Real Madrid came into Tuesday’s match against Atalanta needing to make a statement in the Champions League after two awful results against AC Milan and Liverpool, which followed up their season-defining 4-0 loss to Barcelona in El Clasico.
Since then, there have been palpable improvements made by Real Madrid, who are back within shouting distance of their eternal rivals in the league lead. Although Tuesday’s 3-2 win over Atalanta wasn’t without hiccups and a potential last-minute equalizer from La Dea, it was, overall, a very successful night in Bergamo for the Merengues.
So let’s take a look at the three biggest takeaways from the game for Real Madrid.
Jude Bellingham is back to his best
Jude Bellingham has been in vintage form recently, reminding everyone around the world that he was just as legitimate of a Ballon d’Or candidate in 2023/24 as eventual winner Rodri or teammate Vinicius Junior.
In fact, Bellingham was the best player in LaLiga last season, winning the official Player of the Season award. When Vinicius Jr. was injured through the first half of the season, it was the England international who consistently elevated the team to victory, including what was close to a carryjob in the first Clasico.
Well, after being utilized poorly by Carlo Ancelotti as something of an auxillary fullback, Bellingham is back to his best and spearheading the team as their most important player with, first, Vinicius injured and now Kylian Mbappe out, too.
Bellingham scored a goal from out of nowhere to put Real Madrid up 3-1, and that proved to be the winning effort. He led so many attacks and was impervious on the ball with delectable turns, once again reminiscent of the great Zinedine Zidane marauding through the Madrid midfield.
The goal itself showcased Bellingham’s ingenuity and willingness to challenge the back line, which is a rarity for midfielders in general but was previously a massive miss in the Madrid lineup.
With Jude creating chances, defending intelligently, providing a legitimate goal threat, and galloping past opposition midfielders, Real Madrid are starting to look like the favorites in LaLiga again.
Remember, Real Madrid don’t need Kylian Mbappe
Thankfully, it appears Mbappe’s early-game injury against Atalanta was merely an overload, and, even better, the Frenchman scored a very nifty goal to open the scoring early.
Mbappe’s movement has been brilliant – when he isn’t offsides, that is – since arriving at the Santiago Bernabeu, and while his finishing certainly hasn’t been as praiseworthy, it was pretty much inch-perfect on his goal in Bergamo.
The takeway from Mbappe’s individual performance in the Champions League matchup is a positive one, but the overarching takeaway is a bit more lukewarm, albeit more impactful for Los Merengues as a whole.
Basically, it’s important for everyone commenting on Real Madrid to remember the very simple fact that is often unfairly weaponized against Mbappe: Real Madrid already won the Champions League and LaLiga last season without him.
They don’t need Mbappe. And that statement shouldn’t be an indictment of the signing or taken as any sort of criticism of the former World Cup winner. Rather, it should be a statement of liberation, absolving Mbappe of this artificial pressure placed by the InstaPot of the Real Madrid media machine.
Basically, if the crux of the issue with Mbappe is a mental one, then it shouldn’t be. The people in the building at Real Madrid need to make sure Mbappe knows that he is their luxury superstar to turn them from the best team in the world into a juggernaut attraction.
And so, if Mbappe has to miss a few games, so be it. Let him rest. Let him recuperate, recharge, and relax. There is another “r,” Rodrygo, ready to be the operative word in his absence.
Lucas Vazquez is still a problem
While Ademola Lookman’s goal had more to do with the emerging Nigerian superstar’s brilliance – seriously, the nutmeg finish at the near post is something Kylian Mbappe would be proud of – rather than Lucas Vazquez’s incompetence.
But the thing is, at the very end of the game, Vazquez almost completed the comeback by having two game-changing plays dumped on him by Lookman, who beat him to the outside and sent an inch-perfect cross that ace marksman Mateo Retegui really should have – and normally would have – put away for the 3-3.
Vazquez is obviously a defensive liability at the Champions League level, and Atalanta showed that against an elite forward on a high-powered attacking side, the Galician wide man can be the exploitable vulnerability.
That problem isn’t going away, and within the context of the 2024/25 season, it really isn’t a fixable issue for Ancelotti and the Merengues. Vazquez was active but chasing shadows for much of the game, and Atalanta knew they could stretch him with Aurelien Tchouameni failing to provide the kind of cover Casemiro once did that used to make Vazquez look a whole lot better.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.