Zidane has a plan and a question

Eleven games concentrated in a month, high temperatures, start after inactivity, high risk of injury … Zidane has a plan to combat all these problems back to competition. You actually have a plan and a doubt. The plan? Take up your old idea for Unit B, a second team that gets used to playing and that takes the tactical mechanisms that he wants in the same way as the starting theoretical eleven that we could all recite almost from memory. And the doubt? Whether to really leave Team A and Team B to compete or balance them.

The key for Zidane is in the distribution of efforts. This newspaper already reported that the technician had told his staff that he had everyone when he returned to work. It cannot be otherwise. Zidane knows that if he overloads his players' effort, an untimely injury would leave that element out of a large part of the remainder of the season (due to the compressed schedule). It is a kind of Russian roulette to deal with. Madrid will play 11 games in 36 days, from June 14 to July 19. Practically one every three days …

Zidane carefully examines the calendar these days to finish plotting his strategy. Right at the start of the competition he has followed two of the most complicated appointments of the eleven that remain, Valencia's visit to Alfredo di Stéfano and the trip to San Sebastián to play against Real, the revelation team of the championship that is fighting to enter the Champions League. He has almost decided that he will reserve his best men for those two matches, so at the start,nte Eibar, the Second Unit will have more prominence … Apparently, they no longer wanted games more than those called “very complicated” than the visit to San Mamés.

The other possibility that Zidane has is to compensate the teams, mix Unit A with Unit B and distribute the efforts from there. The French coach has a fairly long squad with 25 footballers. The problem to do that, for example, is that, today, with the injuries of Jovic (more durable) and Mariano (who continues to work at a slower pace than the rest of his teammates) he only has a center forward who is Benzema. The solution, as this newspaper has already explained, is for Asensio to play as false nine. But the truth is that there will be names that will be greatly benefited by finally having prominence and minutes: Brahim, Rodrygo, Lucas Vázquez, James, Nacho … The idea of ​​Zidane will always be to build two teams of guarantees.

A historical sequence

The French technician already used the Plan B idea o Second Unit to win the LaLiga double, that of the 2016-17 season. It was something historic, 59 years ago that Madrid did not win the League and Champions League in the same season. And that construction of two teams of guarantees that did the feat was his idea. And Unit B was actually the one that LaLiga won.

All the games in which Zidane used them were away from home. Names like Danilo, Coentrao, Kovacic, James, Asensio, Nacho, Morata, Lucas Vázquez or Mariano they gave the breast do. The sequence was as follows. First there was a glimpse of Second Unit in Eibar (1-4), but in that game he played Benzema and resolved with the team's first two goals. Then, already in April, the games resolved at home were as follows: day 30 in Leganés (2-4), day 32 in Gijón (2-3), day 34 in Riazor (2-6) and, finally, day 36 in Granada (0-4). Historical.

The Second Unit resource is not even new to Zidane this season. He already used it, as a punch on the table, in the month of September, when his name was highly questioned and Mourinho's name was flying over the environment for a more than possible return to Madrid. In the sixth day, Against forecast, Zidane took that Team B for a walk against Osasuna, also supported by some headlines such as Ramos, Casemiro, Valverde or Kroos. Rodrygo and Vinicius scored. The technician will have to reuse his magic. Everything, to attempt the assault of which it will be remembered as the Pandemic League.