The European Super Cup won against the Nerazzurri in August has deceived many about the qualities of a team still lacking balance. Everything has changed in 4 months: Blancos fragile

The season is the same and yet, four months after the Super Cup match that kicked off the year for Real Madrid and Atalanta, in Valdebebas that first trophy seems much further away. Maybe not so much in La Liga, but in the Champions League for sure, because in what is historically the garden of the Casa Blanca, today, so far Real has lost three games out of five (Lille, Milan, Liverpool) and is in position number 24 in the single ranking. To be clear: we are on the extreme periphery of qualification for the playoffs, beyond which there is the abyss of an exclusion that would be sensational and that, although no one in Madrid takes into consideration because, in January, the matches with Salzburg and Brest are not scary, still causes discussion. Carlo Ancelotti has also ended up in the crosshairs, who defends himself from the "beatings" - as he called them - of a part of the press with his usual bonhomie, but seems less serene, knowing full well that Atalanta is not exactly the best of opponents at the moment. That 2-0 in the Super Cup is history. Atalanta was another thing, but so was Real: the enthusiasm for Mbappé's debut was greater than the doubts about his coexistence with his teammates, Kroos' farewell did not seem to be that heavy in the context of the game, and then there were both Dani Carvajal and Eder Militao, whose season has already ended, in both cases due to cruciate ligament rupture.

It was a victory and yet another trophy raised to the sky, then. And if it is true that Real remains Real, it is also true that today's Real is not exactly known what it is, net of an ensemble of soloists capable of sublime solos. And if in La Liga all this was still enough to be -2 from Barcelona (and with a game less), in the Champions League, so far, it has not been the same.