Athletic-Real Madrid San Mamés keeps two treasures: the League and the Europa League

Bilbao City Council and Maritime Museum update the barge. Just in case. And Zidane takes advantage even when asked about the menu of the day to say that they have not won anything yet. Just in case and because his team is standing on San Mamés today, which, even with a silencer, is a stadium that has been a garrison for Madrid since the beginning of time. He's probably in the top 3 of the team's riskiest outings every season, whatever the rankings say.

And what he says now is that a victory for Madrid leaves him at the gates of Cibeles and that Athletic, after completing a lap outside European squares, is again very close. In fact, on Wednesday he went to bed seventh. On Thursday, Real passed him, which leads him by two points. Four consecutive defeats in February weighed on him but Gaizka Garitano has turned the team around. It seemed more difficult than last season, when he inherited from Berizzo the team in the relegation zone and lost the Europa League on the last day due to a defeat against Sevilla.

Garitano he is the silent hero of this team. He has eight Basque surnames, he has played in the four best teams on earth (Athletic, Real Sociedad, Eibar and Alavés) and has directed three of them (only the Vitorians are missing). So get to know the customs and uses of football in the Basque Country. Son and nephew of footballers, a titled journalist who has not read the sports press since training, bertsolari (composer of improvised verses in Basque) and fan from Springsteen, He stole from his alleged anonymity a talk to his players, stolen, when he coached Eibar and prepared a game against Atlético: “They are motherfuckers, they give you a thousand hosts and they expel you.” It was not a complaint, but a compliment to the figure of Cholo Simeone, one of his references. Others is Luis Enrique.

Without transfers (only Vesga joined, lent to Leganés the previous year) he has maintained the competitive level of the team and has replaced Aduriz's departure (he had only played 241 minutes in the entire season, never more than 32 in a match, and had scored a goal) with an imaginative solution: Raúl García. Navarre is a rarity. It is common that with time and the loss of fiber the scorer ends up moving away from the goal. Raúl García has taken the reverse path. Osasuna midfielder, Atlético midfielder and center forward in this Athletic with almost 34 years. He has already scored 13 goals. Until now, he had not passed eleven in any League.

Raúl García is seen by Madrid as a natural enemy. He has only beaten him six times in 28 games but his only two goals killed Madrid in a Cup and a Super Cup. His ferocity against whites is demonstrable: fifteen yellow cards. It is nowhere near that record against any other rival. He will return to direct the attack of an athletic gala, the same one that probably overwhelmed Valencia and very different from the one that lost by the minimum at the Camp Nou, where Garitano made a majority of the substitutes.

Only 62 hours of rest

Madrid, on the other hand, lose Varane at the worst moment. One of the five untouchables falls due to cervicalgia and his substitute, Militao, He did not offer Getafe a reassuring image. He has punctured as a side, has not dazzled as a central defender and has refreshed the headlines less than expected. Nor does Hazard return, that neither before nor after his injury was he the Silver Ball of the World Cup in Russia or the man of the match in the last final of the Europa League. James fell off the list, invested with the lantern's luxury red staff.

The game is conditioned by Madrid's fatigue, forced to play 62 hours after doing it against Getafe and at a time where the heat will be a scourge, against an opponent who has had 26 and a half hours of rest. So it is likely that Zidane will use players with greater physical vigor such as Valverde, Rodrygo or even Asensio. The entrance of the trio reactivated Madrid on Thursday.

Athletic has already shown that it is difficult to kill. In the Cup, he eliminated Elche and Tenerife on penalties, threw Barça with a goal in the 90th minute and went into the final with another agonizing Berchiche in Granada. In the league, he has only lost twice by more than one goal. And with Madrid, he has only fallen in one of the last five matches, although he also has not defeated him for more than five years. They are the two best teams of the last eight days and Zidane knows that if he leaves here triumphant he will wear yellow on the Champs Elysees of this League.