Madrid's Liverpool clash will test Perez's Super League claims

Even if Real Madrid are not in an outright disastrous position at this halfway stage of the revamped Champions League, there’s no escaping the fact that they are in a precarious — not to say embarrassing — one.

With Wednesday’s fixture against Liverpool at Anfield staring them aggressively in the face, at a time when Los Blancos’ injury list is debilitating and when Carlo Ancelotti’s team has shown its vulnerable side, they lie midtable, which is to say 18th, and two points off the relegation zone.

Before we go any further, ask yourself this: can you ever remember Real Madrid being midtable, 18th or two points above the relegation zone in anything, in your life, ever?

OK, there’s no actual need for panic.

Including this visit to the Premier League and Champions League leaders, the European champions have four games left to elevate themselves either into a safer position, which will bring a playoff in the spring, or to automatic qualification for the quarterfinals if they can claw their way into the top eight.

But if Madrid are beaten in the northwest of England — and that’s not wholly improbable — they could be overtaken by a handful of teams such as Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, AC Milan or Benfica, and could slip further towards the bottom of the 36-team league where the peril begins to look grave.

The hard fact is that despite two recent domestic thumpings handed out to lower-level teams, the current European champions go to Anfield with far too many problems in their haversacks. Their absentee list of injured stars includes: Éder Militão, David Alaba, Dani Carvajal, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Rodrygo and, crucially, Vinícius Júnior. Horrible.

They still have a robust squad, and they’ll still field an XI which would be the envy of many clubs in the upper echelons of world football — but that’s a hemorrhage of extraordinarily gutsy, talented, experienced, high-quality staff they’ve suffered.

Last season, Ancelotti’s team became champions despite a series of crippling injuries, but never so many at the same time. There is a balancing factor in that Thibaut Courtois returns in goal, which is of absolutely monumental importance. Jude Bellingham is returning to form, and Lucas Vázquez will be able to travel with the squad and potentially play at right-back.

Still, losing Vinícius to hamstring injury is a huge blow to Madrid, especially against Liverpool. The Brazilian has been a perpetual nightmare for the Premier League side. The Spanish champions have an extraordinary recent record against the Reds, losing to them competitively only twice, not suffering defeat for 15 years, and beating Liverpool in two recent Champions League finals.

Vinícius has been at the heart of a lot of this, producing goals and assists (seven in total) to torment the Anfield men. This season, in all competitions, the devastating Brazilian has contributed 20 goals — scoring or assisting — in only 18 appearances. What a loss.

But whether or not Madrid confirm their perpetual “You can’t damage us, we’re Teflon!” attitude and win, or are defeated and forced to lick their wounds and then prepare for “Everyone on deck!” over the remaining three fixtures, it’s worth pointing out that this situation has helped expose more of Florentino Perez’s hypocrisy.

I don’t think it was a good weekend for Madrid’s president, who used the annual general meeting to trumpet his views to the members of the club and, by association, via the media to the entire world. He trotted out some nonsense about how Vinícius would have won the Ballon d’Or if it weren’t for the odd behaviour of voting nations such as Uganda, Namibia, Albania and Finland.

It was nothing more than a swipe of a haughty billionaire’s arm at the boardroom table. He unilaterally dismissed these countries’ footballing worth or relevance. In his diatribe, he was clear that from his standpoint the people voting from these countries were nobody, and known to nobody. He treated their international credibility in a humiliating manner.

What he forgot to take into account was that these nations gave votes and points to Karim Benzema or Courtois when the Frenchman won and the Belgian placed seventh in the 2022 Ballon d’Or. There was no complaining then: simply, a quiet satisfaction that the serfs had voted the way that they were supposed to vote.

Perez was hypocritical then, but still more so when throwing mud at the Champions League format. Perez went on to claim that a one-year-old European court ruling had freed soccer from the tyrannical yoke of FIFA and UEFA. Twelve months on and, don’t forget, nothing specific has happened because of that ruling. But Madrid’s president still considered it important to imply that the sport had enjoyed a ludicrous emancipation.

It seemed nonsensical on its own, but he compounded the error by warbling on about his beloved Super League project, stating that there was growing support for it and ignoring the fact that he and his allies were not only roundly defeated the last time they brought this project to the table, but also humiliated by the ineptitude of their timing, their communication and by the way in which a landslide of general football opinion went against them.

Yet, he continues to tout it. The thing he wants most from it is more revenue for the big clubs. He pretends that it can be a panacea to the amount that football fans have to pay to watch the teams — not an unfair complaint — and a solution to the way in which the governing bodies are squeezing all the goodness, creativity and durability out of our best footballers.

What was always at the centre, and I presume still remains at the centre of Perez’ Super League idea, is that the big clubs play the big clubs nonstop. No riffraff. The inherent detriment to domestic football around Europe was the Achilles heel that he failed to understand fans would (still) revolt about.

Anyway, on a glitzy and surface level only, the idea of Europe’s great names playing each other repeatedly, and not having to bother with troublesome trips to Czechia, Scotland, Finland or Norway, etc., might seem seductive to some.

What Perez didn’t mention was that the very type of fixture they crave in this new hypothetical competition is about to happen to Real Madrid this week at Anfield. Precisely when Los Blancos would much rather be playing a minion easy to knock over.

I make no bones about the fact that I want Real Madrid to progress in this tournament because they bring excitement and an irresistible will to win, and they are the proven emperors of this competition. No question, no argument.

But the ironic, cynical laughter that will pursue them if they are either left struggling or eliminated because of failing against Liverpool and Milan, the very midweek fixtures they crave over and over again in their Super League, would be revenge served ice-cold for those opposed to Perez’ selfish plans.

Wednesday will be an occasion where footballers such as Kylian Mbappé, Courtois, Bellingham and Federico Valverde will have to absolutely shine and where a draw will be more than sufficient. But there’s a chance of defeat for the champions which would leave egg on the face of their ambitious president, and his team in a horribly difficult qualifying position.