Real Madrid were in a delicate situation against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday. Despite a list of absences through injury, the Spanish side played perhaps their best match since Rafa Benitez took over from Carlo Ancelotti in the summer. But, despite the performance, there were no goals and there was no win.
A little over two months into his tenure, Benitez has yet to lose a match but his team's performances have hardly made Madrid fans - or anyone else - fall in love with this team. The players, it seems, are still struggling to adapt to his concepts, to their new positions and to tactical formations.
The difficulties in adapting are nothing new, of course. Like Benitez, Jose Mourinho failed to win his first fixture as Madrid boss, while it took Ancelotti a full six months to get the best out of Angel Di Maria, for example.
However, instead of taking it all in his stride, it looks like Benitez is choking on the criticism. Just a few days ago he hit out at the media. Not a wise move. And having been labelled as "defensive" by colleagues such as Ancelotti and Laurent Blanc, he is clinging onto statistics in an attempt to convince others of his worth.
The Spanish coach has been doing so since day one, further fuelling the reputation he has earned as a studious and methodical manager, passionate about statistics. But this week at the Parc des Princes he crossed the line. "
Is my football fun? If Madrid win and score a lot of goals then it's fun," he said.
If Benitez felt burdened before by the "defensive" tag, there is now no way he will be able to shake off the label at Madrid, following that quote. But results have nothing to do with fun and flowing football. Look at Rayo Vallecano, Villarreal or Saturday's rivals, Celta Vigo. All of those teams play football that is easy on the eye and none of them will be parking the bus come May - whatever their situation at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, this Madrid side are co-leaders, but the fans are disgruntled. That's how it is and how it has always been at Real - a club where scoring three is not enough if you can convert eight. More so if you consider that Madrid have a budget of around 30 times more than most of their rivals. And Benitez, a homegrown coach, should know that.
But in his attempt at showing off his work, he is clinging to numbers and statistics as if they were the only important things. And they are not. Count von Count, from Sesame Street, may be convinced by such a theory, but the rest are not because football is much more than just numbers. It's much more than winning. It's much more than statistics.
All of that is important in its way, just as a number of other factors are also valid. And Madrid are winning, but they are not playing entertaining football - even if Benitez has tried to cloud both concepts into only one. Which is a bad strategy because what happens when he fails to win? What will he say if Madrid lose to Celta on Saturday? Will Madrid fans care how much the team attacked, how few goals were conceded, or how far the players have run when the team not only haven't played good football but haven't won either?
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