The game ended with Lucas Vázquez acting as Real Madrid’s Haaland but jumping from much further away for a lateral cross, with Militao at right back after a glacial absence, Carvajal spread out on the grass asking for a change after having a glorious game, and the rest practically dead, wandering around the grass without legs or lungs, watching blue planes pass by the interior lanes that they centered again and again, again and again, again and again, so that forwards and midfielders could bombard Lunin.
Real Madrid fans believed in Madrid, but how without the ball? Such extraordinary things happen in this club that they reserved the possibility that in stoppage time City itself, passing it to them, would score an own goal: if Madrid needs to win and they don’t give them the ball, sometimes there is no other choice.
What Real did this historic Wednesday night was not a game lesson, nor anything that had strictly to do with football: it was an exhibition of competitiveness, of convincing themselves that City’s overwhelming machine was not going to be able with them; The citizens were able to tie and it took them 70 minutes, but they couldn’t score one more goal. And so it was that an army of lame people, cramped, broken and lost from putting their asses in the area and running after the ball, conspired to at least reach the penalties, and there, face to face, we would see. A conspiracy from another era, an impossible objective seeing the deployment by land, sea and air of the last European champion. It could not be lost: it was not lost. Madrid works like this. When your opponent is so superior, when you have been hit with a barrage of shots and corners and you can’t win in regulation time, when the only thing you can do on the field is wait for the knockout blow, you dedicate your time not to lose. It’s first to win.
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It came to penalties, no one still knows how, the English scored the first and the Madrid fans missed theirs. And what happened? That the shootout was won, that the match was won and that Real Madrid, or what remains of it after 120 minutes standing up against a hydraulic press that had it running over the crossbar, is in the semi-finals of the European Cup .
All, after resisting with a goal of beautiful anatomy that blew up the game shortly after it began. It was a play that started with Vinicius at minute 11.09. The Brazilian moved on the left wing, visiting her like a prince from other lands reviewing his ancient kingdoms, and Kevin De Bruyne pounced on him to send her away: throw-in. Nobody knew then that that play in the center of the field would anticipate a goal. And, if we do know, it is impossible to know for whom. This is how these two beasts work, the prehistoric Madrid, and the latest evolution of the City species: their goals are born from gray and timeless moments, moments of looking away from the field and checking their cell phone; They manage games while the world, sleepless, sleeps for a few seconds. And that’s how they started the game, very slowly, studying each other with the ball stopped at their feet. Two buffaloes looking at each other, receiving each other’s breath and encouragement, tame and potentially violent.
Mendy’s throw-in went to Nacho, Kroos ran to be seen at his side and received it to release it because Kroos understands football as a philosophy of life: you touch and return, with a better touch, and that’s what they are all about. the best things that happen to us: not having them for much time to ourselves and thus not getting bored or boring others. Nacho again to Lunin, who acted as a libero embedded in the goal for the first 25 minutes, before City got angry. And Lunin sent it over two citizen attackers to Carvajal, a Madrid hero who had fallen in combat, his match already remembered, who stopped it with his chest and detected a movement above: it was Bellingham with a flashlight finding a crack in the defense of the City.
The ball, which they call “rained” in slang, was brought down by Bellingham, it would seem, with his hands, dying at his side, and he disrupted two defenders, one with control and the other with his dribble. Pajarito Valverde received the ball and gave it to Vinicius, ahead of his markers but not one in blue who appeared in the VAR photo enabling him. The Brazilian faked his defender to scratch a few precious centimeters and his very strong cross was caught by a forward, Rodrygo, who in Qatar rubbed his hands on Ronaldo Nazario’s legs and then rubbed them on his; He shot once and shot twice: goal. Another game was starting. Not necessarily good for Madrid. Yes, necessarily better.
What followed next is now part of the legend of the many victories that Madrid has achieved in Europe. A resistance that was first full and then weakened, suffocated, fed up with life, the ball and the City players, but resistance nonetheless. Modric missed the first penalty and Modric can never say goodbye to Madrid in the Champions League like that. Antonio Rudiger, who has been at Madrid for twenty seasons, scored the decisive penalty; Very close to the side of the net, it seems that he even touches the stick, and the explosion of incomprehension, relief and euphoria was absolute. “What was that?” said a sleepless boy when he heard the shouting in a Madrid building after Rudiger’s goal. His father, laconic: “The usual.”
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2024-04-17 22:33:37
#Madrid #Soccer #Sports
