players?
Vinícius
Still Searching
There was a time when Vinícius
Júnior looked nailed on to win the Ballon d’Or. His histrionics
after losing out to Rodri in 2024 were over the top, but you can
understand his disappointment. He was really that good,
but a slump in form since then shows no sign of abating.
He has carried last season’s poor form into 2025-26 and remains
an enigmatic figure on the left-hand side of Real Madrid’s attack.
He beat his opponent with just one of his five take-on attempts on
Tuesday and failed to hit the target with his only shot of the
game. In the end, he looked an easy mark for Valentin Rosier on
Osasuna’s right-hand side.
It was Mbappé who looked more decisive on the left as he
constantly dropped out to find open spaces to run into against
Osasuna’s back five.
Mbappé completed six of 12 take-ons and went past six different
Osasuna players at least once. Right now, he looks like the true
threat in Madrid’s attack.
The Arda
Güler Debate
Arda
Güler is supposed to be the player to find the final pass that
Madrid just couldn’t produce against Osasuna. Alonso is not playing
him as a tempo-setter and more as a number eight, with
Aurélien Tchouaméni in the deepest midfield role flanked by the
Turkey international and
Federico Valverde.
That imbalance shows. Madrid still lack a Kroos-type controller,
and missing out on Martín Zubimendi to Arsenal this summer already
looks costly.
“Since [Alonso and his staff] arrived, [Güler] has taken steps
forward,” Alonso said. “Not just his quality, which he has already
shown, but how he understands the position and gives us stability,
control and links play.”
He’s still only 20 and is learning a relatively new position
with all of its nuances. But it also feels a little forced at
times. Conversely, Alonso will have been delighted with
Franco Mastantuono‘s contribution on his debut.
Maybe the debate isn’t Güler or Mastantuono, but the 18-year-old
looked far more comfortable probing Osasuna’s admittedly tired
backline when he came on for his Madrid bow.
The Argentine has trained just four times with the first team
and came on as the first substitute on the night. The impact he
made was immediate, even if it was only for 22 minutes. He touched
the ball 28 times, created a chance, had a shot on target and
touched the ball three times in the penalty area.
Underwhelming Trent
Four players made their league debut for Madrid on Tuesday at
the Bernabéu. Dean
Huijsen, Álvaro
Carreras, Mastantuono and
Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Alexander-Arnold looked the most out of place. Without a
Salah-type runner, his deliveries lacked purpose. Brahim
Díaz tucked inside, Rodrygo
stayed benched, and the Trent–Díazconnection created little.
Valverde was hesitant to risk his customary runs into the box too
and any attempted switch was cut out by Osasuna.
“We were expecting Osasuna to play higher up,” Alonso said.
“That’s what we saw from them in pre-season. But you have to know
when to take a little bit more of a risk and when to push forward,
to take a risk and win the second ball.”
Admittedly, it was difficult to find space in the box but that’s
partly why Alexander-Arnold was brought in. His didn’t complete one
successful pass into the penalty area and his connection with Díaz
didn’t create anything of note either.
Dani
Carvajal is back from a serious knee injury and will have his
mind set on reclaiming his throne as starting right-back. The
competition will be good for the team, but the England
international will need to improve to keep his place.
Xabi
Alonso’s Tactical Flexibility On Full Display
We saw from Alonso’s time at Bayer Leverkusen that 4-3-3
isn’t his only plan. They play Real Oviedo and Mallorca in
their next games, both of whom suffered heavy defeats on Matchday
1, falling 2-0 to Villarreal and 3-0 to Barcelona respectively.
They will likely sit deep and try to frustrate Madrid after
seeing the relative success Osasuna had over 90 minutes at the
Bernabéu on Tuesday.
We saw hints of Alonso’s tinkering at the Club World Cup, where
he experimented with three at the back, two strikers and other
tactical tweaks, although he downplayed that experience as “a
different context”.
Crucially, Jude
Bellingham is out for weeks after surgery, denying Alonso his
most transformative piece.
Eduardo Camavinga is also injured and is the kind of midfielder
who gives the team more options. Rodrygo’s future is up in the air
with Manchester City and Arsenal still linked, and we still have
another two weeks until the transfer window closes.
But despite all that, La Liga has kicked off. Barcelona got off
to winning ways in emphatic fashion at the weekend, and while
Madrid bagged all three points too, there are more questions than
answers after Alonso’s first game in charge at Real Madrid.
Our Opta match centre
delivers you all the stats from the Real Madrid vs Osasuna game in
La Liga on 19 August.
The match centre below includes
team and player stats, expected goals data, passing networks, an
Opta chalkboard and more. It gives you everything you need to do
your own match analysis.
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