Even more difficult: neither Benzema nor Vinicius against Granada

Levante, Espanyol, Getafe, Osasuna, Cádiz and Elche have taken points from Madrid this year. The last three, at the Bernabéu. All teams from the second half of the table. The insignificant Sheriff also assaulted him at home in the Champions League. A significant number of setbacks against modest opponents to consider the fact circumstantial. There is a pattern of behaviour: Madrid lose confidence and rivals who prevent them from running. Today they receive, without Benzema or Vinicius, one of them, Granada, whose irregular behavior makes him unpredictable (follow the match live on AS.com).

Robert Moreno, short-lived former national coach, had a rocky start. He spent seven games without winning before a spoiled crowd that came to ask for his resignation. He had relieved Diego Martínez, author of a magical three-year period: promotion, qualification for the Europa League (he led the team to the quarterfinals) and ninth place in his third year after 20 games in the continental zone. After that initial collapse, Moreno turned the team around and took it out of the relegation zone (six points higher at the start of the day), but the losing streak has returned. It takes four days without winning and two consecutive defeats against two teams of their kind, Getafe and Osasuna. Big ones are better too. He has taken two draws from Barça, beat Sevilla and Atlético and has not lost to Valencia, Villarreal or Athletic.

Injuries like that of Domingos Duarte, who has only played for two short minutes since September, or unexpected downturns of players who were presumed important, such as Machís or Bacca, explain in a certain way the difficulties of a team that has moved a lot in the winter market thanks to money from CVC. The Venezuelan will leave the club this week, on his way to the American Charlotte. He has made room for Raba, the fifth signing.

winter reinforcements

It will be necessary to see if all the incorporations have options in front of the Madrid. Barcelona player Álex Collado has already played three games, and Petrovic, Serbian, seventh midfielder on the squad, has just landed; Uzuni, an Albanian winger who has already played for Ferencvaros against Betis this season; and Matías Arezo, a 19-year-old Uruguayan striker, pearl yet to be cultivated.

The reference in attack will be Jorge Molina, who will turn 40 in April and that he has concentrated the best of his career from the age of thirty. He had a long journey through modest football (Alcoyano, Benidorm, Gandía), he arrived at Elche at the age of 27 and did not debut in the First Division, with Betis, until he was 29 (curiously in Los Cármenes). There he was the happy partner of another long-lived, Rubén Castro. “Pepe Mel always taught me to choose the best option and it was almost always to give it to him.” Jorge Molina already has nine goals and three assists and does not feel like a rarity. Two are his secrets: nutrition, with intermittent fasting of between 16 and 24 hours that he began to practice in Getafe, and the absence of serious injuries. In the last five years he has only spent 34 days off work. In that period he played between 36 and 51 games per course. This year he has 22. With a degree in Teaching and Physical Education, with the titles of coach and sports director, he believes that his self-sacrifice has brought him this far: “I never thought I would play for so many years in the First Division. It already seemed spectacular to me to do it in Second B”. Now negotiate your renewal with third party offers at your table. The goal has no age.

Granada is a good model of efficiency. With the third worst shooting record, they are the highest scoring team in the second half of the table, mainly based on the stopped ball. He has already scored seven goals from corners and only Sevilla gets more out of the strategy.

an impromptu attack

Against Madrid the calendar, the moment and the casualties clearly play. He brings the beating of Bilbao and has two games without winning, rare event this season, mini-depression that is aggravated by lin the absence of Benzema, who is saved for Paris. 24 goals, nine assists and participation in 60% of the team’s goals in the League put numbers on his relevance. His absence, added to that of Vinicius (15 goals, 10 assists) due to suspension, greatly disarms the team.

Ancelotti has erased the alternative nines, which have never been, and the substitutes have not worked for him. So he is faced with the impossible of composing an offensive trident full of players he distrusts. From Lucas Vázquez, the least. So he could be the right winger once Carvajal is recovered to occupy the full-back position on that side (Marcelo will be on the other, whose suspension is not applicable in the League). Asensio is the second on the list, perhaps on the left, given his poor role as false nine in Bilbao, and Jovic seems hopeless this time, 432 minutes and only one goal, which no one sees as a solution anymore. That the 9 of the subsidiary Latasa enters the list is significant. Rodrygo and Hazard are also candidates and nobody thinks about Bale, the one with the most goals. It is invisible.

Granada has only won once at the Bernabéu, 48 years ago, and chain thirteen consecutive defeats against Madrid, but that stadium has opened too many doors to the modest this year. That is where the leader has lost much of his advantage.