His ability to attack like a hawk “the rival box”, as Ancelotti says, is the key he has used Faith Valverde to regain relevance in Madrid that injuries were taking away from him before this Saudi version of the Spanish Super Cup. El Pajarito completed with his goal in the Clásico the second time he has used this tournament to claim the role that the club thinks for him: be the natural heir to Kroos and Modric in the long term. In 2020 he added reality to those expectations with his MVP in that Super Cup in Jeddah from which he came out congratulated even by Simeone.
Two years away in which physical problems have slowed down that expected transition in midfield and that have led, in the end, to the appearance of new competition with the signing of Camavinga (a player very similar to his profile, but on the left) and the return of Ceballos, whom Ancelotti intends to take advantage of. For Madrid it is clear that the Uruguayan, at 23, is the future (That is why it was renewed last summer for two more years, until 2027) but his medical history is still striking. In the last two seasons he has been piling up four injuries that cost him a total of 20 games. A lot of intermittence just in the man in charge of facilitating rotations for the midfield troika in which Kroos is 32 years old and Modric is on his way to 37. Valverde is the first name to provide “the energy” that Carletto demands when you want to touch up your team’s spinal cord or give it a boost.
The motivation. Valverde was once again decisive in the Super Cup Classic as he was in the derby of that competition in 2020 and even his wife, the Argentine journalist Mina Bonino celebrates it on Twitter with her peculiar casual style. Bonino shared a screenshot of his ‘motivational’ messages to the white midfielder, in which he ‘threatened’ not to hire a cook and that he would have to eat the dishes prepared by her “if you don’t hit the goal when you get to the area.”
Whether for those incentives or not, the fact is that Valverde hit the ball and it was the decisive 2-3. “When I started running I thought it had to end in a goal”, Valverde himself recalled yesterday on RMTV. “Fede in the Super Cups is incredible, he likes Arabia”, Vinicius joked, remembering 2020. The most super cupper bird.