Bale and Hazard, a void of 200 million

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After facing Athletic without their top scorer in the quarterfinals of the Cup, Real Madrid faces their league duel this Sunday against Granada at the Bernabéu (9:00 pm, Movistar LaLiga) also without Vinicius, their second scorer. Benzema and the Brazilian add up to more than half of the team's goals, 29 of 47: 17 for the Frenchman, injured, and 12 for the Brazilian, suspended. The next on the list is Asensio, already with five. Carlo Ancelotti pointed out this Saturday that, except in San Mamés, they had managed with certain guarantees without the captain: they beat Real, Elche and Inter. From Bilbao they returned eliminated from the Cup, and with the closest experience of what effect the absence of Benzema and Vinicius at the same time can have.

The Brazilian was very depleted that night after playing for his team in Brazil less than 48 hours earlier.

“I have risked a bit with Vinicius.

He saw that he could give his contribution to the team even if he was tired, ”Ancelotti said this Saturday.

The result was Madrid's first less threatening half in two years.

According to Opta's calculations, the danger he generated was limited to 0.1 expected goals, just above the 0.08 he produced in the first half against Valladolid at Zorrilla in January 2020.

Faced with this small abyss, which will close next weekend in Vila-real, where Benzema and Vinicius will be, many eyes turned to the white bench in San Mamés.

Hazard only left him to warm up and Bale, who did not even leave him for that, once again exhibited a certain dissonance with the trance that his team was going through, at the mercy of the energy of Athletic and its stands.

The gazes turned to that couple driven by the feeling of emptiness in the attack combined with the attraction generated by the records.

The Belgian and the Welshman have been the two most expensive players in the club's history.

But what can you really expect from them?

There is hardly any material for Bale this season.

The last time he played for Madrid was on August 28, 66 minutes against Betis at the Benito Villamarín (0-1).

There is not even a recent trace to venture how the mixture of him with the public of the Santiago Bernabéu can result.

The last time his fans saw him at home was on February 26, 2020, almost two years ago, in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, against Manchester City (1-2).

That night he replaced Vinicius in the 75th minute, with the score at 1-0.

Apart from that, his most consistent track must be found last season, which he used on loan at Tottenham, where he posted hopeful numbers, although, from annoyance to annoyance, his participation was also quite small: he only played 920 minutes, but scored 11 goals and gave two assists.

That is, he was directly involved in 1.3 goals every 90 minutes.

In the final stretch of the course, he was even decisive in extremis for the club to be able to participate this year in a European competition, the Conference League.

That sprint and his good performance with the Welsh team in the European Championship led Carlo Ancelotti to believe, during pre-season, that he could still get some good juice out of Bale during the course.

That hope vanished months ago.

According to sources close to the day-to-day life of the Italian, the coach has lost that confidence, due to the footballer's lack of commitment, a succession of discomforts and injuries that often escape even the detection threshold of medical services.

The coach does not want to definitively write him off, but he also feels that the footballer has entered a phase in which, as in his last stage with Zinedine Zidane, he seems willing to stage his lack of connection with the rest of the group.

Hazard's case is different, to begin with because he has shown the coach an absent commitment in Bale.

Hence, he has not been disengaged from the wheel of used players: he is the 16th with the most minutes (832).

In that time, more or less intermittently, he has been generating more danger, in his last appearances more for his teammates than for him, although he was the one who decided the Cup tie against Elche with a goal.

The Belgian is still in Ancelotti's thoughts: "I wanted to put Hazard in extra time [against Athletic]", the Italian recalled this Saturday.

But the extension never came.

"He has played his games, where I thought he could be useful," Ancelotti added.

"I'm the one who sees the players every day."

That, and not the more than 200 million that the Belgian and the Welsh cost,

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