Perhaps in the end, after much inertia, lateral ssis and unconvincing polls, Real Madrid received the right reward: a dramatic last-minute draw against Borussia Monchengladbach in the Champions League. The end of Madrid’s adjustment had several components: resistance, courage and determination to fight in its own way, but as brave as it was in the final, the rest of the team fit as a reflection of Madrid’s growing ineptitude and the feeling that the decline is imminent.
Evidently, Zinedine Zidane praised his team at a press conference delivered with his icy monotony. “We show character, ” said Zidane, satisfied. ” The effects showed the character of the team. “Yes, Zizou, but what else does the result show? The match is the best snapshot of Real Madrid’s slide. The Spaniards were lethargic, slow and fragile.
In the context of European football, M’nchengladbach is a modest club. For the past decade, Marco Reus, Thorgan Hazard and Granit Xhaka have been among the players who have come and gone. This summer, however, there was no exodus to Borussia Park. Athletic director Max Eberl retained key staff members, adding Matias Ginter and Marcus Thuram. For the young team, achieving the Champions League a feat and being smarter and smarter than Madrid for much of the night, evidence of its long-term development. He crossed the Royal and unleashed the speed of Thuram and Alassane Plea. The French duo had a lot of vision for the future.
Marco Rose’s template showed how groups can thrive through hard paintings and stick to a plan: how the sum of a team is greater than its parts. The Spanish champion faced a modern and systemic interpretation of the game. Zidane’s team has never been methodical, but it remains a strangely dissexed 11 that has made its way to success. This isn’t new, of course.
Between 2016 and 2018, Real Madrid won the match-flavored Champions League 3 times. It has never been a unit, but the intelligent direction of Zidane and his stars accelerating on the field were enough to achieve some dramatic and unprecedented knockout victories. The French coach also had an asset: Cristiano Ronaldo, the talisman who at all times has challenged the gods and all logic of football. Madrid’s equation was a coach, ten players and Ronaldo. A winning trinity, in all momento. la sum of its parts, but never again.
Over the past decade, Barcelona, their wonderful rival, also won the European Cup twice, thus strengthening the dominance of Spanish club football, but this supremacy is diminishing. Last weekend’s Classic accentuated the decline of Barcelona, the Classic stripped of the colorful football and the dust of stars that have been so related to this game. Even after the defeats to the newcomer of La Liga de Cádiz and an exhausted Shakhtar Donetsk, Madrid won with the two clubs were at a crossroads: an institutional crisis shook barcelona’s season. The Bernabéu needed a victory to avoid a crisis after a sharp fall in shape in recent weeks.
Then came the speed, aggressiveness and physicality of number six in the Bundesliga, it was too much for Madrid to manage and disclose an aging team without philosophy. Last season Sergio Ramos, 33, Toni Kroos, 29, Luka Modric, 34, and Karim Benzema led Madrid to the national crown in a season cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. Veterans have defied age, but it won’t last. Ramos was a challenge on the bumpy baseline from Madrid to Germany. Is the captain a handicap? Higher up the pitch, Madrid was in bad taste until Modric’s arrival.
Madrid have never stopped leaving the organizing levels of the Champions League, but the club has been eliminated in the last 16 of each of the last two seasons. It’s hard to imagine Zidane’s team exceeding this level of zidane. In August, Manchester City beat a clumsy Madrid with Phil Foden at number 9; there was never any doubt of matching Madrid’s sophistication with the City. The first time Zidane did not win the Champions League with Real Madrid. It wasn’t that statistic, it was the way to defeat. Madrid deserves to be competitive in La Liga, but based on recent tests, the smart days of the club on the continent may well be over.
I’m an independent football journalist in Belgium. I have traveled to more than 20 countries to report on the match. This summer I went to Azerbaijan for Europe.
I am an independent football journalist founded in Belgium, I have traveled to more than 20 countries to report on the match, this summer I went to Azerbaijan for the Europa League final, went to Spain for the Champions League final, covered the FIFA Congress and the first days of the Women’s World Cup in France and spent too much time on bed buses in Brazil the America’s Cup. I contribute to INSIDE World Football, World Soccer, Josimar, The Blizzard and BBC Radio’s Focus On Africa, among others. I’m also publishing an ebook about my passion, the Brazilian team of the 1970s. Graduated from Leuven Law School and Columbia University’s J-School.