Real Madrid’s Preseason: Setback against Barcelona Raises Concerns but Hope Remains

Real Madrid received their first major setback of this 2023-24 season in Dallas, and we are only in preseason. The first two friendly matches played by the white team left mostly positive feelings: in the first against Milan they showed defensive weakness (they went 0-2 at half-time), but also the character to turn it around and end up winning 3-2; and in the second against United the key was the defensive seriousness and flashes of enormous quality from two of his signings, Bellingham and Joselu. But against Barcelona, ​​the white team suffered a serious setback that, despite the friendly nature of the match, has left injuries in the dressing room.

The white dugout left the At&T Stadium in Dallas with mixed feelings and a bittersweet taste: the defeat against their eternal rival clearly, by 0-3, always has to be seen as a major setback, but at the same time performance is positively weighted of the team, especially after Dembélé’s 0-1 loss, when Ancelotti’s men took a step forward and went for Barça’s jugular. The reality is that only aim was lacking: Madrid shot 29 times (Barça, only 12), 5 of them on target and up to 14 outside the three sticks (another 10 shots were blocked). Among those 14 shots outside the goal are the five times the ball ended up in the posts, quite an anomaly: Vinicius (three times), Bellingham and Tchouameni were one breath away from scoring.

“Five sticks… Better in preseason”

Hence, within the evident pain that the Madrid expedition has for having clearly given in to their eternal rival, there is also hope that the path is the right one, even though in this duel the whites went off the curve. The one who best defined it in the mixed zone was Carvajal, just after the game: “Losing against Barcelona is never a tasteful dish, but you have to know the moment we are in, what the game means. I am convinced that in official competition we are going to pass over them. We’ve had many more chances, we’ve hit the post five times, we missed a penalty… Let people be calm, that at the moment of truth we’ll run over them”.

Ancelotti, in the mixed zone, wanted to downplay the matter and preferred to look on the positive side: “It seemed that there was a wall in the goal. It is a new team and we have to adapt, but it has turned out well. We have to continue. Without a fixed ‘9′ we have chances, they stand out well up front and that’s positive. We have given five sticks, it had never happened to me… It better be in preseason. It hurts us to lose, but I keep the good things.” This is the general feeling of the Real Madrid dressing room, which already has extra motivation for the first official Clásico of the season, which will take place on October 28 or 29 in Barcelona, ​​in the first round of the League.

2023-07-30 15:12:08
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