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Real Madrid 2 – 1 Shakhtar: Benzema scores a double and Vinicius assists
The Real Madrid team has justly won a very important commitment to their aspirations to advance to the knockout stages of the Champions League. You could see Benzema, and Vinicius as an assistant in an exhausted midfield.
Ancelotti's men still have a hard time showing their good football at the Bernabéu, this is how today an already tired team has been seen, so the Italian coach will have to refresh it with those on the bench. Ancelotti recently spoke about the accumulation of the game and the rotability that it must give to the players.
This is how today the need for replacement has been seen in Real Madrid where they go at a pace that will cost them to reach the end of the season with the necessary strength to fight all the games. Luckily, Ancelotti has a full squad so the spare parts issue won't be that difficult.
The intentions of Real Madrid
The Real Madrid midfield was totally exhausted, this is how Kroos, Modric and Casemiro will have to sleep in a hypertensive chamber if they want to rest properly. The Italian coach opted for Lucas Vázquez as a right-handed winger in order to open the field.
The Spanish team was facing something that has cost them a lot this season, such as attacking in elastic and with someone doing the winger, although Vázquez was not a winger, it seemed that it was his position. Lucas is a player capable of fulfilling traditional roles, so he always comes out playing.
If Vázquez has to play on the wing he does it very well, when he has to go out on the winger he leaves everything, a player who is multi-positional and who responds in all of them, goes out to do what he has to do. This time his role was to appear on the other side of Kroos.
A very close match
Once again, Real Madrid had to face a team that closes very well behind or at least that was the approach in this game. While the main responsible for making way in the back of the visitors were Vinicius and Benzema, the two best of the team at the moment.
Vinicius steals the ball taking advantage of an oversight by Shakhtar and gives Benzema an assist so that he will score the thousandth goal for Real Madrid in the European competition. That was how an overwhelming Madrid began to be seen, which everything indicated that it could be a white night at the Santiago Bernabéu.
However, after scoring the first goal of the match at minute 14, the whites backed down to only come out on counterattacks, so they ended up losing the ball, the playing position and then the pressure of the match.
Madrid ends up closing in on its own, in one of the exit attempts the Brazilian Casemiro gives an impossible pass to Militao, who decides to give a lost run by not being able to keep the ball. A play that raised the applause of those present in the Stadium, so the spirit of the stands does not disappear with good plays.
You could see a very fast game by a band, where Dodó, Teté, Mendy and Vinicius coincided, there were many speeds that competed with each other and canceled each other. In this case, the style and rhythm of the game of Marcelo was missed, who is a player who understands very well with Vinicius.
An almost voluntary turnover of the ball
Real Madrid had a positional abandonment that did not seem to be caused by the rival, but more than anything it was like a decision of the team's style of play, they retreated a lot, but this caused them to lose the ball. This is how Real Madrid still cannot play well in their stadium.
It has been seen that Ancelotti's Real Madrid at the Bernabéu says a lot about the patterns of play, which is why the home team has accentuated the Italian way of playing when they play at home. All this led to Shakhtar gradually getting the ball.
While Ancelotti's men were getting more and more into their own area and that was how the visitors' tie fell, a ball through the center of the field that broke the white defense in two and Fernando Dos Santos would finish beating the white goalkeeper and place the momentary 1-1.
In this way the visitors marked the tie before going to rest and minutes later Courtois would take a shot from Fernando Dos Santos again for what could have been the second goal. That is how Real Madrid came to the dressing room asleep and disconnected from the game, with great luck not to lose.
Second time
For the second half, Ancelotti's men came out much more awake, but they did not do any damage. This emphasized the saying "when a team leaves the game, it does not come back". This was how the Spanish tried to take the reins of the game, but it seemed impossible to achieve it.
Shakhtar was the one who dominated the game again and Real Madrid was far from the rival goal, with a tendency not to be able to attack or create danger, for them, it was impossible to steal the ball from the visitors, who showed a lot of imprecision.
The Whites needed replacements in midfield, but Ancelotti did not want to move pieces, when the game was for players like Camavinga or Blanco, who could have brought more output to the team. This was how Kroos, Modric and Casemiro fought in the midfield when they were physically and mentally tired.
At that time, the game for Ancelotti's men was worrying, they had a better chance of losing than winning, until Vinicius appeared again as a leader in the team and launched himself to the right of the field, took the ball and started a new attack towards the visitor area.
A very fast play could be seen commanded by the Brazilian, who combines with Casemiro and assisted Benzema so that the Frenchman will not forgive and will place the 2-1. It was a very fast play commanded by one of the youngest on the field who shows all his desire to play and get ahead.
The rebirth of Ancelotti's
Real Madrid missed the game when he scored 1-0, but now he would return with 2-1, although he never completely returned or at least Madrid could not be seen from the first 15 minutes of play. That was how they returned to their field to wait again.
This time they watched the game with a strength in defense and Vinicius was left as the only incentive that gave life with his races at high speed towards the rival goal, a player who touched the ball too much at the time of the exits and from that moment, both teams would start with the changes.
In Shakhtar Mudryk would come out, who played a very good game and one of the Brazilians would enter, so more Brazilians were added to the field of play. The visitors would lose the rhythm of the game a bit and could not find their best minutes.
That was how Real Madrid tried to take advantage of Shakhtar's downturn to try to find one more goal that would allow the game that would not arrive. Exhausted Benzema asked for the change, something that worried everyone because he was tired despite having rested in the last white game.
However, despite Madrid improving their game after the second goal, Shakhtar came very close to drawing at the end had it not been for Courtois. Ancelotti's men could be seen playing the last minutes of the game already exhausted and holding on, the Spanish midfield was no longer enough.
Despite all this, Ancelotti's men get three points and are getting closer to the last 16 of the Champions League and have also reached a thousand and one goal in the European competition, which clearly holds so many nights of glory and of sadness in this European Cup, a goal-scoring white team called the kings of the tournament.
