He did not give Real Madrid against Arsenal and He stayed out of the Champions League in the quarterfinals. It was worse, much worse, in the first leg in London, and the return was not better in the Santiago Bernabéu. The expectations, all the illusion created, the fascinating reception to the bus an hour and a half before the meeting, were diluted before the stubborn reality: This Madrid is worse than arsenal and it is frankly complicated to overcome three goals against if it does not pull the door.
The expectation of the comeback was based on a pact among the not spoken Real Madrid players: we will forget football, that the team costs horrors, which during this season has defended badly, as demonstrated a week ago, but it has also attacked fatal, although that has been hiding it with the increasingly constant appearance of individualities. And Carlo Ancelotti has not known (or could not) provide the team with a collective game. But the hundreds of fans who filled the vicinity of the Bernabéu with gunpowder and noise (many of them without entry, who later left home to see the game) presented themselves hours before forgetting all those defects and believing in an irrational way, blindly and allegedly forgetful.
That enthusiasm has cheered the week and postponed what has just arrived: this Madrid has to change, for next season, but also for a week and a half, which has the final of the Copa del Rey against Barcelona. The team needs to recover the mood and find, in some way, football.
He has had it very rarely this year and never against Arsenal. The Arteta team dominated all situations of the tie: with a game in the first leg, with patience, defense and personality in the Bernabéu. He knew how to wait for his time, waste time and take advantage of the occasions that were going to reach him.
Arteta knew that the game was going to start with tremendous excitement, with the players of Real Madrid infected from the public and biting as they have not done so far. It was a very delivered Madrid to the cause of pressing and stealing, but much less the cause of playing.
He did not do many Ancelotti experiments: in the bands, Alaba and Lucas Vázquez – who already sounds Regulero – and in the center, Valverde and Tchouaméni, a couple that is fine for some things and not so much for others. And above, the four above, to which you will have to start asking questions about your performance this season. Mbappé, who was previously injured, Vinicius and Rodrygo, along with Bellingham, had to break the game and did not. It was the work of every day in attack.
Because there is no game plan. The idea against arsenal was to reach the opposite goal as soon as possible, but the shortest path is not always the fastestand Madrid insisted on cross balls when their strikers are Mbappé, Vinicius and Rodrygo, who very rarely finish off. That was the idea and did not come out in any way. The first part passed without the Ancelotti team threw on the door, well closed by the Arsenal. Madrid has no game for the bands because the sides have been injured, and has no combination game Through the center because Ceballos and Modric spent too late and because those above are not to combine: they are to take the ball and try the play desperately and great, the impossible play, and this year is coming out very little.
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Thus, Bernabéu’s atmosphere was falling, and that the penalty stopped by Courtois as soon as he started put more fire on passion. Madrid did not respond. Perhaps he would have done so in that later penalty that he whistled to Mbappé, but later, in an incomprehensible decision, the VAR asked the referee to review it. Incomprehensible because it is possible that it was not a penalty, but the small grip exists and is not a gray play.
That was the hope of Madrid. He vanished and with her the team and enthusiasm in the stands vanished in the stands. The zero draw at rest was not entirely bad, seen from the point of view of this week. The stands wanted to continue believing, but Madrid insisted on not giving it reasons to do so.
The minutes and they were falling like blows and Saka’s goal was a blow. However, Vinicius marked for an error of the opponent, perhaps the only way, and there the Arreón had to get: it was expected, it was time. The tie and launch to death.
But nothing happened. Only that silly sadness after drunkenness.