For the fifth consecutive game, Thibaut Courtois was an impassable wall against Alavés. A couple of notable stops from the Belgian with shots from Burke and Joselu were decisive for Real Madrid to achieve their eighth triumph without truce since the resumption of the championship and began to savor what, except for the capital debacle, will be the thirty-fourth league title in its history. The second to the side of Zinedine Zidane, who has transformed the whites by focusing on defensive scaffolding, with the giant of Bree as outstanding pillar that flies towards its third Zamora Beating the best version that he offered at Atlético and is in a position to pulverize historical records in the ‘white house’ at the end of a campaign that began in the eye of the hurricane and will end as an undisputed benchmark of the goal for the next few years.
Since 2008 Real Madrid did not chain five league clashes with the goal to zero and Courtois could beat the Whites’ best all-time record before the championship ends, reaching seven in the 1994-1995 and 1997-1998 seasons.
«It has a very great influence. He is our goalkeeper and what each game is doing is phenomenal. It is a matter for everyone when it comes to defending, but Thibaut is taking two or three chances from the rival again today and it has been good for us to make those two or three stops, ”applauded Zinedine Zidane, little friend of singling out praise but who He had no qualms about making an exception with the keeper in view of his great performance against the blue and white squad.
Slats
Was the eighteenth meeting of the current league year in which Courtois leaves his goal intact, matching the record Paco Buyo signed in the 1987-1988 campaign and one of the white record that the Galician goalkeeper had set the previous season. With three games ahead and a state of mind in terms of form and confidence, everything indicates that the former Chelsea player will cross that bar, which is but one of several that he is in a position to attack with the few remaining battles to tackle the big jump.
The ’13’ accumulates 462 minutes without picking up the ball from the back of the net, those that have elapsed since Mikel Merino’s goal on June 21 at the Reale Arena that meant the second and for the moment the last goal that conceded since the ball rolled for the Whites seven days earlier at Alfredo Di Stéfano.
This 73 minutes from pulverizing his best mark since he has been at Real Madrid, which he set between October 19 and November 23 of last year when he remained unbeaten for 535 minutes from the target of Lago Junior in Son Moix that led to the defeat of the Whites until that of Willian José who advanced to Real Sociedad in the Santiago Bernabéu, in a match that would end up decanting the premises with goals from Benzema, Valverde and Modric. Then, the record of 534 minutes that Keylor Navas left, the long shadow with which he had to live in his first year in Chamartín, burst.
The New Los Cármenes, where the Whites will play against Granada their penultimate final in the title race, could therefore be the scene of a new feat by Courtois, who also sees the league top that he reached with Atlético in the 2011-2012 League: 579 minutes without being surpassed by anyone.
Then Víctor Valdés separated him from a Zamora trophy that the Belgian would conquer in the following two campaigns, when he signed averages of 0.78 and 0.65 goals per game, respectively. Now he leads the ranking with 18 goals received in 32 games played, a superb 0.56 coefficient which places him as the sixth best in history, and has practically tied the award, which would place him at the height of legends such as Ricardo Zamora or Luis Miguel Arconada.
Agile, sober, concentrated and beneficiary of the defensive rigor of his teammates, Courtois will be the first Zamora trophy under Real Madrid sticks since Iker Casillas got it twelve years ago. And one of the fundamental keys to explain a league title that only seems to lack the corollary.
.
