Real Madrid are having a poor start to the 2024-2025 La Liga season, with 2 wins and 2 draws after 4 matches. They are 4 points behind Barcelona - the leader of the rankings.
Scoring 7 goals and conceding 2, coach Carlo Ancelotti admitted his problems, but besides that, Marca also pointed out an aspect that affected Real Madrid players to a certain extent.
That is, they are not protected by referees from fouls by the opposition. That is the opposite of what is happening in Barcelona.
Last weekend, when Barcelona beat Real Valladolid 7-0, the visitors received three yellow cards from 12 fouls. A number that might seem adequate, but in that game alone, they had more yellow cards than the four teams Real Madrid faced combined.
Marca wrote: "Opponents have the freedom to stop the white team's play without being punished."
In fact, Real Madrid are the third most fouled team in La Liga, but they also hand out the fewest cards to their opponents. Only Pablo Maffeo, in his first game against Mallorca, and Marcos André, in his second game against Valladolid, have received yellow cards against Real Madrid.
Since the beginning of the season, Kylian Mbappe and his teammates have been fouled 59 times, meaning that on average, after 29.5 fouls, the opponent receives a card.
Some statistics show that the standards of referees are very different for Real Madrid than when applied to the rest of the teams.
Barcelona were the team that handed out the most yellow cards to their opponents, with 13 yellow cards for 53 fouls. In other words, their opponents were given an average of 1 card for every 4 fouls.
In this ranking, Real Madrid is at the bottom, after Las Palmas and Real Betis did not receive any yellow cards despite committing 16 and 17 fouls respectively. This means that hindering Los Blancos from playing football hardly leads to any punishment.
As things stand, Real Madrid players have committed 38 fouls so far in La Liga (21 fewer than they have had to endure) and have received a total of 5 yellow cards and 1 red card. 2 of the yellow cards were for protesting.
Rank the team that causes the opponent to receive the most cards
Barcelona: 13
Valencia: 12
Villarreal: 12
Real Sociedad: 11
Alaves: 10
Atletico Madrid: 9
Sevilla: 9
Celta Vigo: 8
Las Palmas: 8
Leganes: 8
Valladolid: 8
Getafe: 7
Rayo Vallecano: 7
Girona: 6
Espanyol: 6
Mallorca: 4
Betis: 3
Osasuna: 3
Real Madrid: 2
