These are the center kick plays with which Real Madrid looks for the goal in 9 seconds

The first nine seconds of Real Madrid-Juventus last Saturday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena were very close to being a bingo for the think tank of Davide Ancelotti, assistant coach of the Whites.

Luka Modric sent in a cross and nine seconds later Karim Benzema kicked the ball into the net, although the referee disallowed the goal for offside.

The dazzling move is a football-inspired creation that Davide has insisted on, refining, in several games since the comeback Champions League qualifiers.

He tried that same combination in the quarter-final second leg against Chelsea, in the semi-final second leg against City and in the Paris final against Liverpool.

The plan begins with Modric's center kick towards Casemiro, while Benzema, Valverde and Carvajal congregate on the right flank, next to the dividing line.

After serving, the Croatian runs towards the opposite goal, stops and returns, throwing his marker off the scent.

Casemiro returns the ball, which he gives to Kroos at the first touch, who also throws it at the first touch like a deep quarterback towards the right wing, where Carvajal and Valverde run.

In the canonical execution, the winger centers at the far post, where Benzema and Vinicius arrive to finish off.

In Pasadena, after a precise development of movements and passes, Valverde, who had started offside, went for the ball without waiting for Carvajal, who was in the correct position, to reach it.

In that meter of advance of the Uruguayan Davide's celebration was drowned.

Carlo Ancelotti's son complements the Madrid coach's football experience with a more modern vision in some aspects and with the support of the latest analysis techniques, both video and data.

Davide started working with Carlo very early on, and was already at Valdebebas in his first spell at Madrid, the season that ended with the tenth European Cup in Lisbon in 2014. However, he was then working in another department, as assistant coach physicist, Giovanni Mauri.

Now, as assistant coach, he has formed a tactical analysis and development team in which he works hand in hand with Francesco Mauri, the son of that physical trainer.

Solutions such as kick-offs are born from them, ideas that, according to sources close to the working group, seek surprise through study and rehearsal.

Davide prepares the proposals, which are then submitted to the judgment of the team closest to Ancelotti, which includes Mauri and also Luis Llopis, who is more than just the goalkeeping coach and promoter of Courtois's explosion last year.

With the ideas to squeeze the options of corners, free kicks and kick-offs on the table, Carlo brings his experience, weighs pros and cons, and they end up choosing which solutions to try.

This field work, like most training sessions in Valdebebas, is directed by Davide, while Carlo observes and analyses.

The free kicks and corners devised in the laboratory appeared at different times of the season, but the careful choreography of the kick-off was reserved for the Champions League qualifiers.

The first big test came in the second leg of the round of 16, against Paris Saint-Germain at the Bernabéu.

Madrid went into the break behind on the scoreboard (0-1) and surpassed in the game by a team launched by Kylian Mbappé.

On the way back from the locker room, Modric takes Valverde off center, threatens to run forward, returns, receives, gives it to Asensio, and he throws a deep pass through the center to Vinicius's run that almost reaches a ball that ends up controlling Donnarumma five and a half seconds after the serve.

The play was a carbon copy of one that had ended in a goal from Bournesmouth to Fulham three months earlier in the English Second.

When the next tie came to the Bernabéu, Madrid had the kick-off against Chelsea.

Moments before, the production showed Davide Ancelotti energetically and somewhat anxiously correcting the position of a player.

Something was preparing.

In the version that ended in a disallowed goal in the Rose Bowl, Modric took out Casemiro, feigned the race... The ball came clean Kroos, who shot to the right wing, but the runners had not found space and there the essay was diluted .

But Davide had seen something promising in that somewhat more elaborate development, nine seconds instead of six, and insisted on the next tie at the Bernabéu, the second leg of the semi-finals in which they had to come back from 4-3 in the first leg against Manchester City.

With 0-0 at the break, Modric placed the ball in the center at the break and activated the choreography.

It worked so well that Vinicius found himself alone before a defeated Ederson.

But the auction went out for little.

The routine seemed greased, and Real Madrid tried again three weeks later in the final in Paris.

But Liverpool, with one of the best teams of analysts in the world, did not fall for Modric's deception, so Casemiro could not return the ball to him and the maneuver did not go beyond the first pass.

Two months later, in the third pre-season game, Davide's same choreography surprised Juve in Pasadena, but some haste by Valverde canceled out the goal.

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