Alright so here’s how I actually sat down to figure out Real Madrid’s whole setup against Girona. Grabbed my laptop first thing, fired up the match replay. Needed to see the positions, not just the goals, you know? Skipped straight to kickoff.
Starting Simple: What The Screen Showed
First glance, looked kinda normal. Courtois in goal, defense line with Carvajal wide right, Rudiger and Nacho central, Mendy pushing up left like usual. Midfield triangle: Tchouaméni holding, with Modric and Valverde ahead. Up top, Vinicius left, Rodrygo right, and Joselu smack in the middle. Basic 4-3-3 shape, right? Nah, that’s just where they stood when the whistle blew. Five minutes in, things started shifting.
Watching Them Actually Move
Kept hitting pause and rewind, honestly. Saw Valverde doing this wild thing. He wasn’t just staying central. When Madrid had the ball, he’d sprint way out wide right, almost alongside Rodrygo! Carvajal the right-back? He suddenly tucked inside way more, like a third center-back sometimes. Left Modric and Tchouaméni holding the middle mostly on their own. Felt risky.
- Vinicius Stayed Wide Left – Like glued to the touchline. Dragged their right-back way out, creating massive space.
- Rodrygo & Valverde Overloaded One Side – Both kept bombing down the right together. Felt chaotic but purposeful.
- Joselu Pinched Center-Backs – His main job seemed to be holding those two defenders close, preventing them from drifting wide to help.
- Carvajal Went Central – Seriously turned into a defender/midfielder hybrid. Covered spaces when others pushed up.
Why It Actually Worked (My Guess)
This weird imbalance confused Girona big time. Left side defended Vinicius one-on-one mostly – bad idea. Got skinned repeatedly. On the right, that Rodrygo-Valverde tag-team meant two or sometimes three Girona players got pulled wide trying to stop them. That left HUGE gaps between their defense and midfield. Boom. Space for Modric to pick passes, or Bellingham (who came on later) to run into. The goals? Mostly came from exploiting that exact chaos – cutbacks, runs from deep into that vacated center area.
The Annoying Part (My Own Practice)
Tried drawing this out on paper first. Failed miserably. Lines everywhere! Just looked like spaghetti. Had to keep replaying key moments – Madrid winning the ball back especially. Saw how quickly Valverde and Rodrygo combined to switch play to Vinicius isolated on the left. Made sense then. Also noticed Girona’s midfielders looked lost trying to decide who to mark with all this mad movement. Took me like three passes of that sequence before I caught the triggers. Frustrating, but felt good finally spotting the pattern.
So yeah, Madrid didn’t really play a strict formation. They played a system based on overloading one side to destroy the other. Weird shape? Definitely. Effective against Girona? Absolutely smashed ’em. Practice takeaway? Gotta watch beyond the basic lineup graphic – the real tactics start moving after the whistle.
