When Is Real Madrid Going to Play Again
I n the middle of information technology all, someone fetched David Alaba a chair. It was late, it had been a long week, his legs were weary and everyone were making a lot of noise, merely this seat was not for sitting. This was for jubilant, his affair at present, and and so he took it and lifted it higher up his caput. Back by popular demand, he emulated what he had done after that absurd comeback against Paris Saint-Germain, a cheer went circular the dressing room and his teammates started singing: "That'south the manner Madrid win!"
They had only gone and done information technology again, and this time information technology had taken the title. "It'southward just three points, that's the reality," Nacho Fernández said standing pitchside when information technology was all finished bar the shouting, and there was a lot of that, merely the reality was that the league was theirs, clinched their way.
Four days afterward their implausible revival against Chelsea, Real Madrid came back from 2-0 to beat Sevilla iii-two in a brilliant match at the Sánchez Pizjuán, the just remaining unbeaten home tape over and the race as good as over with information technology.
A championship winner in Italy, England, Frg and France, Carlo Ancelotti should now add Espana, a 5th different championship arriving via a second opportunity he never expected, a adventure phone telephone call about something completely different bringing him back to the Bernabéu. Information technology might even make it soon: Madrid don't play next weekend – Saturday is the Copa del Rey last betwixt Valencia and Betis – but by Sun nighttime they could be champions, if Barcelona slip up this week. Fifteen points clear with six games left, what lilliputian hope anyone else had slipped away late on Lord's day night. Very lateSunday night.
It was Easter Dominicus in the place where they accept the passion of Christ more seriously than anywhere else, the orange blossom again turning Seville into the best-smelling city on earth, and a huge imprint had covered one end at the Pizjuán. "They celebrated our death; they will fear our resurrection," information technology read. They meant Sevilla of grade – and there are two Jesuses in their team, etc and so on – but it was fabricated for Madrid, always somehow standing at that place when the rock is rolled back.
Ivan Rakitic had scored the opening goal, his free-boot going through the wall where Éder Militão had been. V minutes afterward, Érik Lamela made it 2-0, the place going wild. They weren't even half an hour in and they were flying. Beaten just one time since the last time they faced Madrid, way back in November and not at all at home, Sevilla were in command, playing the ball from deep, starting each move pretty much on their ain by-line. At one indicate they worked their way out from the corner, got forced dorsum into it, and so but worked their way out again, accompanied past olés from the stand.
"Nosotros had the game in a skilful place," Rakitic said. This was going to be some story; instead, it was the story of their season. Close, but not. There, but out of reach, a feeling that they just couldn't take that step, at some level they still didn't really believe it however well it was going. "There was a fear of winning," Julen Lopetegui admitted.
There was also that other recurring theme, players breaking down all over the field. Antony Martial was taken out by Eduardo Camavinga, and forced off where the Madrid midfielder might have been sent off, a moment they felt changed everything. Marcos Acuña went, too. Then Lamela.
"Had nosotros kept them all on, I'm sure we would have won," said Monchi, the sporting manager. "It's such a pity." He, too, saw their whole season in this 1 game, opportunity lost. A "photograph", he chosen information technology.
In the finish, it wasn't even that good. A proper portrait would take had them drawing. Sevilla didn't lose in 11 league games after the turn of the year, the transfer window – signing Tecatito Corona and Martial, resisting Newcastle's arroyo for Diego Carlos – reflecting a feeling that they were standing before a unique opportunity. The problem was they didn't win much, either; seven of those ended in a describe, the claiming disintegrating 1 signal at a time. Fifty-fifty second place slipped. Now quaternary could as well. They were knocked out of the loving cup past Betis and the Europa League past Westward Ham, missing out on the chance of winning their bays in their stadium.
And now that stadium saw its start defeat of the league season, catastrophe in whistles and recrimination. Lamela was asked how the ii halves could be then unlike. "We're asking ourselves exactly that," he said, simply in truth the shift had come earlier, late in the showtime one-half. "You tin can't give them even a centimetre," the Sevilla captain Rakitic said . "Nosotros invited them to come back."
