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Courtois and Benzema lead the League of 16

2022-05-01T04:08:24.752Z


The Belgian goalkeeper and the French striker, in an unexpected alliance with the new Vinicius, pave the way to the title of a team with very defined main and secondary characters in the areas


Courtois, Vinicius and Benzema, this season. MIGUEL MEDINA (AFP)

The most elementary principles continue to govern football.

Whoever dominates the areas is very close to success, as this League champion Madrid demonstrated.

In Carlo Ancelotti's team, almost everything started with Courtois and ended with Benzema (plus Vinicius).

In the middle there were many things that explain his championship, but none more indisputable as having the goalkeeper and the striker more in grace, and also flourishing a winger who hung the suspicious sign before goal.

Above all, the Belgian and the French led a select team of 16 players (10 very regulars and six water carriers), almost unique arguments for an Italian coach who ignored all the warnings demanding rotations.

Pending the outcome in the Champions League, this is an analysis of all the associations in the squad.

Courtois

Without the political recognition of international awards yet, his performances on the pitch were decisive, his self-dedication in the face of constant public opinion and his voice has been gaining more and more weight in the club's message.

Difficult to find a game in which he has not left, at least, a great intervention, almost always decisive.

Impossible to understand the title without his stretches and chest blows.

His percentage of saves in the League (75.2%) is now the best in the League.

Carvajal-Mendy

Probably the most unstable point.

The commitment to Carvajal and Mendy for the right and left sides, respectively, was unequivocal, although the contribution of both, sometimes due to injuries and others due to performance, was below expectations.

Pointed out by the shaking that Mbappé subjected him to, the best of the youth squad did not come until the end of the course.

At Pizjuán, where Madrid tied the league, he came out as a left-back and provided an assist with each leg.

Lucas Vazquez

The official information of the club continues to present him as an offensive midfielder, but his job changed a long time ago.

Until the structure of the template says otherwise, the Galician is, above all, a right back.

He covered Carvajal's absences due to injury and in recent weeks in the League he alternated ownership with him.

He continued to cover the holes that were asked of him and, in addition, he scored three goals.

Alaba and Militão, after beating Granada at the Bernabéu. AFP7 via Europa Press (AFP7 via Europa Press)

Alaba-Militão

This was one of the leaps into the void after a decade of Sergio Ramos and Varane, whose departures did not worry the club.

On the contrary, even.

Militão finished the previous year on the rise and Alaba came with the callus of Bayern, but the greasing of him as a couple was an unknown.

The response was remarkable -except for some blackouts at the end-, the two understood each other on and off the field, and Ancelotti did not want to know more.

Nacho

Carletto dedicated his first sentence of the year to him, in Vitoria: “There are two types of defenders: the optimistic and the pessimistic.

Nacho is pessimistic because he always thinks that something could happen and, therefore, he is focused”.

The praise, however, did not get him more minutes than lifeguard.

After his great previous campaign, the first in which he saw his aspiration of having 30 games with continuity fulfilled, the youth squad returned to his usual role.

Casemiro-Kroos-Modric

The second sentence of Ancelotti's course was, in Granada, for the indivisible formula of the medium: "They surprise me, they do things that I do not ask of them", he praised them in full white takeoff to the dictation of the three of them.

Six years after their meeting, the connection of the Madrid game continued to depend on this triangle.

First alone and sheltered behind to look for the cons, and then escorted in many moments by Valverde or Camavinga to try to push higher, their old combination added an extra course of validity.

It was not the best Casemiro, but it was as essential as ever.

The Madrid of the pre-Christmas streak coincided with the most decisive Kroos.

Then he lost presence.

And to infinity Modric (36 years old) they stopped asking him when he retires.

He awaits another renewal.

Kroos, Casemiro, Messi and Modric, during PSG-Madrid. Shaun Botterill (Getty Images)

Valverde

El Pajarito, now nicknamed the Falcon, left his permanent waiting room and was recruited in the last third of the course to provide what the Italian coach pronounces as “

energy

” (energy).

His twenty-year-old legs (he is 23) served to seek moments of pressure higher up and, from Stamford Bridge, also to abandon the 4-3-3 that Ancelotti had declared immutable and that the Uruguayan helped in all corners.

He has been the great variant of the last few weeks thanks to the almost unlimited deposit of him.

Camavinga

Midfielder or midfielder?

The 19-year-old Frenchman is Casemiro's newest attempt at building a double.

He has plenty of display, he has a good footing and he lacks the only thing he cannot buy: years of work to know how to move in such a sensitive position.

In one place or another, his season has rebounded in recent weeks after a very gray central stretch.

As a good teenager, he has alternated disturbing performances for Ancelotti with others of merit in moments of great tension (in the eighth and quarter-finals of the Champions League, above all).

Rodrygo-Asensio

In an eleven where ten ballots have been delivered in advance, the Brazilian's overflow and the Balearic's shot have taken turns for months the only vacancy, until the recent rise of Valverde, especially in tough games.

Asensio, who started without a gap at the top and practiced in the middle, made his way with goals (12, 10 in the League; he surpasses his personal best), several of them important in the championship.

And Rodrygo, more sharp in the Champions League, gained prominence in the final stretch.

Vinicius-Benzema

The couple of the League and, surely, one of the most unexpected after years of misunderstanding.

Until this campaign, the Frenchman had not given any assistance to the Brazilian.

In total, 5,200 minutes and 103 meetings living on their backs.

The first connection occurred on the second day, against Levante, the night precisely that the new Vinicius exploded, and he already has five (nine in total from one to the other).

A birth that, far from detracting from Karim's focus, multiplied it to the point of forcing the million dollar rhetorical question: is he now the best striker in the world?

He has 42 goals in 42 games throughout the course and his 26 in the League place him one step behind the Pichichi.

Vini, for his part, accumulated 14 goals in three years and in this one alone he has 18 (14 in the domestic tournament).

A winger famous for the memes generated by his failures against the rival goalkeeper and a striker who until four years ago did not seem very concerned about scoring statistics have mutated into a top-level liquidator couple.

The solution to the great goal problem of recent campaigns was at home, although no one would have imagined it in August.

Hazard and Bale, on Levante's pitch this season. DeFodi Images (DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

A battalion of inconsequential

Behind these 16 main actors, there was a lot of silence in the field and, if anything, ambient noise.

In the distant August, the first bet to accompany Benzema were Hazard and Bale, who barely lasted three games.

The first was devoured by the irruption of Vinicius and ended up weighed down by his continuous physical discomfort (a month ago he removed the plate on his right ankle) and insignificance on the pitch.

And the second, whistled by the Bernabéu, because between injuries and a very long disconnection from Madrid, he only aspired to complete the process of his last year of contract.

The two most expensive signings of the club (115 million for the Belgian and 101 for the Welshman) nobody missed them.

Jovic and Mariano were Benzema's substitutes, but Ancelotti has been trying since January without any success with the false nine due to the very poor performance of both.

One such attempt to alleviate one of the Frenchman's absences was Isco, who continued his steep decline at just 30 years old before leaving the club in the summer.

Ceballos took the lead, injured until January and the only one of this caboose who was able to get out of that gray area in the last month with two more than estimable performances in Pamplona and against Espanyol.

Marcelo, one of the captains, fulfills his last contract year without interference in a half-sports, half-institutional decision.

Vallejo and Lunin completed calls, and youth squads Miguel Gutiérrez and Antonio Blanco disappeared in October.

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Source: elparis

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