There is no worse mourning for Madrid than the day they are released from the Champions League. He takes it as an eviction of what he understands as his home. But this time he offered no arguments to argue it. Chelsea, who is more anvil than hammer, fired him without honors. The appointment came to Zidane's team with half a team off point and the other half exhausted. And he was at the mercy of a more oxygenated and better organized rival who delayed his move to the final more due to lack of success than of opportunities. Hazard was invisible again, Vinicius failed as a winger, Kante and Jorginho swallowed Madrid's magnificent three and the three centrals had a drink against Havertz and Werner. Only a heroic Courtois kept him alive until the end. And so the targets of this Champions left, without the right to reply.
The good part about having little to choose from is that there isn't too much to go wrong either. This is how Zidane has been for months after almost sixty injuries and a good number of coronavirus episodes. Ramos had not played a game since the end of March, but in a drawing of three centrals without Varane it was irremediable to put it. More by elimination than by his extreme captaincy, the kind that put the 119-year history of the club in the backpack. And the second big decision was to get on Hazard's feet, for which the club paid 120 million for these nights and not to give rest to the main ones in Alcoy or similar. There is potentially no better company for Benzema on the roster. Another thing is that, in your case, how much it offers has been replaced by how long it lasts. The second episode is also blank. At Stamford Bridge it passed again in silence.
Vinicius, failed winger
Vinicius was also part of the plan as a right back, one of those footballers who bring what he cannot train, speed. Zidane must have imagined that Chelsea would give him the space that closed him in Valdebebas to put him away from his role and his band. Maybe he thought, too, that with him he could transform the 3–5-2 into a 4-3-3 without a blink of an eye, but neither on the outside nor on the inside could he melt Chelsea. He was never in the game.
On the other side, Tuchel awarded Havertz's last double, the most expensive signing of the summer, at the expense of Pulicic, a nightmare in Madrid. In any case, the heart of the team is further back, in Kanté and Jorginho, who seem to have fled a marathon. Bad if you dance to the music they play.
The first shot left three penalty tackles from Chelsea players, a zero tolerance warning, and three lengthy Madrid possessions of no consequence other than a salt-free shot from Kroos. At least he avoided that chain of deep-seated punts that was seen in Valdebebas. But soon Chelsea became the torturer they used to. Its merit is to force the rival to travel where it should not, deny him the exit through the center and make him pay for each loss through a quick activation of a herd. He is the dentist of this Champions. Kill slowly. Inject despair.
More if the Madrid midfielders leave the gas open. And it happened. Especially with Mount, a specialist in finding the opponent's blind spot. In that phase Chilwell slipped past Vinicius and his center sent him to the Werner network. Al Madrid saved the flag of the assistant. Ten minutes later, not even that. In Kanté's first round, his pass was stung by Havertz to the crossbar and the rebound was headed into an empty goal by Werner himself. That came almost after a good chance for Madrid, a shot by Benzema from the edge of the area that he managed himself. His loneliness grieves. Chelsea's law prevailed: few things happen and those that come, that they are their own. It is definitely a team that cuts to the chase.
The lace
The goal did not change excessively the step to Madrid, which looked for the logical exit, from possession and a game of low pulsations. Arming himself with patience, Modric managed to find Benzema unmarked almost in the small area, but the Frenchman gave neither power nor positioning to his header and Mendy took him out in an acrobat pose. Letting that train pass in such a closed atmosphere seemed unforgivable.
Chelsea returned from the break with the same strength. Havertz sent a header to the crossbar and an unopposed shot to the feet of Courtos, Thiago Silva another to the stands and Mount a shot into limbo that well reflected the English superiority, now as overwhelming as at the beginning of the first leg.
When time came over him, Zidane changed his sides. Valverde on the right and Asensio on the left. Two players out of their natural positions. As that was not marching either, a third striker arrived, Rodrygo, but the only news came in the Madrid area, where Chelsea stayed in him almost more and more frequently against a Madrid weakened by fatigue and for that 4-2 -4 to the tremendous one with which he was looking for the impossible. Like Atlético, Chelsea had simmered him by suffocation. And in the absence of six minutes he pointed to the umpteenth robbery of Kanté to which Pulisic and Mount took advantage. Madrid's was a full-blown blues. Maybe the League will lift him out of the post-championship depression.