A Champions attack

On July 23, 2019 something broke for Zidane. That day, in a pre-season friendly, Asensio seriously injured his knee and truncated one of the ideas on which the coach planned to cement his second project as a white coach: the Asensio-Benzema-Hazard trident. That famous BBC from its first stage (Bale, Benzema, Cristiano) was going to give way to a new offensive trio.

A year later, Zizou was able to join his favorite trident against Huesca and the result could not be better: 4-1 against Huesca. It was Hazard's return to eleven and also Asensio's fourth consecutive start. Benzema finally has the two companions that Zidane always wanted for him in the big events and thanked him: two goals.

Hazard left a great sensation (great goal included) and Asensio was more discreet, although he left good details that join the great performance he made against Borussia in the Champions League. Now, with Madrid gambling for its future in the Champions League in tomorrow's game against Inter (9pm at Alfredo di Stéfano), Zizou can count on the starting three. The Spaniard and the Belgian have already definitely forgotten their physical problems, while Benzema has recovered his best version.

Real Madrid buried the debate over the lack of a goal by the white attackers against Huesca. At least it silenced him for a few days. Hazard saw the goal again 392 days later, Benzema scored his first double of the season and Valverde completed the list of scorers with his third goal of the season. Four goals in total, a collection of so many that Madrid had not achieved for almost nine months. He had achieved it for the last time on February 9, during his visit to Osasuna. 25 games later, Madrid thrashed again.

Zidane's team has become in recent months a more solid than sharp team. The key to success in the post-lockdown stretch of Liga 34 was the security of the white rear. Madrid scored in all the games after the break (so far this current season they have already failed against Real Sociedad and Cádiz), but their goalscoring ceiling in the same match remained in the three goals they scored in the first two commitments , against Eibar and Valencia at Di Stéfano. In the seven months before the coronavirus raged, Madrid scored four or more goals in 6 of 39 games: 4 against Granada, 5 against Leganés, 6 against Galatasaray, 4 against Eibar, 4 against Zaragoza and the 4 mentioned against Osasuna.

Madrid closed last season with less than 100 goals in favor in all competitions for the first time in 12 years, although, with 6 fewer games, it improved the average of the previous one (1.94 goals per game, compared to 1, 89 of the first exercise without Cristiano). Before hosting Huesca, the 13 goals in 8 games yielded an average of 1.63 goals per game for Real Madrid. With the defeat of the Huesca, the index has rebounded to 1.89, like two years ago. Something that Zidane hopes to keep now that he has 'his' trident ready.