Even at 2-0 – a scoreline Sevilla had not let slip in nearly a decade at home – there was feeling that this was coming. Not just considering this is Sevilla only because that is Madrid. "Anybody was waiting for us to skid only this team doesn't sideslip, considering it has courage, heart and character," Ancelotti said. Some seriously good players too, and a manager who listens to them, reaches them, and trusts in them.
"This team is capable of doing special things," Ancelotti added and for all the talk of epic, mentality, or fortune, there is besides a physical capacity, all the more unexpected for how rarely they rotate. In a higher place all there is football game. Madrid left it late, only were superb in the second one-half in Seville, the iii goals far from their only chances and equally much well-nigh talent every bit well as temperament. Each time cutting right through to the past-line, Vinicius in particular provided lovely touches to open upward his opponents. The changes worked too, as they often do with Ancelotti, and the contrast to Sevilla was stark. Rodrygo, on at half-time, rapidly got the first and Nacho scored the second on 82.
That might take already been Madrid's 3rd, Thibaut Courtois sitting on the advertising boards at one end amiably chatting to Sevilla'south fans about a whether an before "goal" would be given, just for the VAR to decide that Vinicius had handled. Instead, with Julen Lopetegui frantically waving on the touchline, the tertiary had to wait until Benzema finished off another neat move in the 92 minute. He then dashed towards the men on the bench equally they ran towards him. Ancelotti clenched his fists and shouted. Alaba held his caput in his hands. And players and staff piled in. To their right, Lopetegui looked broken.
They knew what it meant. "Nosotros're a little closer," Nacho said, but it was a lot. This game, the covers of both Madrid papers had agreed on Sunday morning, was "half a league", title bespeak or suspension indicate, as Diario As put information technology. Barcelona and Sevilla had been handed promise and so had it taken away again. Rafa Mir had missed a glorious chance to end information technology at two-i merely to caput over but with eight minutes left Madrid were still losing. Had it stayed that way, they would have gone to Pamplona – non somewhere they relish – knowing that some other defeat could take seen them accomplish the finish of next weekend just three points ahead.
Instead, they could soon be champions. Madrid need just ten points in 6 games to be certain, any the residuum exercise at present, responding when information technology mattered again. "Statement," Toni Kroos called information technology, the entire team posing for a flick together – well, almost the unabridged team. Maybe Gareth Bale was taking it. One last major hurdle was overcome the manner that they like information technology, the championship as good every bit theirs even if they however have to wait for the trophy, Alaba's chair playing the part for just a trivial longer.
Pos | Squad | P | GD | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Real Madrid | 32 | 38 | 75 |
2 | Barcelona | 30 | 29 | threescore |
3 | Sevilla | 32 | 21 | 60 |
4 | Atletico Madrid | 32 | 20 | 60 |
5 | Real Betis | 32 | 19 | 57 |
half dozen | Real Sociedad | 32 | 2 | 55 |
7 | Villarreal | 32 | twenty | 49 |
eight | Able-bodied Bilbao | 32 | 4 | 45 |
ix | Osasuna | 32 | -8 | 44 |
ten | Valencia | 32 | -2 | 42 |
11 | Celta Vigo | 32 | 1 | 39 |
12 | Espanyol | 32 | -7 | 39 |
13 | Elche | 32 | -9 | 35 |
xiv | Rayo Vallecano | 31 | -six | 34 |
15 | Getafe | 32 | -8 | 32 |
16 | Granada | 32 | -20 | 29 |
17 | Mallorca | 32 | -26 | 29 |
18 | Cadiz | 31 | -17 | 28 |
19 | Levante | 32 | -23 | 25 |
20 | Alaves | 32 | -28 | 25 |
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2022/apr/18/after-yet-another-comeback-the-liga-title-will-soon-be-real-madrids-again
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