When it comes to remarkable feats, Carlo Ancelotti isn’t short of them. Some of you must be thinking the season isn’t even over yet how can I say that he accomplished something remarkable already this season because even in looking at the season thus far what Ancelotti has managed to do has been incredible given the constant sticks that have been tossed in his spokes at the beginning of the season.

There were some Madridistas who, with the rumors of him potentially leaving at the end of the 23/24 campaign, thought that perhaps it would be best to move on to someone sooner rather than later. Coupled with the personnel issues Real Madrid had and the season was looking a bit gloomy in the summer of 2023 but this is also one of the best managers in the history of the game. And Ancelotti proved once again that he can be very versatile, only losing twice this season and both times at the Wanda Metropolitano. It is a clown show for Real Madrid when their defense shows up at the Metropolitano.

With Carlo earning a contract renewal until 2026 even with his previous achievements he’s managed to defeat allegations that he was pass it after some poor spells at Everton, Napoli and Bayern-poor by his own standards. The season has been such a massive challenge for him and yet he’s met it head-on thus far without a massive drop in performances. Before getting to the loss of a certain striker- Benzema there were a couple of losses at the opposite end of the pitch that when combined with the loss of a world class striker could have derailed the season before it even began for any other club.

The Crisis in Madrid:

On August 13th it was announced that center back Eder Militão would be out for what was likely to be the majority of the season. Militão was one of four designated center backs in their in the squad for Real Madrid leaving them a bit thin in that position before the season had even begun with Rudiger Alaba and the fantastic servant of the club- Nacho Fernandez were the three central defenders that Ancelotti would be working with at the beginning of the season. Despite suggesting a signing no defender was brought in for Ancelotti and he didn’t make a fuss about it.

However part of the reason for the lack of signings could have come down to the fact that days prior before Eder had ruptured his ACL in their La Liga opener, star shot stopper- Thibaut Courtois injured himself in training. It was later confirmed that Thibaut Courtois had indeed torn his ACL and it was later divulged that Thibaut Courtois had also suffered damage to his meniscus too, thus complicating his recovery and extending his time off the pitch-a season-ending injury.

In December of 2023 Thibaut Courtois confirmed that he will not be ready in time for Euro 2024. It goes without saying just how big of a loss this was. Despite a shaky first season with Los Blancos, once Courtois had settled with Los Blancos. He went on to become one of the best keepers in the world-a true match winning keeper who had bailed out Real Madrid’s defense on quite a few occasions and papered over the cracks.

Back in the summer, Andre Lunin’s reputation was a bit up in the air; he was still seen as a great prospect for the future but wasn’t necessarily deemed fit to take the reins full-time from Thibaut Courtois. After a few passes at other keepers like Bono and some others they landed on Kepa. Plenty of Madrid supporters said Lunin was equal to if not preferred to Kepa so immediately on the back foot with your center back position which would get worse with Alaba getting injured too and without your top keeper who happens to be one of the best in the world not an easy start to the season.

Merci Karim:

Right prior to the issues in defense to kick off the season due to Saudi football revolution going on with the four clubs trying to tempt away as many big names as they they could one of those big names was of course the 2022 Ballon D’Or winner and club captain for Real Madrid, Karim Benzema. Almost 14 years exactly after Karim Benzema had joined Real Madrid from Lyon. It was announced that the Frenchmen would be joining Al Ittiad of the Saudi Pro League rather than negotiate a new contract with Real Madrid.

The Mbappe Saga was rolling on once again with Real seemingly for the last time saving a spot for Kylian for one more season with his contract due to come to a close with PSG. With a massive Benzema shaped hole in the squad and Real insisting they wouldn’t sign anyone in July and August beyond the deals they had already made, the striker position was one of the big worries in Ancelotti’s first season back at Real Madrid when he won both the league and the Champions League.

Benzema was playing like an alien not only scoring tons of goals but setting up his teammates like Vinicius. As well when Benzema wasn’t there as was the case for a couple of weeks in the winter of the 21/22 campaign Real Madrid didn’t look like themselves and their results suffered. So with Joselu coming in a guy who scored goals for Espanyol in the past but didn’t offer all that Benzema did as far as in the buildup and lethal finishing.

The question was of course where would the goals come from for Real? With hindsight it’s easy to point to Jude Bellingham and say they would come from Bellingham but at this point Bellingham hadn’t always been used in such an advanced role at Dortmund. He had only ever scored 24 goals across 132 appearances for Dortmund at Madrid he’s already scored 17. For other goals you could look to Vini who thrived alongside Benzema previously.

Regardless, Ancelotti said that he wasn’t worried about Benzema’s absence.
A lot of people thought that this was a bit of a shaky foundation to stand on and when you coupled that with the absence of Militão and Thibaut Courtois plus the fog surrounding whether Ancelotti would take the Brazil job a lot of real supporters were looking at the season rather cynically.

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