Rodrygo and the comeback switch against Chelsea

When the Chelsea players finally set foot on the pitch at the Santiago Bernabéu, they took out their mobiles and flooded family WhatsApp groups with photos and videos of what was seen from down there.

Then, an hour before kickoff, it was still a sleeping beast, plus a half-finished, upside-down building.

However, they felt that they were not in just any place.

To explain, a source with access to the Chelsea dressing room points to a joke that accompanied one of the images: "They said it looked like they had never seen a real pitch."

Not the Bernabéu, where the London team had never played.

They had not even tasted it in the traditional last training session before a Champions League match that takes place the afternoon before.

Thomas Tuchel, who had been there with PSG, preferred to keep his people in the sports city of Cobham until the last moment, and to have as little contact with the Bernabéu as possible.

The last ones who had passed through there in the Champions League, a month earlier, had been the Paris Saint-Germain footballers, who for days pondered a perplexed question: "What has happened to us?"

However, at the time of the reconnaissance tour on Tuesday, and for almost 80 minutes of football, both the stadium and Madrid remained sleepy, while Chelsea accumulated goals and seemed to have buried them under a blushing 0-3, in reply to 1 -3 of the first leg.

Two minutes later, Rodrygo entered the field, accompanied by an unusual certainty, at the height of PSG's crazy night and what was about to happen.

Hours before the match, when he deduced that he would not start because Carlo Ancelotti had not told him anything, he sent a message to his people with two ideas: he knew that it was going to be a difficult match and that in the end the team was going to need him.

He was sure, he told them he.

The Brazilian entered the field when the clock read 77.15 and the scoreboard read 0-3.

Less than two minutes later, at 79.09, he touched the ball for the first time.

It was a ball that fell between the penalty spot and the small area after an exquisite hit with the outside of Modric's right foot.

It was 1-3, and he, like everyone else, knew what it meant: "He kept the team alive in the tie," he told Brazilian television.

That touch changed everything.

As Jorge Valdano explained shortly after the comeback against PSG, "scoring a goal is like pressing the switch".

A mechanism is activated in the stands and the team escapes rationality.

“When that becomes customary, you think the stadium has properties.

And it is convenient that this be spread”, said Valdano.

“Let the enemies believe it.

That is important".

Chelsea footballers also noted a disturbance in strength.

It wasn't just the noise, but there was what a source close to the London dressing room described as "a vibration".

The defending champion did not fray, as PSG had done a month before, but Madrid recovered the conviction with which they defeated Mbappé.

For Rodrygo it was also important: “I'm happy to score again.

I was working a lot.

I had played good games, but I needed a goal to complete my good performances”, he said.

When he celebrated, he showered and changed, went back out on the grass to be photographed: “This is my house!

I love you, Real Madrid”, he wrote on Twitter to accompany the image.

THIS IS MY HOME!

I LOVE YOU @realmadrid 🤍 #UCL pic.twitter.com/6KEz7EJaw9

– Rodrygo Goes (@RodrygoGoes) April 12, 2022

Then he went to dinner at the same restaurant where he celebrated the night of his perfect hat trick against Galatasaray.

Although on Tuesday the table was smaller than the one full of friends and family in which he celebrated in 2019 being the youngest in history with a triplet in the Champions League, the territory of his astonishment (this course has not scored in League).

He was then made to stand up on a chair and make a short speech.

Tuesday was quieter, with his father, Eric;

his agent, Nick Arcuri;

his physical trainer, Marcel Duarte;

and Brazilian coach Tiago Nunes.

The meeting summarized the footballer's last months of work, surrounded by a more robust structure and more focused on physical work, which has made him gain muscle: he has gone from 60 kilos to 66, especially since confinement.

He from the restaurant he went home, still answering the phone, with calls even after three in the morning.

The night of PSG's comeback he didn't go to bed until seven, and that day he hadn't scored.

Vinicius, who ended up melted and cramped, did not go out to dinner, but ate at home what Nagib, his French cook, prepared for him;

he took some supplements and went to the game room with some friends who were visiting.

In another room, several members of his team stayed chatting, who remembered the bad night that Reece James had put him through, nothing to do with Christensen in the first leg.

The Brazilian's game was gray, but in extra time he found some air, and had the pause of a player made to wait for Benzema to make room.

Then he put the ball to his head and Real Madrid snuck into their tenth semi-final in the last twelve years, something no other team has done.

The next day, Vini replied to a post by the Englishman on Instagram and Twitter: “Great game, brother.

Good luck".

great game bro.

Good luck 💫🔥

– Vini Jr. (@vinijr) April 13, 2022

Ancelotti publicly called the phenomenon recorded at the Bernabéu “magic”.

Later, in private, before getting on the bus to pick up his car in Valdebebas and go home, he insisted that in another stadium and with another team other than Madrid, that would never have happened.

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