As Real Madrid drop points for the first time in the second Jose Mourinho era, we take a detailed look at what went wrong for the team at the Estadio de la Cartiuja.
On Friday night, Real Madrid's 100% winning record under Jose Mourinho came to an end, as the team were defeated 1-0 by Real Betis on the road.
The team have failed to win this fixture since August 2021, where Dani Carvajal scored the only goal of the game. To show how long ago that was, Isco (ironic) and Gareth Bale both started for Real Madrid that night.
So, what went wrong this time around? Let's take a look at what cost the team down in Seville.
Let's begin with some binary analysis. The finishing was beyond embarrassing. A quarter of an hour in, Vinicius missed an open goal after excellent work from Arda Guler and Jude Bellingham.
Three minutes before the break, Kylian Mbappe failed to score with the keeper beaten twice, managing to hit the covering defender both times. Great work again from Bellingham in the build up, as well as Vinicius.
There were a number of other opportunities too, though we'd be here all day if we analysed all of them. Then, with ten minutes to go - poor defensively to concede a sloppy goal from a corner. These are the basics.
Hard to blame the defence too much when the attack misses so many chances. When they don't put the game to bed, you leave yourself open to a sucker punch, a smash and grab. Then you have the disallowed goal and the missed penalty. Just one of those days really.
Overall, it is very hard to blame Mourinho for this defeat. And that isn't going to happen here. However, the 63-year old is not blameless for this result either. His starting XI and subs were strange.
Yan Diomande not starting for a fourth straight game seems crazy considering the money spent on him, but Arda Guler played very well, creating seven chances and three big chances in 64 minutes.
But the subs somehow felt delayed, and yet forced at the same time. He waited too long to make subs, but then also made subs for the sake of it. As touched on, Guler was playing well - did he have to come off?
At the same time he brought Diomande on for Guler, Bernardo Silva came on for Eduardo Camavinga. If you are going to do that, why not put Guler deeper next to Valverde, and have Diomande off the right?
Trent Alexander-Arnold played really well against Malaga, yet was benched here. It seems like Mourinho thinks a right hand side of him and Guler is not athletic enough, so one of Diomande or Denzel Dumfries must start. But, with Valverde there on the right hand side (and tonight, Camavinga in the midfield too), can't it be worth a go? Especially against Betis who lack athleticism themselves, as do many La Liga sides.
So, there we have it. A freak result, yet one that was very self inflicted. Onto the UEFA Champions League now.
