Courtesy of record

Real Madrid had a hard time, but got the three points against Athletic at the Bernabéu and keeps the streak of results alive, which is already taking an important flight: there are seven consecutive wins and nine wins and a draw in the last ten games; The whites have not fallen since October 3, when they were surpassed by Espanyol in Barcelona. The match card points to Benzema as the main architect of the victory, with that solitary goal; reality dictates that the credit is shared with Courtois, who sustained Ancelotti’s team’s streak with two vital saves.

The first, still 0-0, to a chopped header and point-blank range from Raúl García, in which he fard from reflexes; the second, a one-on-one by Sancet where he closed the existing and future spaces. “Raúl’s is the most difficult, it’s point-blank, a head butt to the ground, it’s not easy. The second is to get bigger and cover the space, “the Belgian commented after the duel., which with those two actions achieved an unusual milestone in Madrid this season: leaving a clean sheet.

The white team has recovered the gunpowder with Ancelotti, but in exchange they have cracked a wall through which, in another time, not even the most elusive of the forwards filtered through. With yesterday’s, there are four games without conceding in 15 league matches, and seven out of 20 also counting the Champions League. Ancelotti can thank Athletic for their lack of aim, which undoubtedly facilitated the work: Marcelino’s men made 18 shots in total, for 17 from Madrid, but only two of them were between clubs (in the case of the whites, seven) . And in those two cases, Bree’s giant emerged with its two meters.

“Courtois is the best and we enjoy it”

Ancelotti got fed up defending his team’s suffering style after the match, but he knows well that without Thibaut, the story would be quite different: “What Courtois does in games is what he does every day in training. Sometimes I tell him to give the forwards more confidence, because it is for everything… He is doing extraordinary things, I know we have to improve the defensive aspect, I am not worried, but we also have Courtois and we enjoy it. For us, it’s the best right now. I have had Iker, Buffon, Cech, Neuer … and he is among the best of that group “.

The statistics put Courtois in the place he deserves, among the best goalkeepers in the world, despite the fact that the recent Ballon d’Or classification qualified him as the eighth best goalkeeper in 2021 and The Best has not put him among the finalists (he He justifies his absence due to his criticism of FIFA for the schedule, which is overloaded). The Belgian has stopped 61 of the 77 shots he has received in the 20 games of the course, 79%; eight out of ten shots do not exceed him. His great match yesterday against Athletic once again portrayed FIFA for excluding him from The Best … And he is also the best of the goalkeepers among the teams at the top of the table, the top four, with 14 decisive saves (InStat rating for high-difficulty saves), more than Oblak (7), Bono ( 11), Remiro (8) and Ryan (6).