Athletic-Real Madrid Half Madrid is half League

Half Madrid is a lot of Madrid. Half Madrid is worth half the League. Medio Madrid serves this Benzema. Ancelotti’s team was one of those championship victories: under adverse circumstances, on a high altar of football, with the competition almost given up and disarmed. ANDn seven minutes Benzema, who came out applauded, invented a goal and found another and Madrid later became responsibly thrifty. Athletic was left with the honesty of not raising a white flag and taking the rival to the limit in a marked match, which was not devalued, by the sixth wave.

Valverde and Camavinga for Modric and Casemiro, who have appeared in the best photos of the team in recent years. Physics through chemistry in Madrid on a difficult day, because there are few more participatory stadiums than San Mamés and few teams more applied in high pressure than Athletic, a short-effort team. To get the game going, Marcelino changed four of those who beat Betis in a comeback that the fans experienced as heroic. And the heroic was dragged from minute 3, victim of a goal that did not exist, a touch of the wand of Benzema that entered as precise and unexpected. He received a short from Kroos near the vertex of the area and he threw intuition: he put a first thread to the worst post protected by Aguirrezabala and that was the end of it. It caught the public, Athletic and the other ten Madridistas on the field by surprise.

Unai Núñez’s mistake

That is what distinguishes Benzema, the most multidisciplinary striker of the moment. Because from a classic midfielder he jumped to that of a goalkeeper. Unai Núñez went to put his foot in and put his foot in the Athletic area and enabled the Frenchman, who has also specialized in not leaving waste in the area. He applied a low and unstoppable shot.

It was a thoroughbred departure for Madrid as soon as it smelled that it would be played in the open field. Unlike his game in recent victories, here he did not start with calculator in hand. Neither does Athletic, a team whose pride does not fit in La Catedral, regardless of the moment, the squad, the coach and even the season of the year.

In the dynamics of the game he got another super goal, from Sancet, the relief of Raúl García, whose shot placed on the edge of the area became impossible for Courtois. All in ten minutes of great roar, at the height of this centennial classic. There was Athletic again and they started again.

Camavinga’s risk

When it was time to make the first balance of damage, Athletic regretted the loss of Íñigo Martínez, the hierarch of its defense. And Madrid was concerned about Camavinga’s lack of containment, several times on the verge of a yellow card that in the position he held often becomes critical. For the pivot square, lungs, vocation and trade are needed. The French has plenty of the first, the second has not been proven and is far from the third. Ultimately, it is dangerously incomplete.

The hemorrhage of goals did not stop the game because Athletic plays at this, to charge the duels with rhythm, more if they lose. And Madrid found spaces, where it is better managed because it has footballers for it and because of its traditional deficit of patience. He is not remembered for a tiquitaca moment in recent years. In one of those outings, Hazard had the third, but he missed the last pass, his specialty. It is still difficult for him to pass third, but he has left the message that he has a remedy. Athletic threatened with long shots because he was not able to feed Williams, a great striker who does not have the average goal per kilometer. Minimizing him and Muniain, who is no longer the star of the team, but rather its chief of staff, was Madrid’s success in the first half. The Athletic one, reduce Vinicius to almost nothing.

In the second half the climate changed. Madrid came out to protect themselves with the ball, with a possession as abusive as it was ineffective. It helped that Athletic pressured him late and badly. That is the latest version of Ancelotti’s team, which has one eye on the scoreboard and the other on the fuel needle. Look long term and take risks in the short term.

White resistance

It was Marcelino who decided to change the script with Nico Williams, almost as supersonic as his brother, to look for Madrid on the right. He also shot Raúl García, against a rival who makes him huge. Interestingly, Ancelotti’s team also performed better on the right, with Lucas Vázquez’s drum and Hazard’s violin, although little progress was recorded. In fact, Madrid began to falter. Nico Williams did not take advantage of a gift from Lucas. He has already missed a train of that style at the Bernabéu. And San Mamés, the real lion, sent an optimistic message to the team.

Ancelotti opted for epic resistance. He looked at the bench and became depressed. So he did not play anything until the very end, when he put Mariano in and made his youth squad debut Peter (what the hell is wrong with Blanco?), While the exhausted eleven from the start was indulging in extreme suffering. However, Aguirrezabala took a goal from a good Hazard and another from Kroos. Courtois denied it to Nico Williams. And the game ended as big as it started.