clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

VIDEO: Analyzing Carlo Ancelotti’s Fan-Favorite 4-4-2 Formation In The 2014/15 Season

Beautiful football.


The School of Real Madrid is a youtube channel managed by Kiyan Sobhani (@KiyanSo), Om Arvind, and Naguib Anam (@NaguibAnam). The aim of our channel is to narrate and animate Real Madrid tactics, history, and other topics on a weekly basis.

If you like our work, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter and Facebook and consider supporting us on Patreon. Doing so will help us meet our goal of producing at least one video every week. Additionally, if you pledge a certain amount per month, you can help us pick what topic to do next.


On October 18th, 2014, Gareth Bale was benched for Real Madrid’s away trip to Levante for reasons that seemed related to the Welshman’s fitness issues. Two days later, it was officially confirmed that Bale had suffered a minor hamstring injury, which would keep him out of the squad entirely for El Clásico, an away trip to Granada, and the continental games against Liverpool.

This was unfortunate, as Bale had started the season in fine form. He had notched 5 goals and 5 assists in 12 games spanning across the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup, La Liga, and the Champions League.

However, instead of seeing the situation as a problem, Ancelotti saw it as an opportunity to test a 4-4-2 formation that incorporated both James Rodríguez and Isco in the same lineup.

What followed was brief but delicious — Real Madrid played some of the most beautiful and effective football in their long and illustrious history and brushed Barcelona aside in a dominant Clásico performance.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for the Managing Madrid Daily Roundup newsletter!

A daily roundup of Real Madrid news from Managing Madrid