Two times, two teams

They say second parts were never good. Some will think about it when talking about movies, others when talking about books. But if any Madridista fan says it during the break of a white team game this season, they will surely pronounce the same phrase with the same spirit of parody with which Cervantes put it in the mouth of the bachelor Sansón Carrasco in the second part of Don Quixote. Because in this Real Madrid, second parts are good. Ancelotti’s team has got used to showing a very different face after the breaks. Not just in his game. The statistics also reflect it. The leader of the League scores twice as many goals in the second half than in the first.

Madrid is the top scorer in the league. He has risen to the top of the table with 51 goals. 17 have been in the first half and twice as many, 34, have been scored in the second half. The last eight goals scored by the Whites in the League have been after passing through the changing rooms. An imbalance in the distribution of their goals that is only more pronounced in another team in the championship, Real Sociedad. Imanol’s team, 15th top scorer in the championship, scored three quarters of their goals (the balance is 6-18) in the second 45 minutes. A third of his 24 goals have come in the last quarter of an hour of their matches. This is also the section in which the madridista scorers score the most, with 15 of their 51 goals (29.4%).

The white team has taken all three points in eight of the 15 games in which they were tied or behind on the scoreboard at the break. On seven occasions he undid a tie and against Celta he turned around a match that the Olívicos won 1-2 at halftime in the reopening of the Bernabéu. “It’s a bit hard for us to get into the games,” acknowledged Ancelotti after the victory against Elche.

The temporal distribution of Madrid’s goals is similar in all the four competitions that Ancelotti’s men have played this season. The whites add 75 goals. A third (25) have scored in the first 45 minutes. After the break, the double (50), including the three goals that Madrid have scored in the two overtimes they have played this season. Valverde’s goal in the Super Cup semi-finals Clásico and those of Isco and Hazard in the round of 16 against Elche.

The balance sheet of the 617 goals that have been scored this season in the 243 First Division games until the Real Madrid-Alavés dispute is that 46% of the goals (284) have been scored in the first half and 54% (333 goals) in the second.