With Real Madrid entering the last quarter of the season, the burnout symptoms begin to appear in almost every line but Carlo Ancelotti has responded in a surprising way, clinging to an eleven and making the changes only in the last quarter of an hour. The best example is in these last three games that have choked the white team so much. The 0-0 in La Cerámica, the 1-0 in Paris and the 3-0 to an Alavés who managed to survive to zero until the 63rd minute of the match. In none of them this conservative Carletto He made a move before the 70th minute…
By tracking substitutions throughout the season, unusual situations are quickly detected, such as three games with only two changes (Shakhtar at the Bernabéu, Real Madrid-Cádiz and the recent visit to San Mamés with a cup elimination) and that he has barely moved the cocktail shaker during the breaks. Only six changes between the first and the middle and almost always with the same face: half of the time it was to remove Camavinga (against Espanyol, Osasuna and Granada). On six more occasions, Ancelotti stayed with the old model, that of three substitutions.
In three games this season, ‘Carletto’ barely made two substitutions and if he changes at half-time… it’s Camavinga.
The most obvious case that Ancelotti is conservative in the section of the changes is the 3-0 to the Mendilibar team. Until the second white goal, that of Vinicius, in the 80th minute, the transalpine kept the starting eleven. Only after that goal did he relax and practically made all five changes at once: Rodrygo (84′), Ceballos (84′), Hazard (84′), Marcelo (84′) and Lucas Vázquez (86′) entered almost in a rush.
A third of the campus, preserved
Madrid, once the Alavés match is over and counting the two overtimes it has played, has played a total of 3,300 minutes this season so far in four different official competitions. There are nine players who are below 30 percent of the possible minutes. Hazard (887′, 27%), Camavinga (858′, 26%), Marcelo (551, 16%), Jovic (473′, 14%), Isco (342′, 10%), Bale (270′, 8%), Lunin (210′, 6 %), Mariano (178′, 5%) and Ceballos (65′, 2%). Rotations are almost non-existent.
Modric is substituted in the match against Alavés.
Getty Images
In many of those cases, the appearances and disappearances are from one game to the other. Bale was surprisingly a starter at Vila-Real, he made the jump in the 87th minute at the Parc des Princes and didn’t merit a single minute against Alavés. All in the same week. From Ceballos, Ancelotti announced that he would be important in the final stretch but he has not had more than half an hour in a game (in the 1-2 against Elche in the Cup) since he returned from his injury and Camavinga is overshadowed by Valverde.
Issues that are beginning to cast doubt on Ancelotti’s continued and seamless commitment to a virtually identical eleven for the match. Against Alavés, for example, only one novelty, that of Valverde for Kroos. A possible reason, that of not rotating legs, which it may be weighing on the incumbents, unable to score a first-half goal in the last seven games.