Real Madrid-Atlético Madrid is here

Also in the League, Madrid is here. Dancing with wolves has been good for him, because there he has found the essence that made him a champion: cement behind and a sense of opportunity ahead. He also had a superior being, Benzema, who levitated above the game. And to Modric from the glory years. His was a course in anatomy: brain, heart and lungs. Atlético, on the other hand, regressed to its middle age. Attack football, the other half that remains to be squeezed, did not appear. And none of the Cholo's course changes had an effect. That's where his first defeat in 27 league games came.

Eurcomplacidos, Zidane and Simeone did not want to break anything out of the box. Or almost nothing. The French put the recovered Carvajal, a praetorian from the times of the empire, but he supported Lucas Vázquez because there is no more fit footballer in the squad and because Carrasco grazes in a diabolical state on that side. The maneuver took Rodrygo ahead without deserving it, but the veteran is magnificently paid in Madrid. The rest, the decorated before Borussia. The same path Simeone took when putting Herrera through Saúl, who has been at half-mast for a long time. The other ten were also in the Salzburg line-up and at the rojiblanco altar.

Casemiro's head

Onces planned and scheduled start, with the neighbors contained by respect and classification, very pressing and not very audacious. The first to raise their hands was Madrid, forced to regularize (the verb of the week) their situation in the table. So he took the ball, ordered a view to the right with Carvajal and Lucas Vázquez, the defensively softer side of the rojiblancos, and was locking up Atlético, which is in the transition from the steel industry to the craft industry, from hitting and going to hit. and paste. But there are tics that are difficult to remove. His departure was that of protocholism, with the group shrunken and behind the ball. In that first Madrid attack, Benzema smashed a hammer on the post in a play out of nowhere. He received and pulled the trigger. Oblak didn't even see her. And without recovering, the athletic goal saw how the Frenchman screwed up with his left a delivery from Lucas Vázquez.

What followed was one of those supernatural events that become natural in derbies. Kroos threw a corner, Herrera stepped on a banana and Casemiro, whom he marked, headed at pleasure to the net to leave Atético in unknown territory: he had not conceded a single goal from set pieces and he had not been seen in the entire LaLiga behind on the scoreboard.

Kroos and Modric

Before and after the goal, Madrid was that post-pandemic team so hard-working, orderly, thrifty and flat in attack. His superiority in the center of the field with Modric and Kroos, who were not bitten by Atlético, allowed him to live comfortably from his touch. There was one of those very low activity meetings that previously suited Simeone and now are profitable for Zidane.

Only near the break did Atlético recalculate the route and pressed a little higher although it was never close to Courtois. João Félix weighed very little, Luis Suárez did not exist and the rojiblancos midfielders had neither push nor arrival. Neither did Madrid go much further. The little that happened before the break was attributable to Benzema in the all-field version. He found a way out of all the ambushes in a duel of intense traffic and, at times, drifting towards the tostón. It usually happens when two teams come out with calculator in hand. But even in duels like this, a tag player like the French stands out. It is the differential fact of Madrid that for a long time Zidanes and Pavones have not had but talents of turkey age and veterans who commendably resist giving up the square.

The Simeone Carousel

Simeone turned everything around at halftime. He put Lodi, Lemar and Correa, removed a central (Felipe) and reordered the team in a 4-4-2, with two midfielders and two wingers. Things did not improve much at the start, but at least it brought him closer to Courtois. Enough to touch the tie in a low, crossed and poisonous center by Marcos Llorente that Lemar finished badly with all the wind in favor. And a quarter of an hour later, another turn of the wheel, this one of more depth: João Félix on the bench, Saúl on the field. The Portuguese's anger was not justified; the permanence of Luis Suárez in the field, either. The Uruguayan did not last long. Ten minutes later he relieved him … Kondogbia! So Atlético finished with Llorente and Correa, who in three quarters of an hour played three roles, leading the way. Too many trips to get nowhere.

Madrid, as that bolero rhythm was going well, did not play anything. And he found another as much product of a rarity: a soon tremendous boat from Carvajal, which is for something else, which he hit on the pole and on Oblak's back before entering. Technically an own goal, aesthetically a great goal. He has scored seven in 285 games with Madrid and went to play the Chinese for Atlético.

Lemar and Saúl wanted to be a burning nail without succeeding. His were the final chances of a match in which they always walked under Madrid's orders, while Zidane made another roulette wheel for fatalism.