Real Madrid are suffering through a defensive calamity for a second straight season after Florentino Perez failed to provide legendary manager Carlo Ancelotti with any defensive cover for a third straight transfer window.
Already, coming into the 2023/24 season, Real Madrid needed defensive help across the back four, and within the first months of the season, they lost starting-caliber center backs David Alaba and Eder Militao to ACL tears.
Despite not signing anyone in the winter, Real Madrid were able to secure both the Champions League and LaLiga crowns, with players like Aurelien Tchouameni, Dani Carvajal, and Ferland Mendy playing key roles as makeshift center backs.
Real Madrid came into the season with issues at CB
And still, Real did not sign a central defender this past summer, with Leny Yoro choosing to move to Manchester United instead of waiting an additional year before joining Madrid for free, as his club Lille threatened to bench him for the entire 2024/25 season if he were to run down his contract.
As if that weren’t enough, Real actually lost an experienced and vital defensive contributor from last season, Nacho Fernandez, who joined the Saudi Pro League. He may have declined in 2023/24, but he was still a massive loss, especially considering the center back situation.
So Real Madrid went into the season shorthanded, and with Alaba slow to return, Militao down with another torn ACL, and Carvajal also out with an ACL tear, the club is decimated defensively.
And yet, they are now ahead of Barcelona in the league and second overall, just a point behind crosstown rivals Atletico Madrid. They lost their top prospect, Joan Martinez, expected to take on a key first-team role this season, to yet another ACL tear, and yet they’ve unearthed another young gem at the position in Raul Asencio.
Raul Asencio excelled after Militao’s injury
Antonio Rudiger is the only senior first-team center back, but in three starts, Raul outplayed him and looked very much like a first-team player for even the mighty Real Madrid.
He was assured and composed, never making mistakes or yielding possession. In a difficult role, Raul stepped up to the challenge of maintaining a high passing accuracy under pressure, completing 92.7 percent of his passes in all competitions, while reading the game expertly in defense against any starting LaLiga attack.
For his efforts and his future potential, however, Raul hasn’t been rewarded as a new lynchpin in the Real Madrid defense, but, rather, he’s been punished by having to move positions to right back as desperation cover for an already-makeshift solution in Lucas Vazquez.
Predictably, Raul struggled for a moment positionally in the lead-up to Sevilla’s second goal this past Sunday as Real Madrid tried him out off the bench at the right back position.
Tchouameni should not be starting
Meanwhile, the right-sided center back in Raul’s place has been converted midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni, who was so poor in his natural position that he’s been the subject of rampant transfer speculation.
Tchouameni has been even worse at center back, gifting goals with basic positional errors against Atalanta, Rayo Vallecano, and Sevilla. Whereas Raul was assured in central defense, Tchouameni has been scatterbrained – overrated on the ball and outright calamitous off it.
Ancelotti’s faith in Tchouameni as a center back is seriously misguided and, quite frankly, indefensible, especially with a young, future Real Madrid star ready to step in.
Carlo already cost the team Miguel Gutierrez, a better player than any of Real’s current left backs, because of his unwillingness to give young players a shot in the 2021/22 season, standing in stark contrast to the efforts of predecessor Zinedine Zidane.
Ancelotti is repeating a sin of the past
Everyone knows Zidane built the team that Ancelotti now profits from, and his idea of giving young players a chance to grow ended up blossoming with the emergence of Rodrygo Goes and Vinicius Junior as superstars one year after his departure – or even in the way prospects like Miguel have shined now.
Raul has a chance to be special at the center back position, because few young players look as good as he has at this position, especially when thrown into the fireat a club with the expectations Real Madrid has.
So when a player steps up to the plate like he has, the club needs to run with it. Ancelotti is hindering yet another great young player by benching Raul and even playing him out of position.
It is an unconscionable mistake for an elite manager to make, and it is the kind of mistake that makes many Madridistas want the club to go for a real long-term manager who believes in youth, such as Bundesliga greats Xabi Alonso or Julian Nagelsmann.
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.