Aveek Chaudhuri, January 30, 2021

Real Madrid suffered their fourth league loss of the season on Saturday at the hands of Levante. While Los Blancos initially went ahead in the 13th minute with a Marco Asensio goal, Levante eventually beat them 2-1 with goals from José Luis Morales Nogales and Roger Martí. The game looked to be in Levante's favor with Real Madrid being reduced to 10 men within 9 minutes of kick off after a Éder Militão red card. This game results in Real Madrid suffering their fourth loss in La Liga, putting them 3 points ahead of Barcelona who are yet to play this gameweek. Although still second in the league, a Barcelona win would see Real Madrid drop to third.

Real Madrid's performance was not all surprising considering their recent league form. Prior to this game, they had 2 wins and 2 draws in their last four games due to their struggling form. Although they came off a 4-1 trashing of Deportivo Alavés, Los Blancos simply couldn't bring that momentum into the game against Levante, with Real Madrid being under par in both the defense and attack. Real only maintained 46% of the possession while Levante had 56%. Additionally, Madrid mustered 8 shots on target with only 2 on target while Levante fired 14 shots with an astounding 8 on target. Levante are known to be an attacking team with the likes of Roger Martí and they successfully gave Madrid everything they had.

Madrid's recent form is the complete opposite of main rivals Barcelona who have gone on a streak of 9 La Liga games unbeaten, winning 7 of them. This recent form saw Barca go only 3 points behind Real and with this Real loss, Barcelona now have the opportunity to go level with a win over Athletic Club on Sunday. Real Madrid and manager Zinedine Zidane need to regain their form or soon, they could see the likes of Sevilla passing them and Zidane could be seeing the end of his second term as Real Madrid manager.