He is also able to escape from tedium and culminate a flat and unpromising night in ecstasy. He sent Elche from less to more, from boredom to showwith a great goal from Güler from his own field and an exciting group of five youth players, something extraordinary by the standards of recent seasons. Arbeloa’s team momentarily came within one point of Barça, which hosts Sevilla this Sunday, after a sluggish start that was awakened by two great shots from Valverde: one ended in a goal from Rüdiger and another into the top corner.
4
Thibaut Courtois, Fran García, Dean Huijsen, Dani Carvajal, Antonio Rüdiger (Diego Aguado, min. 60), Federico Valverde (Gonzalo García, min. 57), Eduardo Camavinga, Aurélien Tchouaméni (Daniel Yáñez, min. 57), Thiago Pitarch (César Palacios, min. 63), Brahim Díaz (Manuel Ángel, min. 62) y Vinícius Júnior (Arda Güler, min. 57)
1
Matías Dituro, Léo Pétrot (Josan, min. 63), Germán Valera, Buba Sangaré (Adrià Pedrosa, min. 22), David Affengruber (Pedro Bigas, min. 73), Victor Chust, Lucas Cepeda (Rafa Mir, min. 63), Aleix Febas, Federico Redondo (Marc Aguado, min. 63), André Silva y Martim Neto (Grady Diangana, min. 73)
Goals
1-0 min. 38: Rudiger. 2-0 min. 43: Valverde. 3-0 min. 65: Huijsen. 3-1 mins 84: Manuel Ángel. 4-1 min. 88: Güler
Referee Jesus Gil Manzano
yellow cards
Camavinga (min. 54), Germán Valera (min. 61), David Affengruber (min. 65), Rafa Mir (min. 87)
The awakening took a while, but, of course, it is easier to provoke delirium than to return from it to earth. After a flight like Wednesday’s, the routine presents complications, perhaps more so when the troops parade held with pins, with ten casualties and several footballers at their limits. The League has not yet completely evaporated and on Tuesday City awaits in the second leg of the Champions League, but on the grass of the Bernabéu. The crossing of trajectories led to a session that aimed at inconsequentiality and ended with memorable features.
Everything happened in international waters, far from the coast, with a deceptive, intense, but irrelevant aggressiveness. The stands were a yawn. Trifles woke her up: a headed clearance, a ball returned to the team that kicked it out, a corner won. They applauded each other for applauding while the football was getting worse.
Madrid held the pulse of intensity with Brahim’s incombustible enthusiasm. Neither to exhaustion, nor to peeking between the rivals to facilitate the release of the ball. Arbeloa’s team did not let itself be carried away by the emotional hangover, but neither did it find the thread of the game enough to worry Dituro. Until Valverde emerged. Again.
Vinicius took a free kick and the Uruguayan smashed the ball. Dituro shook her off in terror. But Valverde had already messed everything up. Brahim went to the rebound, Pedrosa headed a clearance and the ball floated towards Rüdiger, who pocketed it without letting it fall. After the goal, the best thing they served to the public until then was the celebration. The German received a volley of slaps on the top of the head with which he usually distributes, and he responded by imitating Valverde’s celebration, with his right fist clenched.
. He received it from the front, threatened to hit it with his left foot, cut back and placed the ball in the corner with the inside of his right foot. Valverde is a player in a trance right now.
After an hour, and with no hint of a response from Elche, Arbeloa considered his mission of holding on to the League accomplished and began to save his legs for the second leg of the round of 16 at the Etihad. He removed Vinicius, Tchouameni, Valverde and Rüdiger from the field as a group, and provided the Bernabéu with something that they also enjoy a lot, a tender batch of homegrown players. Diego Aguado and Yáñez left first, accompanied by Güler and Gonzalo, who is already accumulating mileage. A couple of minutes later he retired Thiago and Brahim, who wasted a one-on-one match in which Vinicius accompanied him, and brought in Palacios and Manuel Ángel, one of the talents that the stands most appreciate and were most looking forward to.
The movements struck a chord with the Bernabéu and maintained the pace of Madrid, which had already kept the ball and was looming closer to Dituro. The effect was not just ornamental. Yáñez looked up at the area. There Huijsen’s almost two meters stood out above the crowd. The Castilla player still aimed at that outstanding head and the center-back scored the third.
The happy night of the newcomers was tarnished a little when Camavinga, who couldn’t quite find his place, gave the ball away in his area. The mistake ended with an own goal by Manuel Ángel when he tried to cut off a cross. The pain passed immediately. Güler saw Dituro ahead, shot from home and scored. Mission accomplished before returning to the Etihad.
