The Bernabéu crisis hotline is lit. Not with calls about tactics, not about Carlo Ancelotti’s future, but about something far more basic: effort.
Seven games into La Liga, Real Madrid go into the international break in fourth place, already six points behind a rampant Barcelona. The 2-1 defeat to Atletico Madrid in the derby has turned irritation into open revolt on Spain’s airwaves, and the fingers are being pointed squarely at the players.
On Cope’s flagship late-night show “El Partidazo”, there was rare unanimity. Different voices, same verdict: this is on the dressing room, not the dugout.
The players continue not to put in the effort
Veteran broadcaster Manolo Lama cut straight through the noise. For him, the problem is not the man on the bench, whether it’s Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso in some imagined future, or Alvaro Arbeloa.
“Not with Carlo Ancelotti, not with Xabi Alonso, not with Alvaro Arbeloa,” Lama said. “The players continue not to put in the effort and not to show solidarity among themselves.”
The accusation is brutal for a club that built its legend on comebacks and competitive fury. Lama went further, highlighting one sequence that, for him, summed up the malaise.
“If Atletico Madrid start passing the ball around, specifically between the two centre-backs and the goalkeeper, Real Madrid would not push forward to press them,” he said.
No press. No bite. No collective reaction.
“They would wait,” he added, “and they did not even want to move forward to confront them.”
For a team expected to suffocate opponents with intensity, the image is damning: Atletico casually circulating the ball at the back, Real Madrid watching.
Talent without a plan
Journalist Paco Gonzalez picked up the theme and turned it towards the structure of the side. For him, Real Madrid’s issue is not just attitude, but the very profile of the squad when it comes to building attacks.
“This current Real Madrid does not have the players needed to play, with the exception of Guler,” Gonzalez said. “Who is able to carry out an organised collective attack at Real with this current line-up? Tchouameni, Bellingham, but the rest, all they offer are individual movements.”
In other words, plenty of stars, not enough organisers. Footballers who can dribble, surge, break lines on their own, but not enough who knit the whole thing together.
He pushed the point even harder.
“Real Madrid get a 10 physically when you watch them, so physically they can beat anyone, but in order to play football, there is only Guler.”
It is a striking contrast: a squad praised for its athleticism, its ability to overpower opponents, yet questioned for its capacity to construct a coherent, collective attack. When the game slows down and requires brains rather than legs, the criticism suggests Madrid run out of ideas.
A stylistic problem with the ball
Gonzalez also widened the lens to talk about how the ball comes out from the back, underlining what he sees as a structural flaw in the way the team is built.
“Konate and Dumfries do not have a good ability to bring the ball out from the back,” he said. “It is a huge problem relating to the style of play and the players.”
The message is clear: this is not just about one bad night in a derby, or even a shaky start to the league campaign. The debate on Spanish radio has turned into a deeper questioning of how Real Madrid are constructed and how they want to play.
The accusation that the players are not running, not pressing, not showing “solidarity among themselves” cuts right to the core of the club’s identity. Fixing that is not just about a tweak in formation or a change of personnel. It is about whether this squad can rediscover the collective hunger that once made their talent feel inevitable.
