Casemiro celebrates with Modric the 2-2 in Mönchengladbach.Martin Meissner / AP
An hour before the clasico began to tilt for Madrid, Casemiro led it to the precipice.
The Brazilian, with a yellow, launched himself from behind towards Messi, who within the area was preparing to face Varane.
Either he swiped the ball, or gave him a penalty and was sent off after 28 minutes.
There were no more options in a stock that was to be decided by inches and hundredths.
The midfielder stretched to ground level, stepped on the ball violently and smashed La Pulga, who had already armed his left leg.
Three days later, in Germany, the one who was on the precipice was Madrid and the one who rescued him was Casemiro with two saving interventions.
First he took down a defective center from Valverde with a pole - the Uruguayan put his hands to his head as soon as he hit him - for Benzema's 1-2 and in 93 he scratched the tie.
It was not so much about the point he grabbed as about the two that he raised to the Mönchengladbach.
"In games like this, he suffers," they point out from their environment.
“He thinks that many things have been done well, but that Madrid should solve them before.
In any case, personally this meeting can mark his career at the club ”, they say.
His interventions at Borussia-Park or in Barcelona, together with those of Sergio Ramos at Camp Nou - after the central defender's fatal absence against Shakhtar - show that the fate of the whites will be largely defined by guys like them.
For his defensive glue and for his essential participation in attack.
As analyzed in the club, Casemiro is the nut that makes the whole work.
“He defines himself as a coach's soldier, he feels that every day he goes out to the battlefield.
If you give him a message, he fulfills it, he is very methodical ”, they point out in their circle.
In the beginning, known by his teammates as Trakina (biscuit face), he was a scorer and marked differences against Neymar's team
In Valdebebas's dressing room, the Brazilian is not the only irreplaceable one, but he is the only one who for the second consecutive season does not have a pure double in the squad.
A surprising circumstance due to the number of minutes it absorbs (the highest last year, 4,081) and because, according to him, it occupies “the most important position in football”.
Forward in his first steps at Moreira, when he was known as Trakina (biscuit face) and defeated the Portuguese Santista de Neymar with his goals, he became a defensive midfielder at Sao Paulo when he was 11 years old because there was less competition there and now he faces just that mission at the Bernabéu.
Without a rest
There is hardly ever a break for Casemiro, not even when Zidane grants it at the beginning due to the tight schedule.
In these first eight games of the course, in two he started from the bench in an attempt to give him air, twice as much as in the entire previous season (he lost another four by cards or cup break).
In San Sebastián and at home in front of Cádiz he stayed in the stands, although in both cases he should have appeared.
Against the people of Cádiz, he played with the back of the seats imitating the sound of a drum, incredulous at what he was seeing in the first half and unable after changing the fate of the match on the pitch.
He was also unable to contain the Ukrainians three days later despite his screams.
However, he was present in the classic, tying the bow to Messi and hitting the lines behind with Ramos and Valverde to recover the serious face that pushed Madrid to the last league.
He - "a heavy" with himself who does not stop watching football, no matter how far away it may be - was the maximum recuperator last season, with 8.56 per game, two more than he has now.
In Germany, on the other hand, he rescued his team with two strokes in the opposite area with the version of that round-faced boy whom his teammates nicknamed Trakina.
He has not scored many goals in the Champions League (six in 54 games), although it has almost always been at key moments: in a Juventus final, in two round of 16 duels (Napoli and PSG), and in two very crossed league games, against Bruges and on the bell in Mönchengladbach.
A fact that underpins his value in the dressing room at 28 years old.
