With Real Madrid seeming to be in a transition period with new signings coming in and departures imminent, what formation are Real Madrid likely to deploy next year? The first big signing for Real is the capture of Isco from Malaga, who shined in Spain’s U21 Euro’s win recently and is primarily a central attacking midfielder. I am guessing he will be a first XI player, Carlo Ancelotti will have a “good headache” as they say in his team selection next year when it comes to resources. With a dilemma of that similar to the Netherlands during the World Cup in 2010 in South Africa, they have two fantastic holding midfielders in Sami Khedira & Xabi Alonso, so that suggests that they will be deployed as a screen in front of the back four. I’m guessing Alonso as the screener and Khedira as the shuttler between the defence and the attacking outlets.
It’s when you get to the more attacking minded players it gets more difficult, with the arrival of Isco, who can also play on the left, it doesn’t seem likely he will be a starting player week in, week out. Madrid tend not to use two strikers, so I’m guessing their will be an attacking midfielder with two wingers with playmaking capabilities either side. In my eyes, Mesut Ozil has to play behind the front man, he is genuinely world class and is a better player than Isco (I’m not saying Isco doesn’t have the potential to be just as good, if not better) and on the left, Cristiano Ronaldo will do his thing. This leaves Angel Di Maria to fulfil the right mid position, which could the only position that Isco could take to be honest, Di Maria is not indispensable at Madrid and hintings of him being sold have been surfaced recently, majority of them being Twitter ITK’s, granted.
Obviously the lone striker would be Karim Benzema, but if I was Ancelotti I would try Ronaldo there, bring Isco on the left with Ozil and Di Maria and use Benzema as a back up if needed, especially if Higuain does leave. This is one for the more tactically perverse among us, just thought I’d give my two cents on the whole thing. They do have an air about them that suggests they’ll either be dominating next year or slip up massively.