Football: Sighs at the Bernabéu
This is how Madrid-Betis looked at the Bernabéu on Sunday, organized with a new premise: Barcelona’s previous match, which they won 7-0 and have now won four out of four. Madrid had not looked to the sides for some time and they have been dealt the wrong moment, with their stars learning to mix things up and their fans over-interpreting glances and greetings in training in search of conversation topics.
Madrid did not disappoint in a bad way: they played the first half with the curtain of the show on the ground, unable to move on the red carpet that they believed was grass: too many spotlights for them not to dazzle. And too much urgency to show how good each one is. All this translates into anxiety, the greatest mortal sin of an elite team condemned to play at the height of its expectations, not to mention win. The dynamite of the attack lacks the fuse of the midfield, the blowtorch that intelligently ignites the offense. The forwards do not help, many and elusive, often lone wolves. And Madrid tends to suffocate itself by giving passes in the three quarters without lights or gaps, unintentionally creating a noose that takes away the breath from the ball until it becomes a useless weapon whose only value is that it is stolen to launch a counterattack.
An agonising situation aggravated by the bad luck of their forwards, who have started the League blinded against the same wall in Russia that Luis García Berlanga, threatened in the Blue Division, protected during the Second World War saying that he feared Dracula more than the Red Army. Someone in Madrid said, the summer when Mbappé did not come, that they would miss him as one misses a cluster bomb. And at the worst, Valverde appeared to leave a touch in the area that left the Frenchman alone, resolving like a goal functionary: without the showiness of the previous day’s backheel, without the brilliance of Youtube; the goal as it is, an apparently simple execution that ends with the ball in. Like writing and acting, making it easy is the most difficult thing.
And Madrid took the lead to catch the essential breath of fresh air. The interwar period is coming, in which Madrid needs therapy more than play, speed of mind more than ball speed, and to shake off the complexes of being a favorite to assume the role with the naturalness with which it goes out to play in Europe. There is an accomplice that can become an enemy if not used well, and that is time. The fun will be who handles it best.