With Carlo Ancelotti earning a contract renewal until 2026, he is not leaving an inch gap to prove his worth as he enjoys his dream season with Madrid.

Throughout his career Carlo Ancelotti has favored the 4-3-3 system, so when he took over from Zizou in 2021 it was easy to continue the trend. Granted Zidane did tweak with formations a bit as he dealt with a near record amount of injuries in his final season. Ancelotti deployed 4-3-3 with Benzema and in the squad it worked out for him. Although with Joselu a guy who offers a different skill set than Benzema you’d expect that Joselu wouldn’t drop deeper to get on the ball and spray passes around as Benzema would or combine as well with Vinicius Jr.

In fact it was later revealed that Joselu wouldn’t even be a starter for Ancelotti so who would play centrally? Nobody. Well actually kind of more like two people as Vinicius and Rodrigo would play as a wide duo with Ancelotti moving to a 4-4-2 formation with a diamond Midfield some called to 4-3-1-2 with Rodrigo and Vini up top with three midfielders being a flat base in the midfield and then Bellingham in between the strikers and the midfield joining in on the attack.

While Vinicius and Rodrigo struggled to start the season off, Bellingham thrived in the attack often scoring late winners for Real Madrid he made that a habit to ensure their winning start to the season, they even defeated Girona- the team they are fighting for the La Liga lead with 3-0 in Catalonia. With Rodrigo in poor form Joselu replaced him in the attack and Bellingham continued to shine.

Rodrigo would later find his form but anyway it took a wakeup call for Real Madrid in order for Ancelotti to make his final change to Madrid’s setup, an adjustment which would bring more balance to his side playing against Atletico Madrid on the 24th of September. Real were undone by two quick goals in the first 18 minutes from their “cross” city rivals cross being the key word here. How did those goals come about the first four minutes saw Real Madrid playing incredibly narrow leaving the flank wide open for Atleti to get a cross in and Morata flicked past Kepa.

The second another cross from the wide area Griezmann left alone to put it past the keeper. And the third in their 3-1 loss was another cross from Madrid’s right where all three of Atletico’s goals came from. After the match Ancelotti said, “they opened our eyes we were weak in the crosses and then we fixed it by keeping the center backs in the penalty area”. Carlo made a change, noting that Real Madrid would still play with a 4-4-2, but with more of a box shape in the midfield as the Real Madrid correspondent duo noted this leads to Valverde and Bellingham pushing wide to help cover the flanks.

This was made possible by the midfielders closing down the opposition’s fullbacks from the 4-4-2 diamond. As previously the fullbacks were dragged wide causing the center backs to follow to adjust accordingly leaving spaces for opposing strikers to exploit in the middle as Atletico did. Since then looking through Real Madrid’s La Liga matches they have played 13 and scored 29 with an average of 2.2 goals per game and have only conceded five times in that stretch. As Ancelotti said, “We fixed the mistakes in the derby against Atletico and although there are important injuries the team is now very solid at the back again”.

Except for when they went back to the Metropolitano and the goals they suffered were once again. Talking of injuries he wasn’t out of the signing back in the summer first there was Arda Guler- a highly talent young Turkish attacker who Ancelotti could have made use of in the early part of the season and who has only recently returned to the Real Madrid fold and has impressed in that short time. Then there was Vinicius, one of their best attackers he was snuffed out and while he wasn’t injured and Rodrigo’s poor form to start the season felt as if he wasn’t really there anyway but has he found his form since that rough patch.

Then there was the double hit of Camavinga and Tchouaméni getting injured, two players that occupy midfield or left back in Cama’s case. With those two out at the same time Ancelotti had to get creative and play Kroos and Valverde as kind of a double pivot leading to more opportunities for Brahim Diaz in more advanced areas on the midfield. Diaz was a bit polarizing at Milan he would have flashes of brilliance but never felt like he hit his top gear or at the very least couldn’t sustain that top gear for very long.

Ancelotti’s Perfect Season With Real Madrid Goes On

Carlo Ancelotti has been able to pull some superb performances out of him scoring important goals in the last couple of months both in the Champions League, La Liga and Copa del Rey and the SuperCopa. Remember how thin Real were at the back to begin with Real were clearly cursed by injury demons this season or perhaps this is just the natural outcome of way too many matches in the football calendar these days. On December 17th David Alaba was the latest ACL tear.

It’s really bizarre to see this many ACL injuries in one team. I thought that Ancelotti echoed the quote “We’re very sad to lose another player. I’ve never seen three cruciate ligament injuries in four months. It’s incredible but there’s nothing we can do.” That said, the only thing he can do is exactly what he has done all season long when dealing with losses of important figures in various positions. Ancelotti has become a beloved figure not just amongst supporters but amongst the club hierarchy for being so easy to work with.

He may ask for a signing but when told no he doesn’t moan and complain in the media about not being able to get one he does what a manager is supposed to do, manage and find a solution. Rather than complaining until you get handed one, that solution was Tchouaméni playing as a center back. He found a solution to get revenge against Atletico Madrid in the Super Copa, Real destroyed Barcelona in the Super Copa final and they are not allowing Girona to pull away easily at the top of the table.

Having a strong squad is absolutely helpful in these scenarios but we have enough evidence from various clubs across Europe at this point that managing a group of very talented players is not as easy as some would have you believe. It takes a very special kind of man management to pull it off. Having some longevity in the managerial position has been underrated far too often these days again they aren’t even at the business end of the season but what Ancelotti has managed to achieve thus far is still impressive.

The loss of Benzema the one punch of losing your world class keeper and a top center back later you lose another center back. You find a way to make your star midfield signing a scoring threat while losing multiple midfielders at a time and you change the system that you yourself and Madridistas are most comfortable with. Yet have lost just two matches all season to the same opponent in the same stadium.

With everything taken into account, Carlo Ancelotti is having an outstanding season, with the second highest points per match average in his career, second only to his first with Real Madrid. If Real Madrid wins some important silverware at the end of the 23/24 season, I believe it will be one of Carlo Ancelotti’s most impressive seasons to date.

Also Read: Carlo Ancelotti’s Reincarnation: How Post Benzema Real Madrid are thriving despite injury woes