Since Karim Benzema was injured last Monday after heading Real Madrid's third goal against Mallorca (0-3), a tense countdown began with the question of whether the striker would recover in time to host Barcelona the following Sunday in the Bernabeu.
In the end, the Frenchman was in the stadium, but sitting in a box next to Ferland Mendy, also injured, although the players who are out are not required to go to the field.
In addition, before and after the match, both went through the locker room to be with their teammates.
It was not enough.
Benzema's absences, especially that of the Clásico, expose the weaknesses of the squad (some unexpected) and put Carlo Ancelotti before the challenge of supplying the Frenchman from options that have been reduced throughout the season and they are not entirely orthodox.
The test of the classic, with Luka Modric as a false nine, was a fiasco that spread chaos to the entire team and that the Italian coach was unable to correct despite trying with at least three changes of formation.
“The approach has not been good, I have failed”, he said after the match.
All the club's estates coincide in the trial, from the offices, where yesterday the problem of order derived from Modric's experiment was lamented, to the players, to whom Thibaut Courtois gave voice at the end of the game: "We have to talk about tactics internally.
Obviously we have all seen that neither the beginning of the game nor the second half came out, and we had to change again, ”he said.
And he pointed to the weakness of the chosen tactical solution: "We played in the Cup in Bilbao [against Athletic] with a false nine and we had barely shot on goal, and today it was a bit the same".
Ancelotti's recognized skid has two parts: the false nine option and the player chosen to execute it.
In the first part, the tactical disposition without a point of reference, has pushed the future of the squad to the coach, according to a source who knows his work first-hand.
When Benzema is absent, the catalog of reliable alternatives has been reduced as the course has progressed.
Mariano has never been considered a solid option for high-altitude clashes like the one on Sunday.
Bale has continued to accentuate the process of disconnection from Madrid that began in 2018, and various club sources understand that he does not show the slightest interest in playing in white again.
Ancelotti included him in the squad for the classic after a normal week in training, but on Sunday he alleged that he had felt "some discomfort in his back" and was not on the bench, nor did he appear in the locker room, nor did he saw him at the stadium.
Yesterday he joined the concentration of Wales, which on Thursday has a playoff game for the World Cup in Qatar against Austria.
Eden Hazard has stopped injuring himself, but in the opinion of the coaching staff he is not in a position to play a match at the level that Madrid requires.
And Jovic, who was the natural replacement for Benzema in the first part of the season, has shown signs that the pressure he feels being at the club affects his performance, which is why since the Cup elimination in San Mamés he has disappeared from the lineups.
So, without a center forward to trust, Ancelotti began to experiment with the false nine, which Isco (who has not played for eight games), Rodrygo, Asensio and on Sunday Modric have gone through, the least successful of the tests, without result in attack and that resulted in disorder and loss of fluidity, ideas and hierarchy in midfield.
The graph of the passing network shows the mess that the experiment led to in Madrid's midfield, in the same way that the balance of Barcelona from which it built its dominance of the match is verified.
The seams of the forward and the weakness of the wardrobe in other areas, such as the sides, where Dembélé and Ferran Torres shone, were exposed.
On the right, Carvajal was not fine and his alternative, forced, is Lucas Vázquez.
On the left, with Mendy injured, his replacement was Nacho, a central defender, in the face of Marcelo's defensive gaps in demanding games.
Barça took advantage of the chaos and weaknesses of Madrid and overwhelmed it.
Then he celebrated it as a title in the locker room and outside.
Laporta and his team were photographed on the pitch, and then Xavi and his.
Like many on his first visit to the Bernabéu.
In Madrid, yesterday they tried again to put the classic 0-4 in perspective: they are still leaders, with a wide advantage, and in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
"We prefer to be like us than like them," they say in the offices.
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