Four things Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid must do to beat Barcelona in El Clasico | OneFootball

The first El Clasico of the season is here, and Real Madrid enter the game with a sense of revenge in their eyes after the results of last season.

This time around, Los Blancos enter as the relative favourites given their flying form while Barcelona have several doubts especially around their defence.

After all, recent games against PSG and Sevilla revealed several shortcomings of their defensive setup and how they can be capitalised on.

Xabi Alonso and Co., needless to say, have maintained a very close eye on the defeats and took notes from the results.

Here are four ways the Real Madrid manager could set up his team to beat Barcelona on 26th October.

The long-ball trap

While Barcelona are indeed one of the world’s best teams at the moment, they do have their frailties and balls over the top are one such weakness they have struggled to deal with.

Luckily for Xabi Alonso, he has a player who can exploit that weakness to perfection given his innate skill to distribute immaculate and precise long-balls over the top. That player is none other than Dean Huijsen.

The youngster has revolutionised the team’s defence since arriving in the summer, not only as a superior defender but as a brilliant player with the ball at his feet.

While he was initially a doubt to participate in the Classico through injury, he has recovered and is likely to start on the night.

Getting the ball to Huijsen regularly, thus, should be one of Real Madrid’s strategies on the night as he can strike long passes to the attackers and wingers to break Barcelona’s defensive structure. Such a manoeuvre will help break the offside trap.

Further, Huijsen has shown composure when pressed by opponents and is safe with the ball at his feet, making it a low-risk plan. 

Slicing the defence with precision

Mbappe will be key. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

One of the most well-documented means of breaking past Barcelona’s offside-trap this season is well-timed runs from the deep, but given Kylian Mbappe’s form, it is Real Madrid’s best bet to look to release him on the break.

While Mbappe must look to hold his line better than he did last season, it is clear that he will have several chances given the open defence of the Catalans. Arda Guler and Jude Bellingham, however, will be crucial to his success.

Both midfielders are set to start in the space behind Mbappe and must release the ball quickly and precisely to release the Frenchman into the open spaces behind the defence.

As much as Mbappe’s timing will be critical, so will the midfielder’s timing of their passes. Should the two factors align and play in Real Madrid’s favour, the counter-attacks will be devastating for the Catalans.

An effective press

Real Madrid may well have lost all four Clasicos to Barcelona last season, but they did show tangible improvement from one to the next.

In the final game against Barcelona, they took a 2-0 lead and looked set to take a dominant scoreline. However, they offered them a way back in the game because they sat back and got slack and conceded four goals before half-time.

Tomorrow, it is crucial that the men in white show that they have learnt their lesson from that outing. The answer, clearly, is to keep the pressure on Barcelona.

Pressing the opponent will be crucial to maintain an advantage on them, and focus must be on the ball-handling midfielder Pedri and Frenkie De Jong.

The duo, at this point, form the spine of Barcelona’s setup and are the most important players in the system alongside Lamine Yamal. Should Real Madrid press the trio, make them uncomfortable and force errors, they can create big openings.

In fact, Sevilla did the same against Barcelona in their recent win over the Catalans and got two goals in stoppage time using that very approach.

Intent to dominate

While all the above-mentioned ideas are realistically implementable to expose Barcelona’s lacunae in defence, the most important faced for Xabi Alonso is to ensure that his side are versatile and have an intent to dominate.

Real Madrid are just getting started on a possession-heavy game but Barcelona are the kings of having the ball at their feet. That, however, must not deter the dressing room from trying to take the front foot.

Defeating Barcelona will require them to push the Catalans back and fearlessly dominate the game – something that will require a strong mentality.

When Sevilla took on Barcelona recently, Los Nervionenses had more touches in Barcelona’s box than Barcelona did in theirs (34 vs 30) and the difference was palpable.

Pushing Barcelona deep and dominating the game was an important part of the system because it pushed the entire team back, disrupted their high line and created goalscoring opportunities for the opponents.