Cucurella Downplays Real Madrid Startup Woes
Marc Cucurella has answered the rising voices questioning Real Madrid’s start under Jose Mourinho, saying that the club’s end goal matters a lot more than a rocky first few weeks. Speaking between games during his international duty for Spain, the left-back came across as introspective amid growing criticism of his new club.
“If the season ends how we ALL want, nobody will remember this start or the two defeats,” Cucurella said. The comments come at a time of heightened concern, as Madrid have already suffered two defeats, against Real Betis and Atletico Madrid in the derby, and this has prompted questioning of Mourinho’s tactics in the opening weeks of his second spell at the Bernabeu just three months in.
Cucurella was the summer’s first signing for Madrid from Chelsea for a reported fee of nearly £52 million, and his voice therefore carries a certain weight whenever his new club’s situation is questioned. Rather than outright dismiss the concerns, he said they were simply part of an ongoing story.
The defender was no stranger to this type of pressure. His first season at Stamford Bridge was marked by criticism but he established himself as a regular member of the team before his departure from London. That moulds his interpretation of the situation: success at the moment is only relevant insofar as it translates into silverware.
The underlying story is more complex, however. Taking a look at Madrid’s statistics in the last couple of games, the team has been showing more shots and expected goals per ninety than in 2022-23, whilst overall distance covered hovers below that of the rest of La Liga. A statistic which has already triggered a separate debate this week, with people suggesting the team’s lack of work rate. Cucurella has been answering to that, insisting it is not true that Madrid can be found being lazy on the ball.
Separate debate over running numbers
Two league defeats were not the only criticism Cucurella took on this week, data revealed Madrid to cover less ground per match than any other club in the league, a statistic that promptly attracted a wave of voices once results started to suffer.
“That surprises me, because we actually run a lot,” Cucurella said, gesturing to the numbers. He then pointed out that the timing of the criticism was as important as the numbers themselves; if Madrid had won all eight games they played, nobody would have used the same statistic as a criticism.
But the right-back didn’t entirely reject the stats. He recognised that, as the saying goes, it’s the result that matters most. As long as the point-buckling La Liga giants continue to collect the same five points from each game, the numbers don’t draw a comment. When we keep losing, all the numbers are open to criticism.
The reality is that Madrid are sitting on a sweet spot between those two extremes. Six wins from eight are a positive return on paper, but the nature of those two defeats – at home to Betis and away to Atletico in the derby – have stirred up a lot of anxiety that might not otherwise exist, and Mourinho’s side are due to hit the headlines body and soul with upcoming Champions League fixtures and a congested La Liga calendar which give plenty of opportunity to shift the focus.
Cucurella’s background message comes unaltered in his comments this week; it doesn’t matter how much you start off in the wrong place, nor how many individual data points have been over-emphasised, as it’s really all upside, or upside and downside, that counts. Purely of course that is, provided Madrid can maintain that perspective following their forthcoming league and European fixtures, as a display on the pitch would do more to silence the critics, than any post-match analysis ever could.