According to OPTA data, Real Madrid is the best team at creating dangerous chances, yet it is also the one that wastes them the most, exposing its weakness in front of goal.
At times, one may think that Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid plays a defensive style or, to some extent, is boring for fans, but the truth is quite different. While most people say Barcelona plays the best football so far in the championship (because it scores the most goals), Madrid takes more shots and creates more dangerous chances than the Blaugrana.
However, the difference is that their eternal rivals are much more effective in front of goal. According to OPTA data (collected in MARCA), we can observe that the Merengue team is the club that misses the most clear chances, up to 25. But it is also the second that achieves the most shots, with 58 to its credit, only behind the 60 shots achieved by Barcelona.
According to the effectiveness percentage, those coached by Mourinho need a little more than three shots to score a goal (32.76%), while those coached by Hansi Flick need fewer than two shots to score (55%). We are talking about almost double, which is worrying.
The truth is that the offensive power that Real Madrid has shown this season leaves practically no one in doubt, but if it could improve in precision, it would be excellent, since it would increase its statistics notably. In fact, the team's offensive strength is such that they have only registered one match without scoring a goal. It was against Real Betis a couple of weeks ago.
What has happened recently to the Merengue team in the second half is that, since it already feels it has the match in the bag, it lowers the pace of play and intensity, which causes the arrivals at goal and effectiveness to drop quite a bit during the second 45 minutes. If we only counted the second half, in the past four matches, the team would register three defeats and one draw.
On an individual level, the numbers that Vinicius Jr. has registered do not help improve the statistics. Because of his six shots on goal, he has only scored one goal, which is equivalent to 16% effectiveness. Something for which the Brazilian himself already came out to apologize on his social media, promising more goals in the future.
Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham are among the most accurate on the team, with 30.7% and 33.3% effectiveness, respectively. However, Carlos Espi and Arda Guler take the crown by both having 66.6% effectiveness (two goals in three shots on target each).
