Zidane does it again while Real Madrid recovers his coach from the brink of the abyss | Real Madrid

A Shortly after 11 p.m. on Saturday, standing next to the bench where he began his coaching career against Getafe B, before the three European Cups and the league title, before going out and back in, winning another title, Zinedine Zidane was asked to name the best of his last derby against Atlético de Madrid. At one end, two men with a ladder were shooting through the net where Dani Carvajal had scored the second not long before, a superb shot that crashed into the post and Jan Oblak, but it was not that. Nor was it Casemiro’s starter. And it was not Thibaut Courtois’ save to secure a clean sheet. Instead, there was a shrug, a smile, and then Zidane said, “Everything.”

“They were three very important points, but it’s a bit of everything. It was a complete performance, the victory and the way we did it: against a team that we know is very good that had 26 games without losing. And well, I’m happy ”.

He’d just gone and done it again. Atlético led the table, “favorites”, said Zidane. Six points ahead of Madrid with a game in hand, he stood before perhaps the best chance of winning the League, even better than when he did. This was their strongest and deepest team and they dominated the games, not just decided them. They had won seven in a row, had not lost a game and had not even been behind, conceding two goals in 10 games. But now Madrid had beaten so many in one night, inflicting a first league loss since February, when they last met.

But that was not all that Zidane had done again. He had survived. Describing the most successful coach to have had the European Cup as a survivor is a bit absurd, but it is also true. Another ultimatum passed, there he was still standing, still smiling. Defeated by Cádiz, Alavés and Valencia, defeated twice by Shakhtar Donetsk, the team that had put five and no more, this could have been the week that the Real Madrid season ended; instead, it’s the week he finally got it up and running.

In seven days, Madrid faced Sevilla, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Atlético de Madrid. At the end of that streak, they could have been 12 points behind Atlético, played one more game and been out of the Champions League in the group stage for the first time. Do it and Zidane would also be out. But they didn’t do that, at least in part because Zidane would be out. Instead, Madrid beat Sánchez Pizjuán 1-0, beat Gladbach to win the group before tying Atalanta in the round of 16, and then defeated Atlético.

The victory for Atlético would have given them a greater advantage over their rivals than any team has come back to win the title, but the difference is now three points, with AS leading “Madrid up the league”. Marca opted for: “Madrid revives the League.” As Zidane said, it wasn’t just that they won, it was the way they won, reaffirming a superiority so clear that you felt like they could be champions again after all. “Madrid have turned things around like a sock,” read a report, which doesn’t say much about their hygiene and that somehow you always knew they would.

Thomas Lemar missed an absolute babysitter who could have tied at Atlético’s level, it’s true. The two goals that Madrid scored were a header from a corner and an own goal, that is also true. But it is equally true that when Thibaut Courtois saved Saúl Ñíguez late, it was the only stop he made. “They were better than us, more intense,” said Atlético Koke captain. “In the first half, we were not ourselves.”

The cynic might suggest yes: that on Saturday Atlético’s recent change of style was abandoned as was always likely, another evolutionary process was left incomplete. That at the moment of truth, Atlético did not believe in their new self and that Madrid still exercised a strange dominance over them.

Diego Simeone has talked about how Luis Suárez has conditioned Atlético’s way of playing, forcing them to get closer to the rival goal: it doesn’t make sense to play for a long time, releasing it from behind the defense. That in turn has favored João Félix, perhaps this season’s standout player. On Saturday, however, Suarez had 10 touches before being retired after 70 minutes, replaced by a defensive midfielder. João Félix had left 10 minutes earlier, furiously kicking his seat. Atlético’s three-man central defense did not work, the wide ones, Kieran Trippier and Yannick Carrasco, more lateral than forwards, unable to escape from deep. And they saw Madrid complete 150 more passes, that new identity undone.

“The coach was wrong,” Simeone said, underscored by his decision to change formation and make three changes at halftime, eliminating both forwards soon after, a decision motivated in part by a desire to limit damage. “Being a leader has to do with the points you have, but also with the state of mind,” Orfeo Suárez wrote in El Mundo. That was missing for Atlético, he argued, and he was not alone. “They retired in the middle ages,” AS complained, “for proto-Cholism.In Marca, Roberto Palomar insisted: “It is the step back syndrome again; It’s okay to lose to Madrid, but not like in the old days. “

However, it was a game, the formation was familiar, just like the last more successful weeks, it would be a leap to suggest that they took a step back voluntarily and the intention to continue playing could be seen in how they were caught by Madrid’s first opportunity. . and the opening goal. Also, there was another reason why Atlético de Madrid weren’t very good: Real Madrid were.

They were what they were supposed to be. When asked to explain Madrid’s performance, the club’s institutional director, Emilio Butragueño, said: “Well, we have very good players.” Asked about Toni Kroos and Luka Modric, Zidane replied: “Pffff, well… they are fucking great. But everyone, huh. Kroos and Modric are exceptional, it’s true. Benzema: what can I say? Lucas Vázquez, our captain [Sergio Ramos], Rafa [Varane], everyone, everyone … “

It was a Zidane classic, always about them, not about him, and there is something in that. At best, there may not yet be a trio of midfielders like Modric, Kroos and Casemiro. Against Atlético, Kroos completed 87 of 90 passes; Against Gladbach, Modric rolled back the years and any opponent who was stupid enough to get too close. Karim Benzema was magnificent again: “Anyone who likes football likes Karim,” said Zidane. And there is no great player like Ramos, maybe anywhere: a man with a sense of occasion and a taste for the epic, a feeling for the moments that really matter. “When they are on, they are on,” Zidane said last week. This week they had to be.

There is something about immediate goals that drives them and it may just be human nature; there are priorities in life, moments when everything else is left behind, the daily routine giving way to something greater or more important, moments when the threat of loss brings with it the realization of what one has, a renewed seriousness . Madrid won three consecutive European Cups but Zidane always insisted that the league satisfied him more, because he knew how elusive consistency can be. This is the team that embraced the 2019-20 La Liga campaign as a post-pandemic sprint more than a season and, defeated by teams half their size this season, won in Barcelona and Seville, beat Internazionale twice and now beaten. the team that no one else could.

In seven decisive days, Real Madrid stepped back from the precipice, as you always knew they would. Above all because they needed him and because Zidane needed him, as he had done before the Clásico and in Istanbul last season. A tightrope walker, as one columnist called him, had returned to the other side.

Make no mistake, it was not the words of the outside that put Zidane on the edge; it was speaking from within. There is much talk about his relationship with key figures in the locker room, especially the veterans he turned to. It’s often an ambiguous compliment at best, deliberately ignoring tactical ideas (Modric and Kroos playing wide open to overload the wings on Saturday, for example) and making it seem simple or dismissing it as insignificant when sometimes it is everything. There was a feeling of “don’t touch our Zidane” about Madrid’s reaction, which would make a brilliant Machiavellian plot of leaks from above, a reaction sought and assured. The question they ask themselves, and others, is why is Madrid not always like this? “It’s hard to tell, but it’s an unusual season,” Carvajal said.

“Everybody talks about this,” Casemiro said. “But many teams are having ups and downs, that’s normal. This is how it is; there are many games, there is no time. It is not an excuse, but we are not machines. It’s not just about intensity, it’s about playing well. We also have to talk about football. It’s easy to talk about Toni and Luka; you can see on the field that they know how to play and you can also see the hand of the coach.

“It’s not just the players; it is also the coaching staff, who studies things. And it’s not about who comes out stronger from this: Real Madrid comes out stronger. It is clear that we trust the coach, but it is not only for him: he is our pride, the insignia, the club. You can see we’re in this together. “