Five Bullet Points From Real Madrid’s Win Over Schalke

These observations — where I look at Real Madrid’s history, its players on loan, Castilla, tactical tidbits, and other relevant thoughts — are now a regular thing. All previous editions can be found here.

Here is a new thing I’m committing to this season: Five semi-informal bullet points after each game.

• It took just six minutes for Kylian Mbappe to score after returning from the World Cup — no signs of rust or physical tarnish. Immediately, Mbappe’s dribbling looked explosive both down the middle and on the right wing. A one-touch left-footed pass across the field in transition to set up Vinicius Jr point blank reminded me of those great (and underrated) Cristiano Ronaldo passes to Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale. Can we please let this be the season everything comes together for Mbappe and Real Madrid?
  
  An aside: The collective pressing sequence from the team on Mbappe’s goal was terrific. There were a few good defensive moments like that. Real Madrid don’t need aggressive pressing, but just being organized man-to-man behind the ball would be a huge upgrade from previous seasons.
  
  PS: Can every opponent please play against Real Madrid with the same suicidal high line that Schalke danced with? Signed, — a selfish Madridista.
  
• Vinicius Jr looks way off pace. I am very sympathetic with the pre-season factor: You really can’t read too much into these games because they mean very little in terms of giving us premonitions for the actual season. But it’s worth nothing Vinicius hasn’t looked good physically and he still hasn’t improved despite having three games under his belt to get himself acclimatized to full contact football. Also, pretty well every other player showed up ready physically without needing time to settle (see the first bullet point of this article), including Mbappe, Endrick, Brahim Diaz, and even Jude Bellingham and Yan Diomande.
  
  Look, none of this matters if he shows up ready to go on opening matchday against Espanyol — and that’s what we should care about the most. As I’ve stated many times in the past month, take my analysis (and anyone’s analysis) during this period of the season with a grain of salt. But once you hit the 1,000 minute mark, you’ll have enough data points to come to certain conclusions.
  
  PS: I see some people floating ‘jaw surgery’ as an excuse for Vinicius showing up the way he has. It was not a surgery, it was facial harmonization (there was no cutting, just injections) and had little-to-no impact on his ability to train.
  
• Fede Valverde looks much better next to Bernardo Silva (a ball progressor) than he does next to Aurelien Tchouameni. Consider Silva this team’s Toni Kroos (a poor man’s Kroos, anyway, with all due respect to to Silva at this stage of his career) in terms of alleviating duties from his teammates. Silva wasn’t that good against Schalke as he was against Deportivo, but he still brings leadership and organization to the midfield. Valverde had a few great defensive reads and some crisp vertical passing. Still some things he can clean up, but this was a better cameo from him.
  
• Jose Mourinho has to find a way to play both Arda Güler and Jude Bellingham together. Güler has been lights out this pre-season, and if we’re factoring in last season, he has been at a very high level for a long time. He shouldn’t lose his place in the XI. But also: Bellingham is back, is one of the best players in the world, and I thought he looked surprisingly sharp yesterday in his return off the bench, and of course, there is no way in hell he isn’t starting — that is not even up for debate. These two, hopefully, will be able to co-exist the same way Bernardo Silva and David Silva (and even Kevin de Bruyne!) did; or Kaka and Rui Costa. Can Mourinho make it work with one of them deeper or interchangeable? If he sees both of them as a 10, will he keep both happy?
  
• I have absolutely loved Carlos Espi so far. He has been so impressive throwing bodies around, making the right off-ball runs, and putting pressure on defenders. His hold up play looks really good and he’s connecting well with his teammates. Intelligent player and good finished. Count me in on the Espi hype train.