Despite saying goodbye to some big players during the off-season and currently undergoing an injury crisis, Carlo Ancelotti seems to be working a miracle by keeping Real Madrid as one of Europe's best teams this campaign.
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There was mass disgruntlement among those associated with Los Blancos at the end of the 2022/23 season, after the club conceded both of their UEFA Champions League and LALIGA titles to Manchester City and Barcelona, respectively. The lack of prominent silverware was seemingly a consequence to the absences due to injury of then-reigning Ballon d'Or winner Karim Benzema, who would surprising go on to leave the club at the end of the season, joining Al Ittihad, to further compound Real's issues.
Eden Hazard and Marco Asensio were other major names to leave the club as the pressure began to build on Ancelotti, but ultimately Florentino Perez decided that he would let the Italian see out his contract. So going into the 2023/24 campaign, there was relative pessimism, even after spending €103 million (R2 billion) on Jude Bellingham, but so far, it has been the 20-year-old that has been the club's prime Galactico.
While there was fanfare about his acquisition from Borussia Dortmund, he has definitely exceeded expectations this season. At the beginning of the campaign, Ancelotti claimed that Bellingham had effectively been brought in to replace Benzema. He told Radio Serie A: "We believe that the arrival of Bellingham covers the absence of Karim. [Bellingham] is a serious, mature boy with a lot of quality."
Replace the Frenchman he has as the Stourbridge native has already scored 16 goals in 19 games for Los Merengues in all competitions, and they are frontrunners both domestically and on the continent largely thanks to his performances.
He has been Real's most prominent player given the absences of Vinicius Junior and the inconsistent form of Rodrygo Goes. Vinicius has missed a lot of action already this season due to injuries, while the likes of Thibaut Courtois, Eder Militao, Aurelien Tchouameni and Eduardo Camavinga are also currently sidelined.
Regardless of all of this, however, Real lead the chasing pack in the league, trailing only surprise package Girona by two points. Their 3-2 victory over Union Berlin earlier this week also ensured that they finished their UCL group-stage campaign with a 100% record, the third time the club has accomplished this feat in the tournament's history. According to Opta Sports, 2011/12 and 2014/15 are the two other seasons they managed to do this and, on both occasions, they made it as far as the competition's semi-finals.
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While some may say that Bellingham has bailed him out a lot of the season, Ancelotti seems to have weathered some serious storms as we approach the halfway point of the campaign. The narrative around the 64-year-old's future has changed from likely to leave to possibly staying even longer. There might be a lot of time until the end of the season, but so far so good for the record Champions-League winning coach.
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