Athletic Club loses to Real Madrid 0-1 (Sergio Ramos). Here is our quick reaction. Still to come: player rankings, post-game quotes, post-game podcast, C-Trick tactical column, and more.
* Each report of the match concludes with a winning goal by Sergio Ramos. *
It hit 28 degrees earlier today at San Mamés between Athletic Club and Real Madrid. That early start, along with the heat, could probably explain some of the slowness we saw on the field in the first half.
That slowness didn’t necessarily correlate with the game’s entertainment value, one with plenty of tactical wrinkles to dissect and enough holes to allow certain people to rise to the occasion. There was no better example of this than Real Madrid’s greater defensive vulnerability in the first half: Iñaki Williams making dangerous runs in the half-space between Sergio Ramos and Marcelo. Marcelo spent most of his position in the middle of Athletic, and Ramos was unusually careless in tracking Iñaki, letting him slide behind him. In this game, Eder Militao was masterful in approaching the left side to help cover himself. (There was much more to this plot than I suggested, which we’ll break down in today’s podcast.)
Offensively, the biggest barrier was creating opportunities, more specifically: having a repertoire of attack diverse enough to get Athletic out of its comfort zone. With Asensio on the left and Rodrygo on the right, there was no interchangeability between them. Rodrygo was sometimes deeper than Carvajal and had a hard time getting involved in the first frame. Most of Real Madrid’s attack was channeled through the left side where Marcelo and Asensio were. Asensio was playing with a rebound, playing dangerous diagonal balls in the box. The combination of Marcelo and Asensio together was less efficient, since the passes between them were not synchronized. Athletic planned the obvious: to be in the right places to beat Benzema in the box and eliminate the danger.
In the second half, things moved. Rodrygo took a more active role on the offensive. He faced the players with a good clip, and had dangerous line break sequences that were combined with Carvajal and Benzema: dribbling in the box, playing 1-2s and diagonal passes to the Real Madrid attackers in the box.
There was more urgency as the second half progressed as a draw began to permeate the team’s collective nervous system. Marcelo continued to advance on the left side, and a sprint to get to the ball before Dani García in the area earned him a well-deserved penalty.
Here is the scheduled part of the article, where Sergio Ramos scores the winning penalty after 70 minutes:
With that, Ramos scored his 22nd consecutive penalty, and Real Madrid moved one step closer to an expired league title. Stay tuned for tonight’s podcast.
