When Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off in the dying moments of the Spanish Super Cup second leg at the Santiago Bernabeu, in a 24-minute cameo appearance where he scored with a superb strike and was sent off for two yellow cards, it didn’t have the feel of a turning point.
Zinedine Zidane’s imperious Real Madrid spent two nights in August laying down a marker to the rest of European football with a stunning 5-1 aggregate victory over Barcelona, but at the time, what seemed much more important was the hole, increasingly deep, in which a floundering Barcelona found themselves. Madrid just kept digging.
And yet, even after a draw this weekend, Barcelona have seen the tables turn on their rivals and are already five points clear. Things can change quickly, but Real have shown little sign of forcing a reversal in recent weeks.
The turning point, it seemed, wasn’t so much Ronaldo’s dismissal in the Super Cup as his reaction to it. It may have been tame and almost comical, but when the Portuguese star pushed the referee who had brandished the red card, the reaction was one of horror: no matter what the force or even the intention, it was clear from that very moment that he couldn’t escape a ban. Moments like that are like dropped plates smashing on the floor, you look on in dismay because you know there’s nothing you can do.
Since then, Madrid have only won twice at home, once in a Champions League game against APOEL Nicosia, easily the whipping boys of Group H, and once in an uninspiring display at home to a limp Espanyol side on a day of heightened tension surrounding the controversial Catalan independence referendum. To say their home record has been underwhelming would be an understatement, and it’s why they are lagging behind.
It’s not all been down to losing Ronaldo, either. Indeed, until this weekend, their talisman had failed to find the net in any La Liga game this season, home or away. Of course, the huge caveat to that record is the fact that his suspension has meant that this run without scoring only stretched as far as three games, but his first game back coincided with Madrid’s first defeat of the season, at home to Real Betis.
On Saturday, a Madrid derby of sorts was the aperitif to La Liga’s main event in the evening, when Barcelona travelled to Madrid to face Atletico at the new Wanda Metropolitano stadium. Real traveled to the southern outskirts of capital to face Getafe in a game that should have seen them win comfortably.
This is Getafe’s first season back in La Liga after relegation two years ago and promotion at the first time of asking last year. In 2015/16, Real Madrid beat their weekend opponents an aggregate score of 9-1. The season before that, it was 10-3 in Real’s favour. But this time, it took an 85th minute Ronaldo goal – his first of the La Liga campaign, remember – to nick a 2-1 victory.
On Tuesday night, Real Madrid will face Tottenham Hotspur at the Bernabeu, as Luka Modric and Gareth Bale welcome their former club to face their current one: double champions of Europe.
And yet, approaching of this double-header, a charming quirk of the Champions League group stage, you get the feeling that Spurs will probably have a better chance of beating Madrid in the away leg than they will in the home one. The home form of the defending champions is less than regal, and although before the start of the season, it seemed the only good reason to overlook Madrid when predicting the winners of this season’s Champions League was the fact that three-in-a-row sounds impossible, they’ve lost a little bit of their lustre in recent weeks, especially in front of their home crowd.
Spurs, on the other hand, are making their away form the new home form. Last season, Mauricio Pochettino’s side won 17 from 19 home games in the Premier League, but won only nine away from home. This season, playing home games at Wembley seems to have made every game an away match, probably imbuing away games with a sense of common purpose and a feeling amongst the players that they’re all in this together; stronger through adversity. So far, they’ve won every away game in all competitions, but have won only two of six at home.
Madrid cut the gap to Barcelona at the weekend but failed to convince against a newly-promoted side who will struggle this season. Their home form, coupled with Spurs’ away record shows that there could be a perfect storm brewing. If Tottenham are to have one of the most memorable European nights in their history, it might just come at the home of the champions.
