Casemiro has set the standard at the defensive midfield position for the past several years.
When he joined Real Madrid, he proved to be the missing piece. His non-stop defensive coverage and relentless mentality gelled perfectly with Luka Modric and Toni Kroos in midfield, as he helped form a trio that will stand as one of the greatest assembled in club football history.
When discussing the list of untouchable players in the Real Madrid XI, Casemiro is often mentioned among those players. He may not get the plaudits of a Karim Benzema, Kroos, Modric, or Thibaut Courtois, but, like those players, he has a claim to being the best in the world at what he does. In his specific role, it is hard to come up with someone better.
But whereas Benzema, Kroos, Modric, and Courtois have consistently maintained the highest level of play over the past couple of seasons, Casemiro has been the more volatile of the quartet since the start of the 2020-2021 season.
There’s no doubt that Casemiro still finished with a strong 2020-2021 campaign despite some blips, and he’s had some good matches to start the 2021-2022 season, too. That said, his recent performances against Valencia and Villarreal have caused concern.
Overuse has long been a worry with Casemiro
Blaming only Casemiro for these performances misses the overall point of the defensive structure and role he is playing under Carlo Ancelotti. And it would also be unfair to overreact after two bad games, though obviously that is inevitable in the football landscape we live in today as far as an elite club like Madrid is concerned.
Casemiro is being affected by a couple of things. Firstly, Real Madrid do not have Ferland Mendy or Toni Kroos healthy, and Case is facing a whole lot of strain in terms of the ground he has to cover. It’s not like Ancelotti has done a great job of setting up his team defensively, and Madridistas know he needs to find that balance to complement the splendid work he has done with the attackers to start the season.
Secondly and maybe most importantly, Casemiro has played a lot of minutes over the last couple of seasons. He does get rest from time to time, such as recently against Mallorca, but the rest is infrequent. And it is especially infrequent when you consider the amount of running and physical one-on-one defensive plays he makes. Casemiro gets less rest than most, but he actually needs more rest than most.
That paradox leads to an overworked Casemiro, and an overworked Casemiro can be an ineffective Casemiro. When that happens, Real Madrid suffer, particularly when the collective tactical effort isn’t quite ready to make the difference. Real have the center backs and goalkeeper to make the scoreline more flattering, but we have seen how exposed the back line is when Casemiro is not in the right positions due to a combination of fatigue and him being asked by Ancelotti to press or drift into areas that do not protect the defense.
The truth is that Casemiro needs to improve in some aspects of his play. He takes laughably poor shots, and his random backheel passes in the middle of the pitch are just begging for easy counterattacks. But we know Casemiro is not the most accomplished player on the ball. We also know that he more than makes up for it with his defending.
When he is not in robust form, though, the team suffers. That means Ancelotti needs to take a look at how he is using Casemiro and how he can make sure the Brazilian is kept fresh. Now that Eduardo Camavinga is in the team and with Toni Kroos coming back in the future, the manager will have more options. He will have the opportunity to rest Casemiro. Hopefully he is more careful about managing Real’s resident destroyer, because Case is very much needed at his best against teams that play well-organized, progressively-intentioned attacking football.