Vinicius Jr. and Aurelien Tchouameni scored goals in the second half to help Real Madrid come back from being down to win another important La Liga game. This win put them on top of the league.

These are my thoughts on the game.

Two parts to a story

This game from Real Madrid had two parts, like many others we’ve seen them play. Real Madrid had a hard time making chances in the first half. In the second half, Las Palmas had a hard time getting out of their own half because Real Madrid made the right changes and started to take control. Finally, they scored the first goal, and in the 84th minute, Tchouameni scored the game-winner to make sure Real Madrid had another win.

In the first half, there wasn’t any imagination with the ball. Not many chances were taken. The players who were making runs into the closing third were not getting the ball, so those runs were not very useful. In the last two or three games, this has been a problem. Sometimes the players look tired, even if they haven’t played much in the last game. One player who didn’t play very well today was Dani Ceballos. Except for Rodrygo’s one chance in the first half, he looked slow and out of ideas. Brahim had what was likely his worst game of the season. He barely touched the ball in the first half and was taken off in the second. I’m not worried about Brahim; I’m sure he’ll get better the next game. But Real Madrid might want to improve how they start games so that this doesn’t happen so often.

Even though Real Madrid made Las Palmas turn the ball over, Las Palmas also turned it over on their own, so the chances were lost.

After the break, things were different, and it felt a lot better. There were more good chances made. There were also better runs into the box and legs that were still fresh.

One very important thing that changed the game:

This was my favorite Camavinga performance of the season, and there have been a lot of great ones this year. Let me get that out of the way: Eduardo Camavinga was brilliant everywhere.

Camavinga was practically everywhere. He would make a run through the defense with the ball in the final third, and when Las Palmas got the ball back and started a cоunterattack, he would close down the attacker and stop the cоunterattack with a pass in Real Madrid’s half. We did expect him to do this, but it wasn’t just that.

One thing I noticed was Camavinga’s appearance and role in the attacking third. He moved further forward and had more freedom to make chances in the second half. Camavinga was doing a lot of оffensive things, like setting up Vinicius’s goal with a beautiful pass. He hasn’t done any of these things before, at least not at this rate or with this much participation in the final third.

One thing I’ve always thought Camavinga could do better is take chances and make plays that everyone knows he can make. It’s beautiful to see him finally do that. He has tried to score a lot of times, but each of his passes and sharp runs had an air of growth that I haven’t seen in his play, at least not in recent memory.

I loved this Camavinga show so much. I really want to see him play more like this, making an impact on both defense and offense.

Fede Valverde has made Dani Carvajal’s game better in more ways than people think.

I thought of this as more of a strategy wrinkle while watching the game. It’s not a big hint, but I might want to write more about it in the future.

While it may seem brutal, I think Carvajal’s worst half this season was the first half of the game against Las Palmas. And I meаn that in a good way, because it wasn’t even that he played badly. It wasn’t terrible, but he’s done much better in the past.

Carvajal played much better in the second half, and after a small slip-up, he was back to his normal self. I believe Fede Valverde’s part this season has been much more helpful to Carvajal than we think. For some reason, Dani Ceballos wasn’t covering Carvajal, which doesn’t happen very often when Fede is on the field. Fede covers a lot of ground defensively, which gives Carvajal a lot of room to move around on аttаck and sometimes even play as a right winger. Without Fede Valverde’s diving runs in the аttаck, Carvajal also loses that extra yard of room that the Uruguayan usually has because he is so quick. This made him less useful in the first half.

It’s been a great season for Dani Carvajal—his best in years. He is also very strong, which is likely due in part to his gluten-free diet. He is the one acting in the end, not someone else because of him. He’s been great with or without help from other people. My point is not to ignore how much he has improved. But this game made me realize that Fede Valverde has helped him improve his game to a level we didn’t think was possible. I give him a lot of credit for that. Even though everyone talks about it, I still believe that the great, easygoing chemistry between Carvajal and Fede is a very overlooked part of Real Madrid’s whole system.