Mbappé's indolence in defense infects Vinícius and undermines Real Madrid's pressure.

Real Madrid tried to look PSG in the eye, but the European champions gave them a traumatic beating. Xabi Alonso prepared a game plan based on high pressing, which evaporated and only served to make things easier for the best team in the world right now. Their superiority was technical and physical, but above all, tactical . PSG's players attracted Real Madrid's uncoordinated pressing , and with their first vertical and accurate passes, they dismantled a team that was too tall, and the team collapsed like a house of cards.

Trent Alexander-Arnold's absence forced Real Madrid's coach to move Fede Valverde to right back, leaving Real Madrid's midfielder without a key player and one of the main players responsible for providing support to the full-backs. Huijsen's red card deprived the team of its best asset in the ball-playing game. However, the absence of the Uruguayan in midfield and the Spaniard in the central midfield doesn't justify the general defensive disarray ... nor the passivity of Mbappé and Vinícius in the less rewarding roles.

Xabi Alonso asserted that this isn't the starting point for next season and that there's still a lot of work to be done. The lessons are on the table, but the decisions that will have to be made aren't easy. PSG's forwards forced two defensive errors that resulted in two goals. Real Madrid's forwards chased shadows until they ended up walking around the field.

All eyes are on Mbappé and Vinícius

After posting their best first half of the entire season against Borussia Dortmund , where Real Madrid's attackers nipped at defenders' ankles and created losses in sensitive areas, Real Madrid broke down against PSG. The Madrid side were a collection of players, not a team, scattered across the pitch , whizzing past them like airplanes.

" We were late to the pressure , they always found the free man and we weren't close to stealing the ball," Courtois would confess. What changed in less than five days? In addition to the potential of the opponent and the talent of his players, Xabi Alonso brought on Kylian Mbappé alongside Vinicus Júnior and Gonzalo and transformed the 4-4-2 that had worked so well for him until then into a 4-3-3.

Nobody ran or scored more than Gonzalo

Xabi did not want to bench Real Madrid's top scorer at the Club World Cup (Gonzalo), the Golden Boot winner (Mbappé) or the most unbalanced player (Vinícius) . According to FIFA data , the Real Madrid youth product is the Real Madrid player who has pressed an opponent the most times at the Club World Cup (186), while Vinícius Júnior appears in fourth place (157), just behind Güler and Fran García.

For his part, Mbappé doesn't appear until 10th in the ranking, although it should be noted that he only played 135 minutes in the tournament. Xabi Alonso couldn't get Mbappé to apply his pressure, and this affected Vinícius, thus harming the team's defensive structure as a whole. The Tolosa-born coach highlighted one of Ancelotti's Real Madrid's main problems this season: how the Brazilian changes his defensive commitment depending on whether the Frenchman is on the pitch or not.