Zinedine Zidane will surely have a plan to deal with Harry Kane on Tuesday night. The Real Madrid manager is, after all, is a pragmatist. His side has no distinct playing style or identity. He reacts to the challenge at hand, and against Spurs at the Santiago Bernabeu this week the challenge will, in part, be to stop the hottest striker in the European game right now.
As is the nature of the tabloid press, the opportunity of a Real Madrid-Spurs match-up has been taken to link Kane with a move to the Spanish capital. The theory goes that with Karim Benzema edging closer to 30, Zidane will be in need of a new number nine. Kane, being in such free-scoring form, fits the bill as the club’s next Galactico. It might well be transfer speculation by numbers, but it provides a compelling storyline of sorts ahead of Tuesday’s match.
But if Real Madrid are genuinely using the Champions League clash against Spurs as an opportunity to observe Kane at close quarters, they are looking at the wrong player. Sure, the England international would improve the Spanish champions’ options, with Zidane still counting the cost of losing Alvaro Morata as his back-up centre forward over the summer, but there’s another Spurs player even more suited to life at the Bernabeu.
Christian Eriksen has been central to all that Pochettino has achieved at Spurs over the past three seasons, with the Dane the often under-appreciated mastermind of their attacking line. The contributions of Kane and Dele Alli are well-documented, but something about Eriksen makes him a less obvious superstar. But a superstar nonetheless.
He would be the ideal fit at Real Madrid, particularly with Luka Modric now 32 and signs of gradual decline starting to creep into this game. The Spanish giants previously looked to Spurs for the solution to their midfield problems, so why wouldn’t they do the same again? Eriksen is both technically and tactically adept enough to play in such a position for such a high calibre side.
His versatility would also appeal to Zidane, such is the tactical adaptability of the Frenchman. As a central operator who is comfortable in drifting left, Eriksen would give Real Madrid something they don’t currently have. Isco has played that role in the past, but the playmaker is wasted there. On the other hand, that’s where Eriksen excels.
Real Madrid would be foolish to look at Spurs as simply a one-man team. Kane might be in the form of his life at the moment, but he has been harnessed by the quality of others around him. “No one wants to be called a one-man team, if it is meant seriously,” Eriksen said after the weekend win over Bournemouth.
“I don’t know if it was. It is a team game and if you have respect you probably don’t say it. It maybe was a joke but I don’t know. It is all about the team. Of course with the chances he gets Harry has a greater chance of scoring. He will score goals and we will help him score. But we have a strong enough team that if Harry doesn’t score then someone else will. Anyone is good enough to finish. This time the ball fell for me, but it was a team performance.”
The greatest mark of Pochettino’s success at Spurs has been in the moulding of a team that’s better than the sum of their parts. But in Eriksen he has a player who makes others around him play better. Imagine how effective he could be at Real Madrid with an even higher calibre of player around him.
