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The great season of Eder Militaothat of his consecration in the Real Madrid, has been peppered with a few games of drama and tragedy where he is the unfortunate protagonist. One of those nights was at the Santiago Bernabéu against Barcelona; another seemed to be yesterday’s against Sevilla, where he missed both of Lopetegui’s goals. But the defender recovered from his ills to have a great second half in his team’s victory at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuan.
Right from the start, the Brazilian was bothered by Martiala striker with enough quality to go down to receive and with the precise speed to ask for the ball into space.
The Frenchman is an intelligent footballer: he knew that Militao is one of the best specialists in the art of anticipation and, time and time again, he put his body between the ball and the defender to take care of it. The madridista, overwhelmed, saw how Martial gave continuity to all the plays in which he participated and, even, in a body with him, he had the first chance of the match; a shot on the half turn that grazed the right post of Courtois in minute nine.
But his first flagrant error came at 1-0, in the foul scored by Iván Rakitic. Inexplicably, the former Porto player left the barrier and put the ball into his hole with class. Incredulous, Fede Valverde witnessed how Éder dedicated a series of fusses to him, which from a distance seemed to incriminate the Uruguayan in the error.
Four minutes later, in minute 25, Sevilla confirmed that they were having an excellent first half. Corona won his back against Militao -who, in fact, had to restrain himself from taking a penalty- and in one-on-one with Courtois he served the ball to coverslip so that inside he signed the 2-0. Again, the young defender erred in one of his greatest attributes, in reading the play and getting ahead of the attacker.
In addition, the white defense as a whole fell into a perennial error in Ancelotti’s Real Madrid: line jumps to the receiver in the middle of the field, leaving a hole in the defense that can lead to fatal consequences. Those gaps have already been taken advantage of by Ferran y Aubameyang in the classic; as did Mount and Werner in the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Chelsea.
However, a muscle problem kept Martial out of the game on the eve of the break and, since then, together with Rafa Mir -a much more predictable striker-, Militao breathed. With the arrival of the second half, the possible reaction of Real Madrid arrived. The capital team advanced lines and defended forward; and at that precise moment, Militao became huge again. The young Brazilian forgot his faults and starred in several defensive actions in the open field worthy of being seen on television again.
With a great Rodrygo and an always persistent Vinicius, Real Madrid came close to a draw that Cuadra Fernández inexplicably avoided by pointing a hand at a ball that touched Vinicius’s shoulder. Although Real Madrid, impassive, found the equalizer through Nacho Fernández. And, shortly after, the hero of always, Benzema, sealed a new victory for the Whites to almost close the League.
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