Ancelotti embraces his colleagues like brothers in a brotherhood. With more affection he did Igor JovicevicShakhtar coach with a past in Madrid and who, despite not having played, sounds legendary and nostalgic to us, like any name from the 1990s.
His Shakhtar, who has been horrifying for years, has ethical integrity and came out of the game very well, but found a Madrid wanting to forget Osasuna and the FIFA stumble. He came out with rhythm in his legs, with his tone restored, as if his first mission was to avoid at all costs falling into the ‘Champions’ apathy of other times. There is the word: puffycame out plugged in, and they pressed and enclosed the rival in a group, like flocks of aggressive white birds.
On the first occasion something was seen that would be repeated: Benzema passed the ball to Rodrygo that, close to him, he no longer thought of attending, he no longer thought of as a subordinate, but shot as a co-striker. In the Champions League and at home, the best of him could be expected…
viniciusa little more alone in his band, in his usual war against the world (the cruel world organized as a support system for the right side), he launched a flash of video library leaving two (and between the two) with a dribble that was like half a cow’s tail but out, outside, upside down, with a bit of a spoon… what elastic dribble was that? It was as if Vinicius, always covered by two, was perfecting the bi-dribble, the dribble in pairs.
The other young prop, Valverde, gave samples of his generosity finishing the plays anywhere on the field like a spectacular panting horse all mane, back and shine, with eyes of having run out of meadow. The beginning of his understanding with Benzema was seen, of his particular personal intelligence or, as Valdano would say, of his society (Benzema accumulates companies with always majority stakes in the capital).
From something like that came the 2-0, a great choral goal. Tchouaméni started (Kroos behind, in the telepathic plot of the play); He went through Valverde, Rodrygo and Benzema and Vinicius finished it off with a one-touch shot. The key had been that accumulation of football, the Silicon Valley of football between Rodrygo, Valverde and Benzema in a very small common space. That was being the key of the game. About Benzema’s midfielder Rodrygo falls and adds lubrication, greater agility. Valverde alternated inside and outside in a way that is now his alone, playing in both, inside-outside; and Rodrygo alternated the band to open the play, the field, to start from that width, then going to Benzema, but not to get in the way, but to multiply.
After the goal there were minutes of delight, one, two, three more goals could have been scored and perhaps the apotheosis was the opportunity in the 33rd minute, in the form of a long counterattack that Benzema launched for Valverde, allowing the fan to dream that it was not Valverde but Cristiano or Bale or Di María, that time had not passed or that it was coming back like the same dazzling ‘counter’ (the Proustian backlash! Parks of melancholy at the Bernabéu!). Madrid had been precise in the very short space left by Shakhtar at the beginning and now it was in the very long one, from field to field; he had been fast in the short and very fast in the long, like adding two different speeds: Valverde’s physical and Benzema’s mental increased by the proximity of Rodrygo. It’s funny: Benzema improves the rest and Rodrygo improved Benzema.
Madrid was sweet, in the honey of football, with a couple of resounding occasions that Vinicius missed, when he arrived Zubkov’s 2-1 in a familiar way: center to the right of Madrid, loose, soft, and shot by the striker without a mark, happy among the nines, watched from afar by Alaba. The lack of adjustment, the detachment of the brand, the little ‘corporeality’ of the Madrid centrals, a particularly visible defect in Alaba, who has midfielder’s thoughts that give him away, seemed to irritate Ancelotti just before the break and his team returned with the same determination from the beginning; concentration and pressure, although Shakhtar was already alive in the game with the threat of Mudryk and the purpose was not so fresh. When someone leaves (a team, a person…) they don’t come back at all.
Vinicius remained, in his particular mental cosmos, and as in each game he left an assortment of new dribbles, like a tray of cakes to take home. It’s like a creative pastry chef.
The 4-3-3 was adapted to the coexistence of Modric and Valverde and now it is adapted to that of Valverde and Rodrygo, to a new distribution of tasks and functions. Rodrygo is no longer the simple pure extreme; the team acknowledges his evolution and the system opens up and changes shape for him. He adapted first, and now the Whole adapts to him. The match was that: the recognition of the new maturity of Rodrygo, who gains importance and ‘centrality’.
Madrid did not reach the brilliance of the first half, although they continued to shoot a lot, even too much, dozens of times, as if they did not want to mature the plays again. Trubin he stopped several, there was a stick from Asensio… It could have been a scandalous win that, all things considered, the Shakhtar men didn’t deserve either.
