Real Madrid's Ongoing Struggles: A Deep-Rooted Crisis
Real Madrid’s season is barely out of the blocks, and already the questions are cutting deep.
Fourth in La Liga, 15 points from seven games, and a 2-1 derby defeat to Atletico still stinging. For a club built on domination and spectacle, this is not just a stumble; it feels like a structural wobble in Florentino Perez’s grand project.
Into that uncertainty stepped Alvaro Benito, the former Real Madrid player and now one of the sharpest voices around the club. Speaking to Cadena SER, his verdict was brutal and, above all, persistent.
“The same problems for two and a half years”
“Here the thinking needs to be much deeper,” Benito warned, as quoted by Sport. “If you have been seeing the same problems on the pitch for two and a half years, then the nature of these problems is exactly the same.”
He didn’t blame a single coach or a bad night at the Metropolitano. He blamed the pattern.
“We do not see any change with the coaches, despite the different nature of each of them. So the problem is much deeper. Isn’t it? That is what I am saying.”
The message was clear: different managers, same flaws. Different game plans, same fragile backbone.
Yes, Real Madrid are still capable of winning, still capable of producing results that calm the noise for a week or two. Benito pointed to the recent victory over Elche as an example.
“You can win. For example, you won the last match against Elche, but the impression the team leaves at a collective level is that the same problems keep recurring.”
The scoreline changes. The impression does not.
A derby that felt inevitable
The defeat to Atletico did not shock him. It almost felt scripted.
“We could all have expected that, barring something exceptional, when you come to the Metropolitano stadium you would see what we in fact saw,” he said. “You could have won or lost, but I am not talking about losing or winning, because the road that leads to the result can take different paths.”
What bothered him was not the 2-1. It was the way Real Madrid arrived at that 2-1: the lack of cohesion, the absence of a clear idea, the sense that the team still doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be.
He even pointed to a key moment that might have flipped the result.
“If Cuti Romero had been sent off in the first half, then you might even have been able to win the match. I am talking about the collective impression, about the idea of play, what you offer, and which players you will put in the starting line-up in most matches.”
Refereeing decisions can tilt a game. They cannot fix a broken structure.
Mourinho without Mourinho’s identity
For Benito, the heart of the problem lies in the disconnect between the squad’s strengths and the way the team is set up. And at the centre of that debate stands Jose Mourinho.
Benito argued that Mourinho is not applying the philosophy that made his name, a philosophy that, on paper, would suit this Real Madrid side perfectly.
“Mourinho historically relies on a very strong medium defensive block, a team with compact lines, ferocious pressing, winning the ball back and then attacking directly and quickly. Excellent. This style would be ideal for Real Madrid, given the characteristics of the players they have, but the problem is that we do not see it.”
No compact block. No ferocious pressing as a constant. No ruthless, direct transition as a defining trait.
In other words, no clear Mourinho team.
For a club used to living with pressure, this is not just about sitting fourth in the table. It is about identity, about whether a squad built for power and verticality can find a system that actually reflects it.
If the same problems really have been there for two and a half years, the next few months will tell whether Real Madrid finally confront them — or let another season drift on the same fault lines.
