Athletic-Real Madrid Madrid and VAR finish the League

From now on they will listen to all kinds of topics about the advisability of precaution in these cases, but reality says that Madrid has the League in the pot, that here a regrowth of Barça is almost impossible. Zidane's team survived a suffocating and intense match in San Mamés, it was resolved after another VAR zapatiesta, who interpreted that there are first stomps (Dani García's to Marcelo that ended in a penalty) and second (Ramos's involuntary to Raúl García who was left in limbo). The invention deserves someone to take out the safety car and put things back in order. Madrid, in any case, was what the scoreboard said: better by a span.

In exaggerated version, this is the League, which awards the jersey of the constancy once a year: it is played cold or on the grill this Sunday in Bilbao; inside, outside or in Di Stéfano, which is neither one nor the other; with or without public; with rest and with a beating over before the 72 hours of courtesy. The pandemic is just a little more lead in an already heavy backpack. A long distance race in which Madrid was for a long time almost indestructible, but which has been unfriendly in recent times, in which he earned a living as a sprinter in the Champions League.

Zidane's lineup proved that you can have a large squad and not too many players. Those times of extreme rotations are long gone, where the holders took a tubular out from the substitutes. So in San Mamés the essentials changed: Militao due to Varane's injury; Marcelo for Mendy so as not to lose the habit; Valverde for muscle midfield against an opponent who lifts weights, and Rodrygo and Asensio, reactive against Getafe, to open the field. Bale, the beautiful sleeper, is at the tail of the platoon, waiting almost without hope that one day he will come to his senses and improve more than his handicap. And very in regression are others like Jovic, Mariano, Isco or Lucas Vázquez, whom not even this hydroalcoholic miniliga has rehabilitated. James is only part of the landscape.

Athletic is not far away, whose eleven has been reciting for some time although it admits nuances. Williams and Muniain changed positions frequently to knock down Madrid for their less consistent side, that of Marcelo, in almost exact sequential rotation with Mendy.

Soon the game left very different features from Thursday: Athletic is less lion than Getafe in the first pressure and also an inseparable team from its public in games like this. The club's spirit, summarized in its philosophy and its love, has already saved it from a few shipwrecks. And there is no public address system capable of replacing it.

Madrid came to the match in the best possible way, with the ball under his arm, widening the field for Athletic with Rodrygo and Asensio, perhaps both ends with the best return trip, and the authority of who governs the competition. Three minutes later, a foul thrown by Asensio, badly rejected by Unai Simon and flawlessly culminated by Carvajal and Benzema summed up that vertical takeoff of Madrid.

The thing was not more, but less. Athletic launched Williams, a gazelle among lions, to the right and from there came two good rojiblancas chances: a powerful header and without placement of Raúl García and a high shot after galloping of Williams himself with Madrid very developed by a loss of Benzema. The Frenchman went from one gang to another, with his virtues of multi-striker, of player who works many genres. It is the Madrid Philharmonic.

The white knob and the mess

Between one and another occasion of Athletic, Rodrygo also missed one, who badly headed a banana with Asensio's boat. Garitano's team had already lost Yeray by a muscle injury by then. This marathon is not free. And in Madrid, Militao was redeemed, who endured several starts for Williams. Good news for Manchester. At times, the party was a victim of the temperature. Naptime came. The break caught the two teams half asleep, away from the areas and surprises with the exception of another Asensio banana that slipped a Benzema across the forehead at goal.

Madrid came back from the liveliest dressing room. He recovered earlier and protected himself better, but he still had trouble explaining himself in the last meters. Almost everything stayed in the almost: Modric almost finished point-blank after controlling with his chest, almost seen in a heads-up with Rodrygo with Unai Simon, he almost caught a volley in a good position Marco Asensio.

De Marcos' entry turned Williams definitively into Athletic's bow, but Garitano's team went much less and Madrid moderately more when the crucial two plays of the game arrived.. First, a stomp from Dani García to Marcelo, with the ball in play. Penalty prescribed by the VAR to González González and goal from Ramos. Then, another stomp from Ramos himself to Raúl García, 20 meters from the ball and involuntary. But penalty. This time Gil Manzano made the statue from his bubble in Las Rozas. The invention falters for lack of judgment.

After a little while. Athletic was dry of legs and of spirit and Madrid did not feel any enemy in the neck. Benzema, who tends to infinity, still had the sentence. The one that is about to be dictated in this League.