Next Sunday, 31th of August 2014, Real Madrid will travel to the Basque Country to go head-to-head with Real Sociedad at Anoeta for the second round of the Spanish Liga BBVA.

After a fairly modest start against La Liga’s newcomers Córdoba last Monday, the current European champions will now have to be, at least, more intense and consistent if they want to score the three points after their trip to Anoeta next Sunday.

Real Madrid spent big this Summer, but despite the quality additions to the team, Carlo Ancelotti is still yet to find a way to make the best of his team, as the Merengues’ performances have certainly left something to be desired so far. Their defeat by the hand of Atlético Madrid on the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup has surely left a sour taste of defeat both on the team and on their supporters, who probably expected a bit more from the team’s millionaire signings.

Real’s Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti has already tried out two different tactical approaches so far in order to make the best from the new signings and to find some room for them at his already star-packed team, but he will definitely need more time to achieve that. With enough talent both at midfield and forward lines, Real’s major problem seems to be back in the defence line, whose players tend to be fairly error prone from time to time, and both tactical approaches (4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1) Carlo Ancelotti tried so far didn’t seem to be able to fix that issue.

For the next Sunday’s match at Anoeta, the Merengues’ Italian head coach will have all his players at his disposal, with the exception of the Portuguese international Fábio Coentrão, who is currently sidelined with a sprained knee.

As for Real Sociedad, the Basque team season start was by all means unimpressive as they were defeat at the Gipuzkoa derby against La Liga newcomers’ Eibar.

Jagoba Arrasate’s boys will have to make a difficult trip to Russia on Thursday to face Krasnodar for the second leg of the UEFA Europa League playoff and such a long travel might influence Real Sociedad’s performance on Sunday against Real Madrid as they will not have much time to rest after the match.

When both sides met at Anoeta last season, Real Madrid controlled the match and easily won 4-0. Regardless of that, next Sunday’s match might not be that easy, although Los Merengues are to be considered favourites.

Real Sociedad

Stats: W-2 L-3 D-0

Recent Form - LWWLL

Real Madrid

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - WLDLW

Possible Line-ups

Real Sociedad (4-1-4-1) - Zubikarai - C. Martínez - Elustondo - I. Martínez - Yuri - Bergara - Canales - X. Prieto - Granero - Carlos Vela - Agirretxe

Real Madrid (4-2-3-1) - Casillas - Carvajal - Pepe - Sergio Ramos - Marcelo - Modric - Kroos - James Rodríguez - Di Maria - Bale - Benzema

Prediction

Real Sociedad 1 Real Madrid 2