The leader recovers Yashin against a Sevilla low in defenses

Real Madrid welcomes Sevilla with the good news of the return of Thibaut Courtois to the squad. After missing the last six games due to annoying sciatica, the Belgian goalkeeper will go under the sticks again for a match in which the Santiago Bernabéu will pay tribute to the brand new recipient of the Yashin Trophy and the brilliant winner of the Ballon d’Or, a Karim Benzema who has recovered his best version and is once again the offensive beacon of a leader unleashed.

The whites, whom only Osasuna has been able to bring down to earth in a League that they govern at the moment with an iron fist, aspire to continue putting pressure on Barça by beating Jorge Sampaoli’s team, who will appear in the Chamartín temple low in defenses but with Isco putting the curiosity in the return of the midfielder from Arroyo de la Miel to what was his home for nine campaigns in which he left lights and shadows.

“Happy to greet him and see him play. For this club he has been a great footballer and a great person”, he pointed out regarding that reunion with the stylish footballer from Malaga, a Carlo Ancelotti who has pleasant memories of the time he shared with his pupil in two different stages, the first marked by the takeoff of who was a great promise of Spanish football and the second for his decline in the ‘white house’.

Rescued by the later ousted Julen Lopetegui for a Sevilla that is trying to get their pulse back after a lousy start to the campaign that ended Asteasu’s coach’s project, Isco hopes to get a good reception from the Bernabéu in a match to which Real Madrid comes with wind in favor, but also with a small touch of attention from his coach. “We are not always forceful, sometimes we look at ourselves too much in the mirror,” Ancelotti acknowledged in the previous one.

Courts of Oreja

The Reggiolo coach is aware that, despite the splendid moment his squad is going through, sooner or later he will have to face a bump in the road and he believes that keeping his soldiers on their toes is the best way to prevent fall into an excess of complacency. “There are no invincible teams and we don’t feel that way,” said the Real Madrid coach, who only has the absences of Ceballos and Mariano for a lawsuit in which everything indicates that he will make up his gala eleven.

After resting in the interweekly duel against Elche, Mendy will foreseeably recover his position on the left side and Tchouaméni will once again act as bodyguard for Modric and Kroos in midfield. Said provision would once again place Valverde as a right winger despite the exceptional performance of Rodrygo, scorer in last Sunday’s classic and double assistant on Wednesday at Martínez Valero. The player from São Paulo, by the way, was decisive in the last dispute against Sevilla, when he put the comeback on track at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán with a goal at the beginning of the second half, which definitively cleared the way for the whites’ thirty-fifth league wing.

The abundance of troops of Real Madrid contrasts with the scarcity of parts that Sevilla presents, especially in the rear. Sampaoli has the absence in that plot of the suspended Kike Salas, sent off in the crazy final match against Valencia, as well as those of the injured Nianzou and Rekik. The good news for Casilda’s coach is that Marcao, who was granted rest due to muscular fatigue against the team with the bat, entered the list and could act as head of a line that earns a lot with his experience and hierarchy. Gudelj could delay his position to accompany the Brazilian and perhaps Carmona at the rear, despite the fact that Sampaoli’s pulse did not shake on Tuesday with the youth squad, a flan in that first half hour in which Valencia returned to expose the defensive vulnerability of the Nervion team.

Fernando, still affected by the consequences of a virus that has not allowed him to play for a month; Acuña, weighed down by a chronic problem; and Corona, long-term injured, are the other casualties of a Sevilla that has not won at the Bernabéu since December 2008 and has recorded twelve defeats in its last thirteen league visits to the Chamartín arena. Despite this, Sampaoli, who acknowledged that Real Madrid is “extremely dangerous” and “unpredictable”, does not give up giving the surprise. “We will try to play a game with a lot of audacity, if the rival allows it. The idea is not to live as a partner, but to try to star in it, “proclaimed the Argentine.