Madrid appreciates the break

Qatar is already here, in a month it will be history and Ancelotti will celebrate it in privacy. His denial that he was a bad influence on the team was unconvincing. As he got closer, Madrid was losing traction and the game against Cádiz was no exception. He won it on the trot, without shaking the fly behind the ear of the public. It was with a goal from Militao, that hurricane that goes from one area to another, the white footballer who has looked the least for his team, and another from Kroos. It is no coincidence that the German, retired from the national team, has been the highest level footballer in the last month. The rest of the game had no more salt than Vinicius’s frequent fights with half of Cádiz, who wanted to kick him out of the game emotionally, and Lucas Pérez’s final goal to give him ten minutes of suspense.

As one thing usually leads to another, if you lose in Vallecas there is no excuse for fatigue against Cádiz, because the important thing for Madrid, in the face of an unexpected puncture, was be forgiven soon and go to almost two months of leave from the championship no more than two steps away from Barça waiting for the storm that plagues his game and his desire to subside. That is why Ancelotti emptied his safe deposit box in a presumably simple game that has not been so in the last two years: the eleven hypertitular minus Carvajal, very broken in Vallecas, to clear the conscience and the accounts.

It was before a Cádiz more open than was presumed. It had gone well for him in the last few games, coming out more from the hole and that’s what he tried to get out of at the Bernabéu. The redefinition of him, with a 4-4-1-1, offered an unexpected equality. In fact, it was the first big chance for Sergio’s team, a whiplash from Espino from 33 meters that became dangerous until it swung to the top of the crossbar.

From fight to fight

Madrid’s response was the increasingly frequent deaf domain, for invaluable, and dumb, for its inability to express itself in the auction. A team with little grace, with their heads in another place, in which a majority was dumbstruck with the World Cup sooner than later. Qatar has been a bag of lead for the team and a good part of the squad has neglected the urgent to focus on the important.

Madrid hung out with long shots (from Modric, Rodrygo, Valverde), that flute that has sounded good this year (ten goals already), but should not be considered the main route to scoring. And Vinicius lost strength with that quarrelsome version that has been accentuated from the derby of the Metropolitan to our days. There they learned to look for him and, what is worse, to find him.

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At 45 seconds Iván Alejo had already sent him to the ground, which he repeated shortly after. And since he’s a short fuse, he took the game on the wrong side. They hit him a lot, with the condescension of too many referees, and he reacts badly. In that he is still a youth. The yellow card was soon earned for feeling righteous after Fali’s blow to Rodrygo that the VAR forgave and lost too much energy warming the ear of a drooping referee.

That block was broken in the only possible way, a play with little elaboration. Kroos sent a ball into the box and Militao, who was still camped out after the immediately preceding corner, put an unappealable header into the net. A goal in the middle of nowhere for an unappetizing Madrid and a very tough Cádiz that had defended well without going any further. From fight to fight, Ancelotti’s team won a prize as poor as their football at the break.

final troubles

The goal, in any case, returned the game to what the forecasts said: a Madrid with overwhelming possession, although not profitable, and a very shrunken Cádiz, reduced to their midfield, with no other objective than to resist. And even so he had the tie, in a heads-up that Rubén Sobrino did not know how to resolve against Courtois, a play in which Alaba was always out of place. Madrid’s response was the best armed counter of the match, a Modric-Vinicius-Lucas-Valverde combination with the Uruguayan’s final shot that deserved the goal. Iza Carcelen avoided it. The entire creation of Madrid, which was not much, was lost due to lack of auction. Rodrygo is not a converted battering ram and who knows if he ever will be.

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Halfway through the second half Sergio understood that there was still a remedy. He brought in Bongonda and Ocampo, two of the heroes of the victory against Atlético. Before they attempted the unlikely swerve, the game was nearly over. The sentence came in a tremendous volley by Kroos from outside the area that Ledesma saw late.

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From then on, Madrid played at will and, finally, sowed the game with chances. The clearest, one from Modric, who forgave a goal at an empty goal, after Vinicius’ death pass. The Bernabéu, with the match tied, chanted the name of the Croatian, whose career deserves a thousand pardons. It was before another hero, Courtois, badly parried a simple Bongonda finisher. Lucas Pérez took advantage of it to give the match an emotion that it had not had. Espino even had the draw in his head. That has been the Madrid of the last month. Even the best have fainted. Ancelotti hopes that the World Cup will return them with more appetite than they had when they left.