Real Madrid gaffer Carlo Ancelotti was visibly upset following his team’s performance in their 1-1 draw at Mallorca to kickstart their 2024-25 LaLiga season.
The 65-year-old highlighted his team’s lack of balance and poor defending as the main causes of their share of the spoils.
Ancelotti stated his players lost their focus after gaining control early after Rodrygo’s 13th minute strike — allowing Mallorca salvage a point with Vedat Muriqi’s header after the interval.
“Today I am not happy. I think we could have been done much better,” Ancelotti said in a press conference.
“We need to be more concentrated, work better as a group… It’s not a fitness problem, it was mental.
“I don’t want to make excuses for anything. We had to do better and show more attitude. We can learn a lot from this match, it’s a match where you can see clearly where we can end up having problems.”
The Italian was critical of his team’s defensive display, insisting he needs a more disciplined performance due to a system that involves four attacking players like Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham.
“We started the game well, we took the lead and we had chances to score the second, but in the second half we lacked balance,” Ancelotti continued.
“It was a game we could have lost because we didn’t have balance. It wasn’t a good game. We are a very attacking team and defensive balance is a fundamental part of the way we are built.
“We struggled to steal the ball, to press after losing the ball. When we talk about defending, we are talking above all about collective commitment. The balance is found with the players thinking about the same thing. When we have to win the ball back we have to think about it all together.
“It’s a problem for everyone, not the strikers, the midfielders or the defenders. It is a problem of a team that did not understand that this was a key aspect of the match.”
