When Real Madrid players left their hotel to set up to the bus towards La Cartuja, the fans present in Seville began to chant “if possible!”. Curious. It was the same harangue that had starred, just 10 days ago, the reception to the whites in the Bernabéu for the semifinal of the Champions against Arsenal. Curious because, then, Madrid had a 3-0 wall before him. That day corresponded “yes you can!” that implicitly appeals to the achievement of a feat, to a phenomenon that is considered unlikely.
On Saturday in Seville, a priori, it should be different. It was Madrid playing a final, a context in which the white club, by heraldry, does not give favoritism. But Real Madrid, at this point of the season, seemed assumed that it started from a Theoretical inferiority In the objective of achieving its third course title, after the European Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup.
They had, being fair, arguments to feel like that. Both for the recent performance of the Ancelotti team and for the two precedents of the course against Barça, resolved with Typed paths against (0-4 in LaLiga and 2-5 in the Super Cup). Even Carletto himself felt it, taking advantage of Mbappé's physical precariousness to arrange a frame of four midfielders. Actually, it is what the body has always asked for, but the coach has chiseled his career prioritizing the wishes of who commands in the club that pays him. It has not gone wrong, in general, although in recent weeks it may seem otherwise.
It breaks in the first part
Real Madrid, in short, lacked faith in this final. A lack that linked to His football deficit and the lack of attitude of his totems in certain situations He formulated a destructive cocktail in the first part of the final. All these factors gathered in Pedri's goal. It was marked by the canary because the quality is left over, but above all because no one went to his marking: there were up to seven white players protecting the area, although there only four Catalans passed, and none was attentive to the front.
Pedri's shot that became the first goal of the final. / AFP7 via Europa Press
Ancelotti had to resort to the Mbappé touched at the break, aware that the 1-0 seemed even short of the absence (in figurative sense, after threatening to do so literally) of his players in the first half. Although those who built Real Madrid from the canvas were Vinicius and Valverde, once again replaced to the side on the fly. And, above all, a collective pressure exercise on Barça's midfielders. Madrid, showing the mix of “head, heart and balls” claimed without success by its coach in the duel against Arsenal.
The most interventionist ancelotti
Contrary to what had happened in the other key parties of the Madrid course, Ancelotti was in the Valiente and Interventional Cup final. Faithful to himself. In the break he did not add one more striker, but he withdrew from the field to a Rodrygo who has been missing in combat weeks, just a goal in the last three months.
And ten minutes later deposited his confidence in Arda Gülerwho responded in the field, far improving the benefits of a Ceballos still short after his injury. The sensation that remains today is that the Turk could have been much more useful this season than his coach has allowed him to be. Notes already for the future of Madrid, in which your current coach will not be.
I knew Ancelotti, knows from the debacle against arsenalthat your future is written. That, at this point, he has nothing to lose and perhaps that pushed him to be genuine and as faithful to himself as he is capable. “In the second the team has competed well and did what we had.
Carlo Ancelotti, during the Cup final. / AFP7 via Europa Press / AF7 via Europa Press
The doubt of the Club World Cup
Everything charged the spasmed esterctor of a project exhausted by wear, injuries and the weight of hierarchies. Ancelotti, except surprise, will exhaust LaLiga, at least while Madrid has options to win it, but the prevailing feeling is that it will no longer lead the team in the Club World Cup.
“We have lacked very little, we have been very close,” lamented the Italian, to whom Brazil urges to become its new coach as soon as possible. Everything indicates that it will be. The emissary of his federation, Diego Fernandes, was seen in the Cartuja, because there is nothing closed. Its end at Real Madrid is approaching. And Ancelotti has decided to live it being faithful to himself.
However, the LaLiga fight still subtracts, however difficult it may seem, given those four points that separate him from Barça. More after reading the act of the party, in which the referee collected the expulsion of Rüdiger for “Launch an object from the technical area without getting to me”highlighting that “he had to be held by several members of the coaching staff, showing an aggressive attitude.” The German apologized in his networks, but hardly the sanction is less than four games (they can reach 12) that he would fulfill in LaLiga.
