I believe it is true that the concept of 'pace' in relation to football analysis walks a tightrope between the tangible and the (feared) intangible. It is a visible, obvious feature, yet free from the optimistic tangibility that a numerical statistic brings. Well, there is still time for an old-fashioned discussion that overdefines and complicates this concept, rather than narrowing and simplifying the scope of its meaning.
Here lies an attempt to generalize and broaden our understanding of tempo in a football match, but with contextualized observations from Real Madrid's 2024-2025 season to date. Carlo Ancelotti has made no secret of the ongoing battle within the ranks with a changing relationship with pace.
Simply put: the pace a team brings to a football match is the speed at which it builds up its attacks. Tempo, however, is not just an inert fact of the football match, but a constitutive datum, etching the story of the match over time. Here are two hypothetical (but common) scenarios on a football field, to illustrate how tempo choice primarily defines the contours of how the football match presents itself to the spectator.
Team A builds up slowly, without hasty attacks. Focus on safety, structure and often a halftime defense that is ready to strike.
Team B then sits compact and tight, waiting for an opportunity to launch a high-tempo counterattack.
This results in a football match that is more static than a transition match, gaining speed in bursts as team B gets the ball back.
Team A builds fast, rushing attacks and committed players, combined with aggressive high pressing.
Team B does much the same in response on ball recovery, resulting in a game that is more transitional than static.
Unless either team commits to slowing down play through instructions or some form of player intervention, end-to-end football is more or less guaranteed.
The pace of the game is not a variable, metric or statistic like everything else that arrives afterwards; it plays a much more constitutive role in a football match, determining the shape of its progression as the match takes place. The choice of tempo is then undoubtedly one of the most crucial decisions a manager has to make when drawing up the basic tactical concepts for the season.
“We can improve and play better, but I believe that Real Madrid fans are used to rock and roll football, and not to many details. I really like to see my team defend well, to come forward with the ball from the back, to not waste time in possession, to be vertical.”
– Carlo Ancelotti, after a difficult 3-1 Champions League win over Stuttgart on September 17.
The loss of Toni Kroos to retirement implies the loss of the element that asserted control over the tempo – a single point that speeds up and slows down the game as his incredible judgment saw fit. It was the early build-up phases that Kroos not only dominated, but monopolized, setting the team's overall pace from the outset.
But rock bands don't often bother to play to a metronome. So while Real Madrid fans chose their midfield favorites to replace the German in office, Ancelotti planned to completely reverse the script. It was no longer a matter of which of the group would carry out their interpretation of the Duckweed's role; what mattered was that he switched to a different plan in his absence – more vertical, ideally focused on fast counter-pressing, and thus playing at a much faster tempo. The build-up circuits now all pointed directly to the attackers, whose pace had to be exploited, causing opponents to be overtaken early.
If a team's pace determines how it presents itself on the big screen, Real Madrid presented itself as chaotic, overly direct and poorly organized in the counter-press at the start of 2024-2025. Something akin to completely losing control from speeding is what happened in the first few months. A band without a metronome, slowly starting to lose its pulse.
Antonio Rudiger and Thibaut Courtois/Andriy Lunin often bypassed the midfield and prepared for the direct, over-the-top ball to the attackers. Fede Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni, as initial choices for a double turn, eschewed taking adequate responsibility on the ball in deep areas, further enabling the direct behavior. Lacking a target or any form of air presence in front, the attackers lost dozens of aerial duels while inefficiently and with minimal impact reducing the transition threat. Perhaps sustained pressure with all hands on deck in an organized manner was envisaged, but the lack of consistent effort from the XI meant that once the opponents recovered the ball, simple ball circulation guided them through the Real Madrid press with ease.
Soon the entire match descended from our previous hypotheses to Game 2, or to a version of Game 1 in which Real Madrid would be Team B. The overall nuance in the team was lost – not found, because it wasn't looked for. A brutally idealistic approach, an approach that has logical grounds on paper, but in practice often appears uncertain; not something you associate with Ancelotti.
A crucial match for Eduardo Camavinga against Villarreal at the end of October is worth focusing on as his return from injury brought much-needed balance to the squad's build-up. Camavinga consistently slotted in between the centre-backs to facilitate more meaningful channels of progression and was the main architect of Real Madrid's 2-0 win over Villarreal. Facing a Marcelino Garcia side, Toral guarantees a fluid transitional threat; a consistent reliance on the previous strategy would certainly have done Madrid more damage on the scoreboard, with the Yellow Sub showing off their high-scoring attacking skills this season. Camavinga was perhaps the first midfielder to offer a hint of poise amid the directness of this season, pulling back the reins on a carriage prone to tipping.
And after two disastrous results against Barcelona and Milan – missing both matches – Camavinga soon returned to the XI in La Liga against Osasuna and Leganes. Although the matches ended 4-0 and 3-0 respectively, the crucial point to note was the return of balance and responsibility in the center of the pitch, and a greater concern for tempo. Dani Ceballos was in on the action against Leganes, and his interaction with Camavinga as the deep-lying ball advancer helped the team organize itself better. As the weeks passed, a further injury to Camavinga would mean Ceballos took the deep-lying reins with aplomb and flourished as a classic Spanish #6. Since December, he has benefited from a level of responsibility that may never have been afforded to him at Real Madrid until now.
“You have to choose between building up progressively or playing straight away. The responsibility lies with the coach, who chooses to play immediately.”
– Carlo Ancelotti, after the victory in Stuttgart.
To complicate matters further, let's take this quote directly against the discussion in the previous section; Did Camavinga and Ceballos pull back the pace through instruction or intuition? Who makes the choice? What do the managers and players think of the choices the other makes?
We can only assume that the responsibility for determining the team's pace orientation certainly lies with the manager. However, it is perhaps crucial to conclude that a single player can take over responsibility in real time and contribute to more controlled game situations that arise on the field. At any given moment in a football match, players who exercise both responsibility and the requisite mental and technical tools can bring balance to a match that was destined to shape itself in a different way.
Pace can therefore be a shared asset is the biggest conclusion to be drawn from Real Madrid's opening act of the season. And to see a team currently abandoning the issue of pace in this third space – blurring the lines of ownership between the players and the manager – is a curious anomaly in our football world. Just as early linguists learned more about human speech by researching aberrations in oral culture, we can learn much about pace from this period of change for Real Madrid, where team pace is a contested area between manager and the players.
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