Unbeaten run has uncomfortable echoes for Real Madrid - can Zinedine Zidane avoid slip?

When Real Madrid took to the pitch for their first game of the year in 2015 they were given a guard of honour by Valencia. Carlo Ancelotti’s team had just won the FIFA Club World Cup and it was official: they were the best club team in the world. They were also on a run of 31 games without defeat. Of course they lost 2-1 and the season subsequently imploded.

Ronaldo opened the scoring that day from the penalty spot and it seemed like business as usual. But Pepe put through his own net and Nicolas Otamendi got the winner. Atletico Madrid then swiftly knocked them out of the Copa del Rey and went on to beat them 4-0 in a Liga derby the next month.

A lot has changed in the last two years. The asset stripping that has taken place at Peter Lim’s club is off the scale – Otamendi is now at Manchester City and his central defensive partner that day Shkodran Mustafi is now at Arsenal. Paco Alcacer and Andre Gomes are at Barcelona and Sofiane Feghouli and Alvaro Negredo have also been flogged to the Premier League.

For Madrid, Ancelotti is – completely unfairly – a footnote in the club’s history books. Sure, he won their 10th Champions League but he was sacked a year later and that defeat to Valencia was the beginning of the end for him and for the team he had built.

It’s pertinent now because Madrid are back where Ancelotti’s side were two years ago. Under Zinedine Zidane they look invincible. The recent league win over Atletico Madrid and the performances against Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona have shown as much. They did not win the Clasico but the draw gives them a six-point advantage and the result with Dortmund ends up leaving them in the easier half of Monday’s draw.

It has now been 34 games without defeat and if they beat Deportivo on Saturday, Zidane will be the first Madrid coach ever to manage the side to a 35-game run without a loss.

Depor thrashed Real Sociedad 5-1 last Monday but they are still one of La Liga’s weaker outfits and Zidane’s team should get the three points, tie-up that record, and make mathematically sure that they finish the year on top of the table.

Then next week they travel to Japan for the Club World Cup and that will be the big test: coming back to Spain and trying to ensure they don’t run out of steam as they did two years ago.

The precedent has been set and it’s not a banana skin strategically placed down a dark alley by a cunning rival, it’s a 10-storey neon danger sign on the horizon: beware the Club World Cup hangover.

There are several reasons to believe history will not repeat itself this season. For a start, the winter break this year is a full two weeks. And their first game back is not a testing trip to a strong (at least they were then) Valencia. Instead they face lowly Granada at home.

And what really did for them in the second half of the 2014-2015 season were injuries and a lack of unity. They lost Luka Modric and James Rodriguez, who had been so important in the first half of the campaign. And the seeds of in-fighting were already present in the Valencia defeat. Ronaldo moaned at Bale for not passing to him in the second half when the Welshman tried to shoot instead of crossing.

Ronaldo then had a birthday party the night of the 4-0 Madrid derby defeat to Atletico. Some players went, some didn’t; he got down on the dance floor and was filmed doing so by guest master of ceremonies Kevin Roldan, and when the videos went viral it helped kill the season.

Zidane is no disciplinarian but such partying seems unlikely now and the squad is stronger than it was then. Bale and Ronaldo get along and along with Toni Kroos and Luka Modric they have had bumper pay-rises to demonstrate how important they are to the club.

No one was signed in the summer and no one will be arriving next summer because of a transfer ban. The group will stay together and although they have had injuries they coped without Modric and Kroos and will cope without Bale, who will come back to drive them on in the run-in.

There is a sense that the trip to Japan to play the Club World Cup this time will be more of a speed bump than a mountain. They might have to slow down in January but they look on course to win this league.