Everything is easy when a team manages to make it look simple, an ability that the real Madrid has worn as a badge throughout the season. He has walked through the championship without haste and without pause, without looking back, without ever transmitting the feeling of urgency and without leaving crumbs along the way. He celebrated the title so soon that it is hard to believe in the very close end of the previous season, settled in the last minutes. It is usual in a competition that this time has only found one true contender for the title. Real Madrid has carried out its work impeccably, unlike its rivals, who are still entangled in the extremely tough sprint to reach the places of access to the Champions League.
Although expectations are never high enough in a club obsessed with titles, Madrid started the season with many questions, after a year without success. