Carlo Ancelotti travels through the cornice of the season with two quartets in mind. It needs both, but the absence of one by the lesions increases the risk of the exuberance of the other. “Before the game I have seen an image of the four (Carvajal, Militão, Alaba and Rüdiger) greet the companions who entered the field. It means that despite the difficulty we are doing very well, ”he said on Saturday, a kind of stress test of the other quartet (Mbappé, Vinicius, Bellingham and Rodrygo) just three days after this Tuesday’s capital visit to Manchester City In the Etihad (21.00, Movistar). And that before knowing that yesterday I would also lose Lucas Vázquez for an injury to the Ischios of the left leg.
“You can be worth,” concluded the Italian thinking about his visit to Pep Guardiola, another attached by an off -point team. “We have changed a little at the defensive level, with two lines of four,” he explained. When defending, he tried to return to 4-4-2, the formation that he considers to give more stability. When they did not have the ball they had to go to that drawing from 4-2-3-1 with which they attacked. Bellingham went from the center of the “3 ″ to the left flank of the four media line and Rodrygo occupied the right, with a lot of journey back to help Lucas in the band. “And also, to be close to the team. At the level of commitment it has been a good game. ”
The technician had launched a mixture of notice and call of relief: “Defensive solidity is a collective work. The four who have scored more than 60 goals, who have done a fantastic offensive job … The team also needs help at the defensive level. ”
The scheme worked stable especially during the first half hour, until 0-1. Atlético expected sheltered and Madrid attacked with some parsimony, especially for the central areas, partly because they found the subsequent replication easier, for example to Vinicius, which formed with Kylian Mbappé the avant -garde couple. The goal triggered the instincts to go above the four and began to open the structure, which continued to hold Valverde and Ceballos in the center, and further back, Asencio and Tchouameni, very accurate.
Simeone left the Bernabéu with the sections of the derby in which Madrid departed almost 4-2-4. Especially in the second part, he noticed that those above not to return and thought that this should be unsustainable for the Real. However, Atlético finished the game with a single shot, the penalty of Julián Alvarez, who also did not even leave a shot action, but from a stomp to a footballer who had seen the ball pass.
Madrid controlled with some solvency the cons in the final stretch of Atlético even in full assault taken from Oblak’s goal to try to take the derby. The quartet above causes vertigo when the team has to look back, but that was how they forced the Slovenian goalkeeper to make eight stops, according to OPTA records.
On that point the cavilations of the Ancelotti coaching staff have gravitated these months, which is not reasonable to give up an arsenal of such a formidable power. As he pointed out after the derby, the Italian believes that it would be easier to balance the set if the quartet of injured could enter the field instead of forming to greet those who are going to do it, but Atlético’s test led him to reaffirm himself in something that He mentioned in the previous one: “I have no idea that to seek balance I have to remove one, two, three or four strikers. I can look for more balance by removing the four strikers. I put four media, I look for the balance, I press more … but not frame 60 goals. Simple”. That possible booty and the few scratches left by Atlético (removing the penalty, only 0.67 goals expected according .
