Despite the retirement of Toni Kroos at the end of the last season, Real Madrid had a very well-stacked midfield to start this 2024-25 season. Carlo Ancelotti had some of the world’s best midfielders under his command, including the likes of Aurelien Tchouameni, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde, Luka Modric, Jude Bellingham, and Arda Guler.
With so much quality available in the middle of the pitch, the Merengues were expected to put up vastly better performances at the start of this season than they actually did.
There were several other reasons contributing to this subpar start to the season from Los Blancos, but one of these factors was the lack of balance in the midfield as the likes of Tchouameni, Valverde, and Bellingham provided a lot of work-rate and physicality, but Kroos’ absence was keenly missed in terms of creativity and output.
Ancelotti tried to get around this problem by including Luka Modric in his starting lineup, but it is clear that the Croatian is feeling the impacts of his age, and can no longer play at his best level throughout games on a continuous basis.
In such a scenario, Tchouameni’s injury allowed Ancelotti to be more experimental with his midfield, and Camavinga provided more balance to the midfield with his energy, defensive skills, dribbling, and ability to keep the ball under pressure.
Meanwhile, the injuries to Dani Carvajal and Lucas Vazquez meant Federico Valverde had to play at the right-back position for some games, opening up a midfield slot for a midfielder who has not enjoyed the spotlight for the last few years.
This midfielder was Dani Ceballos, who started the last two La Liga games against Leganes and Getafe, and also played more than 30 minutes in the game against Liverpool as he replaced Eduardo Camavinga following the Frenchman’s injury.
In these appearances, the Spanish midfielder’s performances have been rather surprisingly good, and he has provided a lot of balance to the Real Madrid midfield with his passing, control, and high work rate.
According to Sofascore, he played the full 90 minutes in the game against Leganes, getting on the ball 101 times. He took full advantage of this opportunity to showcase his skills, as he recorded a 96% pass completion rate, completing 85 of his 89 passes. Ceballos also successfully completed 6 of his 7 attempted long balls.
Similarly, he also contributed well to defence, making 1 interception and 4 tackles. In total, he won 7 of his 9 ground duels,
He maintained these high standards in the last game against Getafe as well, another match that he started and played for the full 90 minutes. He once again recorded a 94% pass completion rate by completing 89 of his 95 passes. Furthermore, he also had 1 key pass in that game and completed 6 of his 8 attempted long balls.
He was also quite active without the ball as well, making 1 clearance, 2 interceptions, and 3 tackles. He won 7 of his 10 ground duels in that match.
With these performances, the Spaniard has made a good case for a more important role in the Real Madrid team than the one has been previously afforded. Hopefully, Ancelotti will have taken good note of these performances, and will not shy away from utilising such an important tool in his midfield going forward.
