Real Madrid Wins Teresa Herrera Cup but Midfield Concerns Persist
Real Madrid lift a trophy. The doubts stay exactly where they were.
José Mourinho’s side edged past Deportivo La Coruña to win the Teresa Herrera Cup at Riazor, a full-strength Real Madrid grinding out a friendly title that looks good on paper and far less convincing on the pitch. For analysts watching this pre-season closely, the pattern is no longer a footnote. It is the story.
A win that settles nothing
On SER Deportivos, journalists Antonio Romero and Tomás Roncero stripped away the shine. The result, they agreed, cannot disguise a structural problem that has followed Madrid all summer: a missing link in midfield.
Romero was careful about the usual trap of August football. Pre-season, he reminded listeners, rarely shows the real face of a team, and he reckons Madrid are operating at only 20 to 30% of their potential. But he did not soften the main point.
Real Madrid, he argued, are built like a wall at the back and a storm up front. Between those two lines, something is missing.
“Real Madrid still feel they are missing a playmaker in midfield. They have a superb defensive team, and an almost unbeatable attacking force, but there is room for improvement in midfield,” he said.
The concern is not new. This latest outing simply underlined it.
The Rodri void that never closed
Roncero went straight for the sore spot: Rodri Hernández. Madrid wanted him. They did not get him. For him, that failed move is not just an anecdote from the market; it is a fault line that could run through the entire season.
“If you wanted to sign Rodri and you did not, that means you have to fill that void. If you do not end up signing him, you will feel this deficiency all season,” he warned, insisting the club can no longer act as if the issue will solve itself.
The message was blunt. Madrid cannot pretend they did not need that profile simply because the deal never happened.
The “Mourinho method” – and a nod to the past
To cover that gap, Romero pointed towards the man on the bench. If anyone can bend a team around a weak spot, he suggested, it is Mourinho.
He called it “the Mourinho method”: building a winning side even when the midfield is not perfectly balanced. Yet even as he praised the coach’s ability to improvise, Romero pointed back to the model that worked better than any other.
“There is no need to look far to see that Real Madrid's most successful team in history included Casemiro, Kroos and Modrić,” he reminded listeners.
That trio gave Madrid control, personality and a clear passing line from back to front. Right now, that kind of anchor is exactly what the team lack.
Bernardo Silva, the “soldier” solution
One name, for Romero, fits the sacrificial role the current squad cannot quite fill: Bernardo Silva.
“Based on what I saw in La Coruña and what I have seen from him at City and his experience, I think Bernardo Silva would accept this sacrifice,” he said.
In his eyes, Bernardo is the kind of elite player who could drop deeper, live in the dirty zones of the pitch and still knit play together with quality.
“He can be a soldier for Mourinho, and if he is asked to play alongside Tchouaméni and provide some support, he reminds me a little of Modrić,” Romero added.
That comparison came with a clear filter. He ruled out Camavinga, Arda Güler, Bellingham and Valverde for that specific role. All four bring energy, talent and goals, but not quite the profile of the metronome Madrid are missing.
So the idea is stark: if the club cannot buy the perfect holding playmaker, they may have to reshape someone like Bernardo into one.
Patience for Diomande, excitement for Cucurella
Attention then turned to the new faces. Here, Romero’s tone changed. Less critical, more protective.
He urged Real Madrid fans to give Yan Diomande time. The midfielder is still a teenager, not yet twenty, and the leap he has made is enormous.
Real Madrid, Romero stressed, is a different universe. Shining for “five good minutes with Leganés” is not the same as dictating games under the Bernabéu lights, with the shirt that weighs heavier than almost any in world football.
Diomande, in other words, is one for the long road, not the quick fix.
On the left flank, though, there is a player he believes is ready to thrill from day one: Cucurella.
“Diomande attracts a lot of attention, but the player everyone is eager to see running down the wing at the Bernabéu is Cucurella,” he said. “He is the type of footballer you have to love. Since Marcelo and Roberto Carlos, we have had a feeling at the Bernabéu that we will be able to enjoy a vertical left-back.”
That is a heavy lineage to invoke. Marcelo and Roberto Carlos defined eras from that side of the pitch. To even mention Cucurella in that emotional context shows the level of expectation around his arrival.
A friendly trophy is already in the cabinet. The question is whether Mourinho can find, sign or invent the midfielder who will make this Madrid feel complete when the real season starts.
