Real Madrid are within striking distance of the top spot in LaLiga, except, now, they are one point behind crosstown rivals Atletico Madrid and ahead of Barcelona, following Atleti’s last-gasp 2-1 win over the Blaugrana last weekend.
Although it hasn’t been the strongest start to the season for Real Madrid in either LaLiga or the Champions League, you have to consider the reigning champions the favorites to repeat if they can bolster their defense in the January transfer window and continue to get better performances from marquee summer signing Kylian Mbappe.
But Real Madrid can’t just bank on winter additions to save their defense. In addition to Mbappe, here are five Madrid players who have something to prove as we head into the new year and the business end of the 2024/25 season.
CF Kylian Mbappe
Kylian Mbappe believes he hit his turning point with a putrid performance against Athletic Club that he described as a “rock bottom” moment, because, since then, a sharper Mbappe has emerged.
He has scored in three straight appearances against Atalanta, Pachuca, and Sevilla, stepping up against three credible opponents in very different competitions with much better all-around performances, especially in terms of his chance creation.
For example, he had a lovely assist for Brahim Diaz’s goal to seal the win over Sevilla, fighting off defenders before spraying the ball to Brahim, receiving the Moroccan international’s return pass, and then flicking it into a space where only the right winger could get it.
Real Madrid need to see more of the same from Mbappe. With Barcelona’s attack firing on all cylinders this season, Real need their superstar trio to be even better, and no single player is capable of giving even more to Madrid this season than Mbappe, who has more talent than any other footballer on this planet.
RW Rodrygo Goes
Alongside him, Rodrygo Goes has a point to prove, too. Whereas Kylian Mbappe is out to prove that he is indeed a Ballon d’Or-level player and the heir to Cristiano Ronaldo in Madrid, Rodrygo has to continue to prove that he has a long-term future in this team.
Rodrygo continues to suffer from the fact that he can’t play his most favored position, and with Mbappe in the fold, he has to go back to the pre-2023 era and not even play in his second-most favored position,
The Brazilian international started the season as Real’s best attacking player, and although his five goals and three assists are a decent return, Real Madrid expect more than just “decent” from one of their starting forwards.
During their most successful attacking periods, Real Madrid were capable of carrying three 20-goal forwards – or at least three with 15 goals – and that should be the next benchmark for Rodrygo.
He’ll have to be more active and clinical in the second half of the season, and that isn’t easy to do when Rodrygo’s main role on the right side will be as a decoy to relieve pressure from Mbappe and Vinicius Jr. on the other side of the pitch.
That said, we all know how talented Rodrygo is and that he is capable of offering more end product and dynamism than he did in the months of October and November.
AM Arda Guler
Even though the defense is the big weakness in Madrid, there isn’t a whole lot for those players to prove, because either we know they are important to the team, like Thibaut Courtois and Antonio Rudiger, or we clearly know what their weaknesses.
Arda Guler might have the most to prove in the immediate future, because the Turkish international is desperate to get more games and start in a crowded attack where Jude Bellingham is the nailed-on No. 10 and Rodrygo has the edge of experience on the right wing.
Rodrygo and Guler basically go hand-in-hand, because Guler’s best shot at starting is by supplanting Rodrygo on the right wing, which is not an easy task. Guler would need Rodrygo to falter, yes, but he also needs to step up his own performances.
On paper, Guler has a goal and three assists in 575 LaLiga minutes, building on last season’s ultra-efficient statistics of six goals in as many minutes. But Real Madrid need their wingers to do more than rack up box-score statistics, which, as Guler’s two assists against Rayo Vallecano exemplify, can be easily manipulated in a small sample.
Guler has to start offering more in terms of his progression, pressing, and overall work rate off the ball. He has to do more to help the team, because even though he is only 19, those are the things Vinicius Jr. and Rodrygo did as prospects that helped them earn regular minutes in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons, even when they offered less attacking involvement than Guler at the same age.
LB Ferland Mendy
Fran Garcia and Ferland Mendy probably have close to an equal level of scrutiny heading into 2025, but I think Mendy has a little bit more to prove for two distinct reasons.
Firstly, he makes more money, so if we are talking about someone playing for their future, Mendy would be the first to go in order to accommodate a better left back’s wages, such as rumored targets Alphonso Davies and Theo Hernandez.
Secondly, we pretty much know that Fran Garcia isn’t good enough for Real Madrid and isn’t ever going to be good enough for Real Madrid. With Mendy, there’s still a level of reasonable doubt because he has an actual role in shutting down top wingers one-on-one and was an important player in two title-winning sides in the 2019/20 and 2021/22 seasons before the woefulness of his attacking output caught up to him.
Mendy is back from an injury and was in the squad against Sevilla, where Fran turned in another subpar performance in LaLiga. In truth, Fran hasn’t been good in the league since he played for Rayo, and he is a combination of scared in his own half and overmatched in one-on-ones.
So Mendy has a chance to take back his starting job and keep it for good. The problem is that he hasn’t done so to this point, because the biggest barrier to Mendy starting every game isn’t Garcia, but, rather, the fact that Mendy isn’t playing particularly well either.
DM Aurelien Tchouameni
Aurelien Tchouameni has been a massive liability at center back, gifting opponents a goal in each game against Atalanta, Rayo Vallecano, and Sevilla with his poor positioning and ineptitude at actually reading opposition forwards.
The Frenchman’s performances as a makeshift center back are made all the more frustrating by the fact that Real Madrid don’t need to be playing him as a central defender. They could be starting 21-year-old prospect Raul Asencio instead, as he’s been the team’s best defender since getting starts this season.
However, the issues with Tchouameni go beyond his performances at center back. Before that, he was terrible in the midfield, to the point where he cost them in their awful loss to Milan and got himself benched.
Tchouameni has been so poor that he is now the subject of transfer rumors just two years after joining Real Madrid, as he hasn’t developed his skill set or become the vital No. 6 that Real envisioned when they spent more than 80 million euros to sign him over PSG and Liverpool.
The 24-year-old is not a prospect. He is expected to be a starting-caliber player for Real Madrid who actually impacts games instead of being a passenger – or even an asset to the other team. His Real Madrid career is on the line these next five months.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at kparvizi19[at]gmail.com.