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Real Madrid, Eden Hazard. (Photo by Alex Caparros / Getty Images)
Real Madrid drew 1-1 with Unai Emery’s Villarreal on Saturday despite not having the full squad available. Here are five burning questions.
Villarreal entered La Liga matchday 10 as the second team in the league, with Real Madrid a couple of places behind them in fourth place. And although Real beat Villarreal in the second half, the lack of available options reached Zinedine Zidane’s men in the second half. Unai Emery made good tactical decisions and Villarreal found the tie, close to winning the match at the Estadio de la Cerámica.
Real Madrid can be happy with some aspects of their performances, including scoring a point away from home against one of the best teams in the league. But there are still some lessons to be learned from a tense second half.
Does Real Madrid need Eden Hazard to be a contender?
After Eden Hazard and Martin Odegaard left the pitch, Real Madrid seemed to fall apart. They didn’t get the same bite on attack without Hazard’s dribble and Odegaard’s incisive passes, and the result was a slow and anemic offensive effort that gave Villarreal great counter opportunities, including the one that led to Gerard’s penalty goal. Brown.
Hazard spent most of the game away from goal, yet led all players on the team with five fouls drawn, according to WhoScored.com. A couple of those fouls, including one by Captain Mario Gaspar, should have been recorded as tactical fouls for the Yellows. Villarreal were so scared that Hazard would break and lose and often committed to intentionally fouling early, and Hazard’s threat opened up opportunities for the midfielders.
Real Madrid, as we saw against Borussia Monchengladbach, Huesca and Inter Milan, is a better team when Hazard is on the pitch. But when it isn’t, it doesn’t even look like a team capable of winning the title this year with Atlético de Madrid finally looking dangerous again.
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