When Real Madrid Stop Running: The Verdict from El Partidazo and a Wake-Up Call for Ancelotti

Three days after the 1–2 defeat to Atletico Madrid in the La Liga derby at round seven, call-in radio shows across Spain were still buzzing. It was not Julian Alvarez's goal or Federico Valverde's strike that kept Madridistas awake. It was the question: why don't Real Madrid run? On Cope's El Partidazo, Spanish pundits rarely sounded so united. They did not blame Carlo Ancelotti. They did not mention Xabi Alonso or Alvaro Arbeloa as future coaches who could do better. They blamed the players. Manolo Lama said: “Not with Carlo Ancelotti, not with Xabi Alonso, not with Alvaro Arbeloa. The players continue not to put in the effort and not to show solidarity among themselves.” That was a verdict, not merely criticism. The most frightening part of Lama's statement was not that Real Madrid lost a derby. It was his description of a club used to mastering Europe standing still while Atletico passed the ball. “If Atletico Madrid start passing the ball around, specifically between the two centre-backs and the goalkeeper, Real Madrid would not push forward to press them. They would wait, and they did not even want to move forward to confront them,” Lama said. When I heard that, I remembered 2026, when I learned to listen to football with my heart inside empty stadiums. Without a crowd, you could see exactly who ran, who stood still, and who truly played. The image Lama described was the image of a fragmented team. Mundo Deportivo, one of the most influential sports newspapers in Spain, dedicated large coverage to this wave of criticism. Fans usually look at results, but this time they looked at behavior on the pitch. Real Madrid did not lose because of bad luck or refereeing. They lost because they did not fight in the true meaning of the word. In a match where Atletico showed a clear tactical plan, Real became a bystander. They allowed Atletico to build freely, allowed their centre-backs to pass among themselves, and then waited for a moment of individual inspiration. That is not football worthy of a big club. For those who follow elite football, pressing is more than running. Pressing is a synchronization of timing, positioning and intention. A team can press with its brain, by blocking passing lanes, by forcing opposition players out of dangerous areas. But when players do not run, every tactical idea collapses. Ancelotti's Real Madrid were never a furious pressing side like Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool. They control tempo, wait for mistakes and exploit moments. That approach only works when the front players are ready to engage and track back after losing possession. When one link stops, the whole machine stalls. The standings make this crisis clear. After seven rounds, Real Madrid sit fourth in La Liga, six points behind Barcelona. Seven rounds is long enough to create a real gap but short enough for the media storm to remove any excuse. This is not about one unlucky match. This is about a team losing its survival instinct. Paco Gonzalez was even more direct. “This current Real Madrid does not have the players needed to play, with the exception of Guler. Who is able to carry out an organised collective attack at Real with this current line-up? Tchouameni, Bellingham, but the rest, all they offer are individual movements.” He stressed: “Real Madrid get a 10 physically when you watch them, so physically they can beat anyone, but in order to play football, there is only Guler.” It sounds like a paradox, but it makes sense. A team can have the fastest and strongest players, yet if they do not connect through intention, they are just famous individuals following instinct. Elite football is a sport of repetition: repeated off-the-ball runs, repeated passes, repeated decisions. Without repetition, football becomes a chaos of individual talent. Arda Guler, the only player praised by Gonzalez, is not the most physical player. But he is constantly receiving the ball between the lines, moving to create passing angles and looking to bring play closer to goal. Guler does not run around randomly; he runs with his brain. He reads the situation before receiving, knows where his teammate will be and how the opponent will react. But Guler alone cannot save a group that lacks operational rules. Gonzalez also gave conditional praise to Tchouameni and Bellingham. Tchouameni is the type of holding midfielder who can read situations and escape pressure. Bellingham can arrive from the second line, put pressure on defenders and create decisive moments. The problem is the lack of players around them ready to move in the same rhythm. When one presses and the rest watch, the space behind becomes a goal. When one fights for the ball but three drop back, the midfield breaks immediately. One of the most interesting details from the debate was Gonzalez's mention of Konate and Dumfries. According to him, these two players do not have good ability to bring the ball out from the back. This is a huge problem related to style of play and personnel. If a team cannot build up from the back, pressure shifts to the midfielders, forcing them to receive with their backs to goal. Attacks become disjointed. Real Madrid do not need a centre-back who only wins duels; they need a centre-back who stays calm under pressure, plays one-touch passes and reads the rhythm. Without that, the team will always defend first and wait for a flash of individual talent. The irony, as Gonzalez noted, is that Real Madrid are physically excellent. They can win one-on-one duels and recover during transitions, but that does not create collective meaning. Many teams win not because they run more but because they run smarter. They run less but to the right place, at the right time, for the right purpose. Real Madrid this season seem to run a lot but in a chaotic way. They run when they should stay, freeze when they should press. That is the mark of a team with no clear idea of what it is doing. Lama used the word "solidarity." It cannot be seen in statistics. A team is united when a full-back covers for a midfielder, when a striker tracks back to help the full-back. A team is not united when players look at each other after a bad pass, when they refuse to move to create space. These images are hard to see from the stands but clear on camera. And the Cope pundits saw them. The six-point gap to Barcelona does not mean Real Madrid are inferior in every aspect. It shows Hansi Flick's team are playing with a cohesion Real lack. Barcelona press high, play direct and have young players willing to run. Real Madrid have an expensive squad, but football does not award titles for reputations. Football rewards teams that turn individuals into a machine. When the machine fails, people are right to question every part. I have watched Real Madrid for nearly three decades, and I know this: at the Bernabeu, patience is a rare item. Madridistas can accept defeats if the team fight until the final whistle. They will not accept a team standing still while opponents pass around them. After 35 years of watching football, I learned that supporters are not stupid. They see who runs and who does not. They see players who accept responsibility and those who only chase glory. The truth lives in small details. However, I could be wrong. Maybe this is just a bad spell, and after the international break Real Madrid will return strong. Maybe the lack of pressing is Ancelotti's choice, knowing his team cannot press for ninety minutes. Maybe the derby defeat was individual errors blown out of proportion. That transfer window was not just a transaction; it was a crack in football itself. I wrote that when PSG signed Neymar, and I still believe structural cracks are never cured by one lucky performance. In 2026, people laughed at me for asking Mbappe about emotions; then the whole of France cried with joy. Emotions are not vague. They show how a player runs back after losing possession, how a captain talks to teammates, how a team reacts when conceding. Real Madrid do not have those positive emotional signals right now. That is more worrying than any tactical formation. So the question is not whether Ancelotti will be sacked or whether Xabi Alonso will arrive next summer. The bigger question is whether Real Madrid players still want to run for each other. If they do not, no coach in the world can save them. A woman says a small thing; people laugh. Five years later, they quote her. I do not need five years. I need one match after the international break to see whether they truly want to run.