Real Madrid seeks to make a clean slate against Girona

The end of a very positive streak can also be the beginning of another no less benevolent one. That is the spirit with which Real Madrid welcomes Girona. After suffering their first defeat of the season on Tuesday when they lost away to Leipzig in the Champions League, Carlo Ancelotti’s team is looking to make a clean slate to prolong the great dynamic that keeps the Whites as vigorous governors of the League.

Still undefeated after eleven days in the championship, where they have only conceded a draw, the Chamartín team will try to strike another blow on the table at the Santiago Bernabéu. A fort that the red-and-white team surrendered on their last visit to Paseo de la Castellana with goals from Stuani and Portu, and that will now gauge the maturity of a recently returned to First Division who arrives loaded with emergencies because he is in the red zone of the table, but which offers an attractive and courageous approach.

“He plays football well. He likes to have the ball and has a good offensive organization. We have to defend well because they handle the ball well, ”Carlo Ancelotti warned in the preview of a lawsuit to which Real Madrid goes with the purpose of amending, after being the victim in Germany of a drop in tension that punished Leipzig. That siesta for the whites will force them to open their eyes wide on Sunday afternoon, when there are only three days left before the regularity tournament stops as a result of the World Cup in Qatar and enters, on the way back, into territory unexplored.

For this, Real Madrid will have to live, once again, with the loss of Benzema, who continues without recovering good feelings. Despite the fact that the club reported at the time that he only suffered muscle fatigue in the quadriceps of his left leg, the recent Ballon d’Or will be lost for three games in a row and the total number of clashes that have had him in the dry dock will be six so far in the campaign, since he has already missed three others during the month of September due to a mishap in his right thigh.

It is true that Ancelotti’s troops have not fared badly without their commander-in-chief, with the aforementioned setback against Leipzig being the only blemish he has registered on his campaign sheet when the ‘9’ has not been present, to a large extent for the scoring contribution of second swords like Valverde or Vinicius and the reliability of Rodrygo as a replacement striker. But things get complicated this time because the ex-Santos player is between cottons, after suffering a stomach problem that prevented him from training on Saturday.

a thorny rival

Ancelotti put Rodrygo in the call and everything indicates that he will appear in the eleven but, otherwise, the Italian would have to resort to Hazard, Mariano or Asensio to complete an offensive front to which Valverde returns, like Modric to the room of machines. Ceballos, who shortened the deadlines for his recovery after being injured against Osasuna, is another of the novelties presented by Real Madrid’s list for a clash against a tight but thorny opponent.

Not surprisingly, Girona boasts of something that few teams can: maintain a balanced balance in their matches against an all-powerful rival. Real Madrid and the red-and-white team have faced each other four times in the league, with two wins apiece. Stuani and Portu gave victory with their goals five years ago in Montilivi to a team that was experiencing its first season in the highest category of Spanish football against a squad that had just signed a Liga-Champions League double. And the following season, the Bernabéu saw the local side sink to the knee against a team once again exalted by the goals of Stuani and Portu, but which ended up relegated.

The Murcian attacker is now listed in the ranks of Getafe, but the Argentine striker appears again as a threat to Real Madrid in his capacity as a luxury substitute for a Girona team that has accumulated six games without winning, but does not give up anything. “I do not sign the tie,” said Míchel, who has Kebe, Juanpe, Borja García and Samu Saiz out. The coach will be able to count, on the other hand, on Miguel Gutiérrez, transferred by Real Madrid to the Girona club in the summer, but of whom the ‘white house’ retains 50% of the rights, as well as Reinier, transferred without ‘the clause of the fear’ for Real Madrid and whose class is beginning to appear at Girona, after two courses with hardly any minutes at Borussia Dortmund.