the slow revolution

Real Madrid takes its time

The classic was confirmatory: Madrid is left over.

A team that has defensive firmness, wisdom in its purest form in Modric and Kroos, physical and footballing exuberance in Tchouameni, Valverde, Vinicius, Rodrygo... Experience to manage the matches, youth to unbalance them.

This requires a plan, intelligence to carry it out and patience to wait for results.

Time was doing his job with Vinicius, a fairground shotgun turned into a high-precision rifle;

with Valverde, a shy man who needed several seasons to stop asking for permission;

with Rodrygo, a crack that appeared little by little until he took over the Bernabéu.

The three cases mentioned needed two essential conditions: good results, which help to hope, and excellent veterans, who knew how to protect them.

The team welcomed them until they became indisputable.

Soon, these young people will be able to receive new talent to help them integrate.

In such urgent times, it is good to see that patience pays off.

The Barça is in a hurry

Barça, on the other hand, did it again in one summer.

Claiming immediate results in a game of habits like football is stupid.

But a modern stupidity, so we are talking about a stupidity that breaks through and is full of reason.

The consequences are being paid by Xavi, who is accused of not knowing how to manage so much talent.

But where Madrid has Modric (37 years old) and Kroos (34), Barça has Pedri and Gavi, who, even getting on the FIFA box, are still under 20 years old.

Where Madrid has in Vinicius a straight line towards the area, Barça has the meandering talent of Dembélé, always in search of the goal of his life.

There where Madrid only thinks about the prey, Barça continues to want to justify itself in the hunt, as if the style were more effective than the result.

In addition, the very good talents that arrived were those that marginalized players like Piqué and Alba and those that left Busquets alone as an island.

Thus, the team was left without leadership and that contributes to the lack of consistency it is showing.

The classic showed two examples: one of stability (Madrid) and another of instability (Barça).

The analysis must start there.

The day Benzema beat them all

Benzema received the Ballon d'Or at the age of 34.

What a great day, what a great case.

We are talking about an exquisite player who had to put up with the accusation of being exquisite for years.

So exquisite that he had no blood, no goalscoring ambition.

The second condemned him as a striker and the first as a Real Madrid player.

From outside (journalism and fans) and from within the club, he lived under suspicion, without taking into account his enormous talent.

Don't look the other way: there were many thousands who mistrusted Benzema.

The leap in quality and personality that took him to the top, Benzema owes to Benzema, who grew at the level of difficulties and disrespect that he had to overcome.

But I think that his footballing maturity found the best possible ally along the way: Florentino Pérez.

If in the first point of this article I talked about patience and in the second about stability, in this I want to value trust.

Looking inwards, Benzema had the courage to impose his character in the face of adversity, but if we widen our gaze I think that, without Florentino, he would not have been crowned with this Ballon d'Or and I even doubt that he would have reached that day with the Real shirt Madrid.

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