Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid (2015/16 season)

Introduction

Zinedine Zidane was appointed as Real Madrid manager on January 4th, 2016. Despite the fact that Real Madrid finished 2nd to a rampant Barcelona, he improved the club dramatically, with a highlight including a shock win 2–1 away from home against La Blaugrana.

Yet the greatest achievement was not one win against their main rivals. Rather, winning the Champions League in a very tight match against Atletico Madrid at the San Siro. Despite only losing one game in La Liga under Zidane in the second half of the season, it was their form in the Champions League that was the highlight of the season.

Style of Play

Zidane mostly utilised a 4–3–3 system during the season. This was their best starting eleven:

Navas

Marcelo — Pepe — Ramos — Carvajal

Casemiro

Kroos — Modrić

Ronaldo — Benzema — Bale

Defensive Style

Casemiro

Prior to his appointment, Casemiro was not a player who featured in the starting eleven all that much. However, the Frenchman made him a crucial part of his team. Los Blancos were desperately missing a defensive midfielder, who was strong defensively, following the departures of Xabi Alonso and Sami Khedira.

Zidane believed that Casemiro would be the ideal replacement. It proved to be a masterstroke from Zizou, as Casemiro during the 15/16 season was arguably better defensively than both Alonso and Khedira.

Defensive Shape

Under Zinedine Zidane, he made Real Madrid’s defensive shape very solid. Usually, they didn’t press very high in the opposition’s half. Mostly it would be light pressing, and positioning to win the ball in their own half. In their defensive half, the pressure was very aggressive and intense.

Here, Real Madrid is sitting in a mid block. The ultimate objective is to win the ball in the middle, due to the positioning of the wide players.

The front three of Ronaldo, Benzema and Bale would be the ones standing off, almost in a passive mid block. The midfield three would be behind them, where they also wouldn’t press much outside their own half. There would often be occasions where Ronaldo and Bale would join the midfielders to create a line of 5 (this is usually when the opponents reach Real Madrid’s half).

But on most occasions, Madrid’s defensive shape would resemble a 4–1–4–1.

Casemiro usually tries to position himself deeper and closer to the four defenders. This is Zidane’s tactical instruction of getting Casemiro to protect the back four. Sometimes, in certain situations, Casemiro would slot in between Sergio Ramos and Pepe to create a back five, for extra solidity.

Another reason Casemiro is deeper than Kroos and Modrić, is that before the opposition gets close to Real Madrid’s penalty box, there is usually a big gap between the midfielders and defenders. Technically gifted players like Lionel Messi or Koke would try to take advantage of that gap. So Casemiro would drop off from the two advanced midfielders, position himself inside the gap and stop the attacker trying to take advantage from it.

The gap as highlighted before is behind Casemiro and on Ronaldo’s right.

When the opposition has the ball for longer periods in Real Madrid’s half, Casemiro steps up to create a 5 in the midfield. The back four would also bring the line up to create less space in the centre for the opposition to penetrate in between the lines.

There’s not many avenues for the player in possession to break Madrid’s midfield line of five.

I mentioned earlier that Real Madrid do not press aggressively and with speed outside their own half. This is a conservative measure, as they look to save their energy so that they can create their deep defending structure as quickly as possible.

Offensive Style

Build Up Play

A key fundamental that Zidane instills in his players is for them to be calm. Calm mentally, calm defensively and calm on the ball.

In the build up play, it begins patiently with the centre backs, with many short passes and at times, long passes. There’s often occasions where Kroos or Modrić or both would return in deeper positions to help the defenders build up play. Both of those players play large roles in the build up play, as they, at the time, were some of the best playmakers in the world.

Casemiro, who’s already in a deep position, is not as good as the two midfielders and is thus more reserved in possession to allow Modrić and Kroos space to build up with the defenders.

Pepe is given licence to dribble with the ball and patiently circulate the ball with either Ramos or Casemiro until a passing lane for either Kroos or Modrić opens up.

When it comes to reaching the players who are close to the opponent’s penalty box, there are typically two methods.

One, is Modrić or Kroos advancing with the ball by making 1–2s with teammates. This was commonly used by Madrid, as both are elite playmakers and are able to perform such actions frequently. This however was mostly done by Modrić, who is a better creator with his dribbling and Kroos with his passing.

Here, Modric has received the ball in between the lines from Kroos and is ready to drive at the opposition’s defence.

The second method involved one of the three forwards (Ronaldo, Benzema or Bale) to drop deep and link between the players building the play at the back and with the other two forwards.

Here, Ronaldo has dropped deep to receive possession from Ramos. He has received in space and can thus turn and play.

There was a third, albeit a less conventional method which involved playing long balls. This was a slightly risky method, as statistically speaking, long balls are one of the least effective methods of keeping possession. However, with players like Kroos or Ramos distributing, often into space or to aid the aerial ability of all three forwards, at times it would make sense.

Here, Carvajal has received a long ball from Kroos in space and can take on his defender to deliver a cross.

Most of the time, Real Madrid’s chance creation would involve crosses from the wings. Usually, one of the three forwards would be on the wing and is aided by an advancing ball side full back, where the other two forwards are waiting in the box for the cross.

In most situations, the winger on paper (Ronaldo and Bale) would be out wide, ready to combine with an advancing fullback. But there were times where Madrid’s fluid front three would be in action, where Benzema could go wide, or Ronaldo going to the right, or Bale going to the left. This confused the opposition, particularly if they defended with man-orientations.

Here, Benzema is out wide, having just combined with Marcelo and is about to cross it into Ronaldo and Bale.

It was crucial for Zidane’s side that all three forwards could be amazing at both skills; crossing and scoring from crosses. This means that there wasn’t an over reliance on one player to create chances. The players also had the football intelligence to make the decision of whether to cross along the ground or in the air, by advancing at speed towards the defenders or crossing early. All three had good aerial ability, as well as good finishing, so either method would be acceptable.

Another interesting aspect of Los Blancos’ attacking structure, was the players in rest defence ready to win the second balls, should a cross not work out. In the image below, Marcelo, Modrić and Carvajal are in advanced positions, ready to counter press and then create another chance for the forwards.

Marcelo wins the second ball following Benzema’s deflected cross.

In summary, in crossing positions these are the players that are involved and where:

If the ball is on the left hand side — the player wide is either Ronaldo or Benzema

If the ball is on the right hand side — the player wide is either Bale or Benzema

There would be occasions where one of the forwards is late and not able to arrive in the box quickly. This is where one of the midfielders or advancing fullbacks gets into the box, as Zidane wants at least two players in the box ready to attack the cross.

Benzema is already helping out wide and Ronaldo is running late. This means Carvajal will have to run in to give Marcelo two options.

Often it would be Modrić who would cover for the forward who was supposed to go wide but wasn’t able to make it.

For example, as Ronaldo liked to get into the box a lot in order to utilise his unbelievable goal scoring ability, sometimes Benzema wouldn’t got wide to the left side or Bale wouldn’t go to the left side as much as Ronaldo or Benzema would, as there’d be no cover on the right OR it would be too far to make. So that means at times, Marcelo is left alone on the left side without a winger forward to help him. This means that Modrić would go wide to help him. Further, if the forward from the wide area didn’t arrive to his wide place, Modrić would also cover for him.

None of the 3 forwards is at LW (all of them are in the box). This means Modrić will have to go wide and cross the ball in.

Kroos would sometimes cover wide, but it wouldn’t be as frequent as Modrić.

Sometimes though, there would be occasions that there was no choice but for the fullback to be alone in the wide areas. However, when you have a fullback that’s as good as Marcelo, he gives you full faith that he knows how to deal with these situations and will normally deliver a good end product, whether it is a dribble or a cross.

There would also be times when the forward who is wide cuts inside. Similar to Marcelo, when you have the best player in the world in Ronaldo, who is elite with his dribbling, you’d utilise it as much as you can. His skill and change of pace makes him a nightmare to defend against, particularly in quick transitions.

Here Ronaldo has cut inside and is dribbling at speed, with the Wolfsburg defenders hesitant to stop him.

Zidane was also known for his ability to make subs at crucial moments to win games, where the most common in this season were Jesé and Lucas Vazquez. They usually replaced one of the front three. Isco was also commonly used and he’d replace either Kroos or Modrić. Isco was very good at dribbling as a playmaker, and would be a much more suitable option of covering wide than the two initial midfielders.

Another aspect was Real Madrid’s counter attacks. Ever since the days of Mourinho and Ancelloti, Real Madrid have been renowned for their counter attacking ability. Their ability to turn from defence into attack in a matter of seconds was scary.

Zidane chose to make Madrid a more possession oriented side instead of generating attacks purely on transition. However, when it came to using a counter attack, Madrid would still have that same effect as before.

When Real Madrid win the ball, mostly in attacking or midfield areas, usually three or four players rush forward (in most situations it would be the front three and another player). Los Blancos have so many quick players that in some games where they wouldn’t be able to dominate possession, they’d use their speed in transition to kill the opposition.

Here, Madrid have won the ball and have four players (the front three and Carvajal) running at speed towards a disorganised Barcelona defence. A goal from Ronaldo came from this counter attack.

Long shots were also commonly seen under Zidane, with some absolutely crazy goals scored, usually from the main man himself, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ronaldo had an absolute missile in that right peg of his. Here, he was given too much time by the defenders and launched this shot into the top right corner.

Set pieces were also common areas for Real Madrid to score many goals and with the aerial prowess of players like Ronaldo, Bale, Ramos and Pepe, again you’d utilise your strengths as much as you can.

Here Pepe leaps highest from a corner and heads it in the bottom right corner.

The final element that was probably the most critical and lead to Real Madrid having such success in the 15/16 particularly in the Champions League, was Zidane’s ability to motivate his players. Few of Zidane’s half time speeches in Champions League finals have been released by the club and they’re enough to make anyone give their all, no matter who they were playing.

Zidane delivering his half time speech to the players in the Champions League final against Atletico Madrid.

Conclusion

What started off to be a below par season for Los Blancos, the appointment of Zinedine Zidane as manager brought a new sense of spirit within the team and reignited the quality present within the superstars of Real Madrid. His tactical and motivational qualities aided the team massively in achieving the Champions League title.