For Zidane there is no new regulation that allows five changes. In big games, it is handled with only 14 footballers. Trust no more. There is a huge gap between his top footballers and the rest and it shows when the Frenchman is with the water up to his neck. In the Classic, in Mönchengladbach and against Inter … he only made three changes. There are footballers like Isco and Jovic, clearly attacking, who didn't even appear in those games. Zidane has passed from wearing a very wide bench to one that diminishes.
The alternatives to change the evolution of the matches to life or death have been limited to Hazard (as filming), Vinicius, Modric and Rodrygo, the hero of Inter. The last three were the only cards Zizou played to defeat an Antonio Conte who had taken command of the game. Back, not move token. The trio Mendy-Ramos-Varane is carved in rock and has only changed Nacho for Lucas due to the injury of the first and the good work of the second. The good news for Zidane is that he will soon be able to expand his resources and, who knows, pull more players off the bench. Odegaard is in the final stretch of recovery from his soleus injury and is expected on the roster against Valencia. In fact, Zizou wants to shoot him at Mestalla.
Jovic and Isco, in a match in Valdebebas.
JAVIER GANDUL
Zidane He is not in favor of using the changes as punishment either, although he does as a message. There is that entry of the castillistas Arribas and Marvin in the league debut in San Sebastián who were an open and public invitation to Jovic to find a team before the market close. So far, in its two stages, the white coach can detect patterns. One, that he has been slow to alter his habit of saving most of the changes for the final leg. Another, who has already had moments (since 2017 it happens to him) in which he does not trust his bench …
Two in trouble …
There are three footballers who have gone into limbo. Militao from Shakhtar, but it is especially a recurring case this season with Isco and Jovic. The one from Malaga is significant because it was the hinge to 4-4-2 that Zidane also likes and a talisman of his in large-scale matches. Now Isco has come to count only in the most affordable league matches and the caught at the Camp Nou in which a Movistar + camera catches him complaining about the decisions of his technician (“If he has to put me in, he puts me in at minute 80 …”) does you a disservice.
Isco did a disservice to his 'caught' at the Camp Nou and Jovic knows from the first day of the League that it does not count
Jovic, for his part, is barely half a step ahead of Mariano (only one call this year) and his face was a poem in Mönchengladbach, when Madrid fell 2-0 and even so their coach preferred to raise Ramos, Varane and Casemiro to the rival area before having the Serbian. He is sentenced. On the bench within the bench itself, so to speak. The place Zidane no longer looks at.