Hazard, covered between Iñigo Martínez (left) and Unai Nuñez, on Thursday at La Rosaleda.JORGE GUERRERO / AFP
Every game that Real Madrid starts is like putting a huge piece of meat in your mouth that you have to chew and chew with patience and great doses of concentration.
If extra complications of any kind arise in the process, the end result tends to fail.
He was on record again in the semifinal of the Spanish Super Cup against Athletic (1-2), with two failures in the first half that condemned him without remedy.
Then when he was able to accelerate, he no longer hit.
In mid-January and 25 games after starting the season, the Whites have not won any match that started behind on the scoreboard.
It is not a circumstantial fact.
The last time the Whites completed a comeback was a year ago, in February 2020, in Pamplona (1-4).
In the last two years, of the 18 times they were at a disadvantage (seven without an audience), only two ended up celebrating: in El Sadar and in November 2019, at home against Real Sociedad (3-1), both with fans in the stands.
None of the greats of Europe presents a worse statistic.
The data shows its difficulties in attack, even though above it has an extensive roster of players after a significant outlay.
Apart from Benzema, again at his career highs (13 goals);
the recent return of Asensio, notable in La Rosaleda in an adverse scenario;
and the contribution of the media (Casemiro and Modric are the second highest scorers with four goals), not much more water has come out of that offensive well at the moment.
In the last two seasons, Zidane's team only turns the scoreboard two of the 18 times they put themselves at a disadvantage
This season, the Whites have started losing six times (Cádiz, Alavés, Gladbach, the two duels against Shakhtar and this Thursday against Athletic), and the most they have achieved is an agonizing draw (2-2) in Germany.
In the previous season, they were behind 12 times and only turned twice.
If the data from these two years are added, his percentage of success in the luck of coming back, a verb tattooed on fire in the club's history, barely reaches 11%, the lowest average among his peers in Europe.
Bayern reaches 55%;
Liverpool and Juventus, 43%;
City, 35%;
PSG, Atlético and Barcelona are above 20%;
and Chelsea, at 16%.
Dwindling production
The picture points directly to a forward unable to produce enough and, inevitably, in the analysis the name of Cristiano Ronaldo reappears.
In his last full year at Real Madrid (2017) the team scored 156 goals.
Since then, the number has plummeted to reach 91 in 2020, the worst record for whites since 2005.
The fall did not prevent him from raising the
coronaliga
after an outstanding defensive effort, but the balance has been cracked this season.
Apart from specific failures such as those of Lucas Vázquez in the Super Cup, the team had again found the application to close its goal (it had three goals conceded in the previous nine games, an average even higher than the decisive stretch of the last championship: four in ten duels);
However, the numbers above do not add up to him so much: his target average has dropped from 1.9 to 1.7 from last year to this.
Again, the lowest, along with Atlético, compared to the other greats on the continent.
Pulling the blind back depends largely on the will, and marking differences in the opposite area, on the finesse and confidence of the most talented footballers.
Madrid's total goals in 2020 fell to its most in 15 years
And that way the water escapes to Madrid.
The disbursement in the last three campaigns has been important (Hazard, between 100 and 160 million; Jovic, 60; Vinicius and Rodrygo, 45 each; Reinier, 30; Brahim, 17; Mariano, 21.5) and in summer he recovered a player with a lot of offensive arguments like Odegaard.
But after half the way, the car continues to draw practically the same gasoline as usual, plus Asensio's rebound, which has caught the wave this last month.
Insufficient.
The abuse of the lateral centers
Hazard, the great disappointment to date, continues in his eternal search process.
Zidane does not stop pampering him, although the Belgian's performances do not go beyond inconsequential.
Between injuries, weight problems and set-up delays, in a year and a half he has only decided one game, this year against Huesca in Valdebebas.
What should be frequent has become his only milestone as a target.
To make room for him, ZZ has not hesitated when it was necessary to make it clear to Vinicius (three goals) that he is part of plan B, a sign that the Brazilian begins to digest with melancholy and frustration: 44 minutes in the last five games.
Jovic (two goals in a year and a half) was already considered impossible and has just returned to Eintracht as an attempt by both parties to revive a career in full devaluation.
As the second center forward, Mariano (a target) has been left, whom they have tired of telling him that they did not have him.
Rodrygo, injured until March, his string of goals (eight in total, some key) has not paid more than to go in and out of the team.
And Odegaard (at zero in the statistics), recovered half a year ago to open new avenues of attack after his good handwriting at Real Sociedad, lives in ostracism: five minutes in the last six games.
Individualities fail due to performance problems, Zidane's trust or both, and the general plan sometimes lacks resources, the team in the lateral centers is very redundant when things get crude, and sometimes without reaching that extreme.
That was always a recurring method under the French direction, although two and a half years ago Madrid lost its alligator to make that plan good.
This week, a report from the consulting firm KPMG warned that the most valuable player on the squad was Casemiro, his defensive midfielder.