While the legs are resting after an intense week in Portugal, Benítez’s head cannot be given much rest. For him it is decision time. There are many players awaiting his trial to know what to expect. Through Juan Carlos Calero, the coach expressed the need to give himself a deadline to meet the members of a dressing room in which he had just landed. He was not worth seeing them train in Mos and he attached great importance to what he noticed in the Algarve in the first two competition matches. Once this procedure has been completed, the coach has to decide (or confirm) the positions that it is essential to strengthen in this market, which footballers do not have a place in his work group, which ones will stay with him and point out those who will train by his side even if their main radius of action is in the subsidiary.
The kids have not made it easy (or they have) for the Madrid coach. While a good part of the hard core of the squad still have joints creaking in the middle of the intense summer work (except for Aidoo who doesn’t understand squeaks) and they are far from their ideal shape, the most outstanding thing these days in Portugal has been precisely the performance and the response given by several of the youngest members of the squad.
Another step in search of reliability
The case of Hugo Sotelo is possibly the most striking of all. The midfielder, who has not yet turned twenty, assimilates concepts as if he were a sponge. After a remarkable season with the reserve team, his appearance in the first team confirms the theory of those who have pointed to him for some time as the next great appearance from the quarry. Benítez has given him many minutes (an hour against Benfica) and it didn’t take long for him to check his evolution. Against Al Nasser some more confused were seen, but against Benfica, a rival of obvious substance, he showed his criteria to make the ball run, to activate his teammates and to maintain control of the game. It is no coincidence that he was one of the players with the most presence in these two games because Sotelo is precisely one of the footballers in whom the coach is most interested. But also, the midfielder has added an evolution in the way of going to pressure after loss, one of his pending accounts and aspects of the game in which he had to evolve the most. In the absence of players arriving for that demarcation (it will surely be the area of the field in which there will be the most movement until the market ends) it is possible that Sotelo will continue to have an important role in the remainder of the summer and we do not rule out that it will even extend beyond.
Another of the big news this week has been Sergio Carreira. The winger, who is one of those who is on the starting ramp this summer in search of another loan, was the resource used by Rafa Benítez to make up for the absence of left-backs in the squad since Manu Sánchez will not join until Tuesday, July 25. Although Jose Fontán was the first option in that sector, the man from Catoira looked with a changed leg. It is evident that for a right-handed player like him it is a burden to occupy that area of the field, but he did it with intelligence, sense and above all offering solutions due to the resources he has for handling the ball, passing and using space. Carreira, with his attitude, showed that he wants an opportunity. His problem is that there are too many players in his natural band (a squad cannot afford to have three right-backs) but his performance in these games has probably made Benítez think about what is better and whether he should do without a player like him.
In addition to Carreira, other footballers such as Carlos Domínguez confirmed their good evolution and made it clear that they respond when they receive an opportunity. Now it is up to Benítez to determine if they have a place in his team or it is necessary for them to continue their progression in another team in the coming months. In Portugal the boys clearly have taken advantage of the time.
Benítez: “Everyone has worked very well”
Rafa Benítez played down the importance of his team’s first defeat, on Friday in the Algarve trophy against Benfica (2-0), because they gave “the face” until the last minutes of the match. “We reached 0-0 at minute 87, with the conditions in which we arrived, making many changes and against such a strong rival, that they practically have two teams that can play in the Champions League,” said the sky-blue coach. For Benítez, the work during the pre-season stage on Portuguese soil has been “extraordinary”, which is why he congratulated both his players and his coaching staff. “Everyone has worked very well, lending a hand. The atmosphere of the team has been noticed, where all the players have shown their faces until the end”, assessed the Madrid coach, who recalled that they faced the Portuguese champion, a block with “high-level players” on the bench which allowed them to maintain the level and even increase it in the final stretch of the match.
2023-07-23 04:10:51
#batch #claiming #site
