After winning La Liga and the UEFA Champions League last season, the biggest questions in a lot of football fans’ minds were: how long can the current Madrid players continue to keep performing? And how many years at the top do these current players have in them?
The answer for that came a little later after winning in Paris with some key players from the last few years departing. Casemiro moved to Manchester United, Bale moved to MLS, Marcelo moved to Olympiacos on a free, and a few other departures followed. So, the next question was: how were Madrid going to replace these players and others who can no longer play week in and week out?
The below visualisation shows the percentage of minutes each of Madrid’s players have played in the 22/23 La Liga season so far.
Real Madrid started the rebuild for this at least a season ago when they signed Eduardo Camavinga from Rennes in the summer of 2021/22. Even though the midfielder has only appeared in less than 50% of the overall minutes, it was always known that Camavinga would slowly be integrated into the starting XI.
The Spanish champions also signed David Alaba from Bayern Munich the same summer. Alaba, however, was not a long-term signing but a needed one to replace Ramos. Madrid continued their rebuild in the summer of 2022 with another midfield signing — this time, the signing of Aurélien Tchouaméni from Monaco, while Antonio Rudiger was also signed on a free.
The rebuild is not over yet and Madrid will need to replace Dani Carvajal, Karim Benzema, and Eden Hazard, while they also need to add more depth in several positions. Furthermore, plenty of their regulars are over 30 years of age.
Looking at the above visual, Vinícius has played the most minutes of all and has taken a big responsibility on the attacking side. The Brazilian is also the only player to have started every game in the league so far. He is followed by David Alaba and then by Federico Valverde.
While Madrid prepare sufficient backups for plan A that include the above-mentioned players, a few of the players in their starting XI are at the tail end of their careers and might need replacing soon — that includes Benzema as well. That might answer why Madrid have been so interested in Kylian Mbappé, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they go back for the French superstar in the coming window again. A lot of players who have played fewer than 50% of the minutes so far need replacing including Lucas Vázquez, Nacho Fernandez and Marco Asensio — who might leave on a free towards the end of this season
Real Madrid have always been known to be proactive in the market, which is why they made the signings of Vinícius, Rodrygo, Mendy, Camavinga and Tchouaméni well ahead of the necessary time and ensured a smooth transition. They might have to continue to do that for at least a couple of transfer windows to finish their rebuild.
