Real Madrid’s Deep-Lying Playmaker Dilemma Part I: Diagnosing the Problem
Lack of deep-lying playmaker in Madrid’s midfield since Toni Kroos retirement likely to make filling pivotal role at the top of Madrid’s wish list this summer. Need was further emphasized in the tie against Bayern Munich. Much has been written and said about Real Madrid’s need to sign a deep-lying playmaker (DLP) to replace the enormous hole left by Toni Kroos’s retirement in 2024.
Kroos’s decision to hang up his boots at 34 and the subsequent departure of Luka Modric in 2025 left Madrid without two players that were key cogs in dictating tempo at the Bernabéu for over a decade. It was widely thought at the start of the 2024/2025 season that Madrid could easily transition from a midfield led by the German great and Croatian maestro to a more athletic group focused on winning duels and counterattacking football spearheaded by Jude Bellingham, Fede Valverde, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Eduardo Camavinga feeding passes to Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappé. After all, all four midfielders played important roles during Madrid’s successful 2023/2024 season.
However, two consecutive seasons without winning major silverware has emphasized the need to find that player (or two) that can dictate play from the Madrid midfield — an “ organizador ” as it is referred to in Spain. At times in the past two seasons it has seemed that Madrid has largely tried to bypass the midfield altogether, with the centre-backs, fullbacks, and Courtois looking to connect directly with Real Madrid’s forwards. The tie against Bayern Munich further reinforced the need to sign a DLP.
Trent Alexander-Arnold led Madrid with 52 pass attempts at the Bernabéu while Fede Valverde led the team with only 32 pass attempts in Munich. Compare that to Bayern who had seven players that exceeded Valverde’s pass attempts in the return leg led by Joshua Kimmich’s 118 pass attempts. Alexander-Arnold and Valverde’s pass attempts in this season’s quarterfinals are also significantly less than the 82 passes Kroos attempted at the Allianz Arena on April 30th, 2024, or the 112 passes Kroos distributed eight days later at the Bernabéu, with the Madrid midfielder leading all players on both teams in pass attempts in each of the semifinal matches in 2024.
This season, Antonio Rüdiger has led Madrid in passes attempted per 90 in La Liga (73. 3) while Dean Huijsen did the same for the team in Champions League play (69 pass attempts per 90). It would have been unfathomable five seasons ago that anyone other than a midfielder would lead the team in passing.
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