The dynamic duo turns the Bernabéu into a sambodromo

One day before Real Madrid commemorated the 20th anniversary of Ronaldo Nazário’s debut in the white jersey against Alavés, two outstanding Phenomenon students once again turned the Santiago Bernabéu into a sambodrome. Vinicius and Rodrygo led Real Madrid’s victory against Shakhtar, which put the king of Europe on track for the Champions League round of 16 and cleared the way for Carlo Ancelotti’s team to focus their energies on the League, devoid of trouble for which Barça and Atlético go through in the maximum continental competition. With Benzema still erratic in front of goal, the Brazilian diamonds who, together with Valverde, lead the changing of the guard in the Chamartín team are right now the main offensive props of a squad that dances to the tune of their dynamic duo.

Real Madrid’s second goal against the Ukrainian team was a perfect compendium of the virtues on which the Whites’ attack pivots. An electric combination at the first touch between Valverde, Benzema and Rodrygo culminated in a delicately filtered ball by the São Paulo player for Vinicius to outwit the mining defense and cross into Trubin’s net. Before, Rayo had opened the scoring with a formidable right hand after teaming up with Tchouaméni and the former Flamengo player earned a standing ovation from the Santiago Bernabéu with an elastic in the jaws of Konoplia and Shved.

They were minutes in which Ancelotti’s block exhibited high-flying football. Serious, focused, energetic and with a lot of spark, in that brilliant half hour he dismantled a rival who was overwhelmed by the attacking torrent of the fourteen times lord of the continent. The subsequent relaxation that led to Zubkov’s goal and the lack of aim of a team that finished the duel with 36 shots, 14 of them on goal, kept a lawsuit in suspense that, in any case, served to reaffirm the tremendous weight they have Vinicius and Rodrygo in the present of Real Madrid.

Rodrygo, on the path of Raúl

«I am satisfied because the team has played well, pressed and combined very well up front. We have had many opportunities. But we have not succeeded. The important thing was to have opportunities and we have had them. They have combined well the three above doing spectacular things. Valverde has contributed a lot with his punch. Kroos and Tchouaméni have handled the ball well. Next week we have the opportunity to go through the group winning and focus on the League. It’s normal for the Champions League to take away your energy and this opportunity is very important,” Ancelotti summed up at the end of a match that saw Vinicius’ seventh goal and Rodrygo’s fourth so far this season. To this record of goals we must add the four assists that the ’20’ has distributed and the three goal passes that the ’21’ has served, which brings his number of participations to 18 in the 27 goals that Real Madrid accumulates in the eleven games that the whites have played to date.

Fixed on Tite’s plans for the Qatar World Cup and a serious candidate for the Ballon d’Or podium that Benzema will pick up on October 17, Vinicius is now Real Madrid’s top scorer, the Whites’ main can-opener and their most unbalancing. So plugged in is he in front of goal that the records of 22 goals and 20 assists with which he closed last year, that of his definitive consecration in the elite, seem two more than affordable ribbons for a player who is now irrepressible.

The same can be said about Rodrygo, who is on his way to emulating the emergence of his compatriot in a campaign in which the World Cup, which begins on November 20, is also marked in red on his agenda. The former Santos player is increasingly decisive in the League, with seven goals in his last twelve appearances in the domestic championship, when in the previous 67 he had only scored three goals, while maintaining his idyll with the Champions League, a tournament in which he took the alternative registering a perfect hat-trick against Galatasaray in the 2019-2020 campaign and in which he already adds eleven notches in his revolver before turning 22, a figure that Real Madrid only had at that age a certain Raúl González Blanco. His and Vinicius’s is the future, but also the present, of a team that has no ‘saudade’ from the past.