MADRID, 7 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Real Madrid ended their pre-season tour of the United States on Tuesday with a 2-1 victory over English side Chelsea in Charlotte and will now head to Spain to fine-tune their preparation for next week’s European Super Cup clash with Italian side Atalanta.
The Madrid team said goodbye to its time on American soil with its only victory in the Soccer Champions Tour. After losing to Milan and FC Barcelona, it took the victory against the London team and now hopes to recover all its players at home to prepare to attack in a week the first of the seven titles it is competing for this season.
The European champions continued with their usual experiments and Carlo Ancelotti, without youngsters Arda Güler and Endrick, tried an attacking trident made up of Brahim Díaz, Vinícius Jr and Rodrygo Goes. The first two were the best of the Madrid team, which took advantage of its good start to the match.
Real Madrid, driven by the pace of ‘Vini’, went 2-0 up before the half-hour mark, in an entertaining start, with attacks on both areas and where Raheem Sterling enjoyed two good chances to put Enzo Maresca’s men ahead, where Reece James providentially took the ball away from the Brazilian ‘7’ when he was about to execute his shot against Filip Jorgensen, former Villarreal goalkeeper.
It was the LaLiga champions EA Sports who finally got the ball right with a goal conceded to Dani Ceballos, who seemed to finally push Lucas Vázquez’s ‘weak’ shot past the ‘blue’ goalkeeper. Minutes later, a great pass from Vinícius with the outside of the Chelsea defence was not wasted by Brahim to outflank Jorgensen and continue to warn Ancelotti that he wants minutes despite the competition.
The English team recovered from these two blows and finished the first 45 minutes better and reduced the gap. First, Sterling sent a ‘killer pass’ to Christopher Nkunku, but the Frenchman was unable to push it into the net with Thibaut Courtois already beaten. Madueke did manage to head a cross into the net to the far post with Courtois somewhat hesitant in coming out and Fran García more concerned with the goalkeeper than with the marker and who did not get in the way too much either.
The score was 2-1 just before half-time and after that, Enzo Maresca’s men came out a bit better and could have equalised, but Andrey Lunin was quick to stop Nkunku’s shot after a good pass from the Spaniard Marc Guiu, who had a good time and tried his luck with two shots, one of them with Sterling perhaps better positioned.
Real Madrid, now in a different rhythm, did not threaten as much, but also had chances through Brahim, with a shot slightly wide from inside the area, a header from Eder Militao after a corner kick, and a shot from outside the area by Nico Paz, well saved by Jorgensen.