Liverpool-Real Madrid Resisting is also winning

The Madrid, which has the founding act of the Champions League, knows better than anyone the thousand ways to take it to his museum. That is why he is thirteen. At Anfield he went into survival mode, having a hard time but without being subjected to a fierce burden. There is no great trophy that does not force you to go through intensive care at some point. This time Madrid played with time, the anxiety of a Liverpool run down, the confidence of those who know the trade and two centrals that did not seem substitutes. And so, without the solemnity of other times, is seen again in the semifinals, a territory that three months ago looked like Mars.

Considering the eleven, it can be deduced that Zidane was not afraid of Anfield, or the skeleton of Anfield, to be exact, but he was afraid of Odriozola. Madrid has had two squads for a long time: one formal, wide, in which all those who are paid are, and another real, short, to which the coach entrusts his life (or the lives of a hundred cats, which are what he has consumed in five years). Odriozola, who finds it difficult to pretend that he is a badly converted winger, only appears in the first. His 47 minutes in two months with the injured starting right-back are irrefutable proof. And as Zidane understood that with self-defense and that of others undone it was better to return goals than to avoid them he kept his trident and he changed the record to Valverde by putting him as an unusual right back. Players with their lungs admit almost everything. Until he planted himself in the face of Mané, who had seen better times.

Klopp, who did not like Madrid or Valdebebas or the referee (And if you give him one more minute of the microphone, he shoots the Retiro and the Prado Museum), he was in them. He insisted on unreliable interim center-backs to keep Fabinho at the heart of the team and understood that the competition requires trade (Madrid knows it well), that of Milner and Firmino, two green berets.

The 'red' load

Liverpool is a team without preamble, ordering the cavalry charge from the opening sequence to the opening credits. And he had the comeback manual in his head: the first inning (brutal, from Milner to Benzema), the first shot (point-blank, from Salah, at the feet of Courtois), the first corner …

Madrid had a hard time muleteer that first onslaught. Courtois took a second great shot from Milner and Mané, a lightning player, gave Valverde a bad start. It was until the white midfielders, the team's best asset, came on the scene and defused the storm with long possessions, which have a cooling effect. But it was difficult for him to go further, threaten, test Alisson, scare Klopp's centrals. It was a handling of the ball without giving Liverpool a concern until the irruption of Benzema, who with the sole aid of his science was inventing cuts in the area until crash your shot on the stick. The French feels capable of everything. It was the first time that Madrid stopped looking at the clock to look at Alisson.

Liverpool, without the ball, lost the surprise factor, beyond the permanent fluttering of Salah, its only truly active volcano, and that facility to penalize the opponent's losses. That point, half strategic half emotional, was the great contribution of Klopp for the take off of a team with a long decline in the backpack. In positional play, however, it is less witty.

With everything, on the way to rest, he resumed the din of the first minutes, stepped on the area and had two good chances, missed by Salah and Wijnaldum. Madrid, in that first part, was outstanding in temper and close to suspense in arrivals, which are always dissuasive when the enemy squeezes. So he was moderately cheated on Courtois' goal.

The resistance

That progressive captivity of Madrid was accentuated when they returned from the dressing room, when Liverpool put more nerve to their pressure. In three minutes, Firmino had two good options within the area. Courtois blocked a first shot and then got his head wrongly into a cross from the right. He missed in that rush the roar of Anfield, a stand that even finishes off corners.

When it subsided for the second time, Klopp sought agitation on the bench. Thiago, to improve irrigation; Diogo Jota for a central to intimidate Madrid, with Fabinho in the axis of the rear. Zidane did not have much left to respond and kept his fatigued eleven, who had only threatened an arrival from Mendy, whose center, in the middle of a red tide, did not reach a Benzema who was already licking his lips, and with a sprint that Vinicius won, to whom a long control of the head left him with no options for Vaseline on Alisson.

Madrid exceeded in their containment and often he found himself in trouble with that accumulation defense almost in his own area. Zidane's team ran the risk of being killed by a stray bullet. Militao saved him from two, impeccable again, like Nacho.

The French coach saw the team on the edge again. Kroos took out a white flag and had no choice but to put Odriozola in. Vinicius also left, not finding a way to sneak in.

With everything lost, Liverpool no longer looked behind them and Madrid had until victory in a frank header from Benzema, who screwed up when he was bitten, but the game was left to zero. The perfect number for a Madrid raised from back to front. Starting with the best Courtois and ending with Zidane, whom time will make eternal.