Miguel vs Marcelo, first round

It happened last May, the day before Madrid met Granada in Los Cármenes. In the Ciudad Deportiva de Valdebebas, everything pointed to Marcelo starting the Granada field, but something happened between the then white coach, Zinedine Zidane, and the Brazilian. Some point out that there was a kind of rudeness from the side towards the coach when he told him that he would not be a starter. According Goal it was a discussion motivated by a tactical question that occurred during an exercise. The club claimed certain knee problems that prevented him from performing at his highest level. The truth is that that day he was replaced in the starting eleven by Miguel Gutiérrez, who had already left samples of his talent in games against Cádiz, Sevilla and Osasuna.

That day in Nasrid lands, the youth squad helped his team, first with a prodigious assist to Modric to open the scoring: He lifted the ball over a Granada defender to deliver a frank shot to the Croatian. Then with his defensive duties. With that performance, he won the title in the last two league games, against Athletic and Villarreal. Precisely, before the Castellón team, he was relieved in the absence of 22 minutes. His replacement was Marcelo …

This season, Miguel Gutiérrez has only participated in one game: he started against Betis, but had to be substituted with seven minutes remaining when he felt a puncture. The winger, however, was key in Castilla's victory against San Fernando (4-0). His presence on the pitch helped Raúl's team to develop a vertical, offensive and fluid game that made Raúl's team hardly find any problems to score three points. And that he has had offers to leave the white club this summer, but has decided to stay. He wants to oppose with guarantees to the ownership.

Ancelotti, who already warned in preseason that he will only have the players who are one hundred percent, will have to decide whether to continue giving the left wing to Miguel Gutiérrez or, if on the contrary, to give ownership to Marcelo again. The Brazilian, the first captain this season, has not been a starter since the penultimate match of the madridistas against Sevilla (2-2) at Di Stéfano. This season has not yet debited due to injury.

He is in his last season in white, but his last two showed a Marcelo who had lost part of his physical qualities which led him to be considered the best left-back in the world. With Ancelotti he played 92 matches (among all competitions) in the first stage of the Italian coach, and who did not always give him the title in the important games (Key was his entry into the Champions League final in Lisbon by Fabio Coentrao). The same Ancelotti who will have to choose between Miguel Gutiérrez or Marcelo for the left-back position. The first round will be seen against Celta by said demarcation.