Real Madrid-Inter The future saves Madrid

The game that Inter wanted was played and Madrid won, which regains momentum in the Champions League. It was after a duel without quarter, that even his eyes were fatigued. A round trip in which calories were burned by the ton. A round trip that passed the outcome from one hand to another. Madrid lost a two-goal lead and passed the drink later thanks to two providential changes by Zidane. Vinicius and Rodrygo They came from the future with a solution that seemed impossible. Between the two they add the age of Joaquin.

Inter comes to agree with those who think that football is the only corner of Italy that art did not reach. A team of great energy load, in a certain industrial way, with plenty of testosterone, protected by three centrals, widened by kilometer-long laterals, with more workers than queens in the midfield honeycomb and with two strikers used to looking for life without help. In Valdebebas he was missing Lukaku, that truck that seems to run over everything in its path. One of those nines that centrals eat raw. His absence disfigured a bit of a team camouflaged with Conte, which was more nerve than game and did well. In short, a bone for Madrid.

On the other side was a traditional, classic white team. In games like this, Zidane does not move in the short term. Their champions play, plus those who replaced the fallen (Courtois by Keylor and Hazard by Cristiano, which is not the same), plus Mendy, because Marcelo is the first of those heroes who are passing the rice. A dynasty team that finds it difficult to regenerate, but with a high sense of responsibility in all-or-nothing matches.

Round trip

The beginning was a festival, with a whirlwind exit from Madrid, in which Valverde started with a sharp fang in the first pressure. That's why he plays and not Modric. In three minutes Handanovic took a left-foot from Asensio and Valverde missed a high right by a span. The ball ran to Madrid as in the best of times, but that lasted a blink of an eye. What came next It was a blast from the inside against a very dislocated team in the retreat: Barella's header to the crossbar, Courtois' saving stop against Lautaro, who was not intimidated by Ramos, and a fatality to Vidal's side of the net, a danger for Inter in creation and for Madrid in arrival. All in less than a quarter of an hour. A match of the adventure genre.

After the storm a more conventional duel remained, this time inclined towards Madrid, that linked the most candied play of the season, in a perfect Asensio-Lucas-Benzema-Valverde sequence. The Uruguayan was caught out of position at the auction.

Achraf's mistake

The game became almost impassable from the own area. A hyperactive wait for someone else's error in which Achraf was the first to be wrong. Achuchado by Mendy tried a loan to Handanovic from midfield that Benzema guessed. The French came out of the trance with trade: break to goal and goal on empty goal. His partner was Hazard again, who is still searching for his superpowers and who left few traces of his unbeatable past.

The goal fueled that spree in which he defended little and badly. That brought in two goals in two minutes. One, ordinary: remote-controlled corner from Kroos and header from Ramos. Another, extraordinary: Barella's heel assist to Lautaro taken advantage of by the Argentine. Letting that occurrence pass would have been reprehensible.

Inter's early response did not allow Madrid to put order to their advantage. On the contrary, Conte's team got into his living room at the beginning of the second half, advancing his pressure and his defense. The obsession with express robbery was loading the legs of each other extraordinarily. More those of Madrid, whose lines became vulnerable.

Vinicius and Rodrygo

That attrition moved the party away from the areas. Zidane saw it at game time and put more energy in the bands with Rodrygo (19 years) and Vinicius (20), the Madrid of the long term. The thing was not working. And those bad feelings reached the scoreboard. One against neroazzurra Ramos caught out of place and Perisic took advantage of it with a bitten but effective left shot.

Madrid still swallowed two high-risk cons. Lautaro and Perisic won the battle for speed and lost the battle for precision. But in the end Zidane was right: Vinicius came out like a greyhound on the left and crossed a low ball in the area so that the other Brazilian, Rodrygo, left Handanovic nailed with his right hand. He was, with his second goal of the year, the lifeline of a team that was drowning in the game and in qualifying. Then Benzema forgave two and lengthened the agony. The party deserved nothing else.