Home comforts lacking again as Madrid stunned by Brugge

Madrid (AFP) – Real Madrid’s late rally against Club Brugge might save them from an embarrassing group-stage exit in the Champions League but the fear factor at the Santiago Bernabeu has been lost and will take longer to recover. 

Brugge exploded out of the blocks on Tuesday night with two goals in the first 39 minutes and when the nerves fluttered in the second half, they came from defending their lead rather than any sense of inferiority. 

“There are no small teams anymore,” said Zinedine Zidane after the match. “In the Champions League anyone can beat anyone and if you don’t play well, you get into trouble.” 

The 2-2 draw, salvaged after two headers from Sergio Ramos and Casemiro, leaves Madrid without a victory from their opening two group games for the first time ever and needing to win away at Galatasaray later this month, a fixture awkwardly timed four days before the Clasico at Camp Nou. 

Yet Madrid’s fate in Group A may depend too on home games against Galatasaray and then Paris Saint-German, given their record in front of their own fans can no longer give them cause for comfort. 

In Europe, they were torn apart on their own turf by Ajax in March, a 4-1 defeat sending them out in the last 16 and spelling the end of Santiago Solari’s brief tenure as coach. 

They have now gone 12 months without winning at home in the Champions League, having previously gone four years, between 2011 and 2015, without a single defeat. 

In La Liga, Madrid have played three games this season at home, including a draw against Real Valladolid and a nervy 3-2 victory over Levante in which Levante scored twice and almost snatched a draw in the second half. 

Last season, they lost eight games at the Santiago Bernabeu in all competitions, their worst record in 23 years. Only once since 2010 had they previously lost more than three in a season. 

That came the previous year, when they lost five under Zidane, and when Cristiano Ronaldo was still at the club. 

– Frustration –

Ronaldo’s departure to Juventus has almost certainly erased some of the intimidation opponents once felt but his absence is not the only problem. 

When Zidane returned in March, he was adamant that La Liga would be his team’s priority this term, that Madrid needed to get back to the “bread and butter” of domestic consistency. 

from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2mT2ntY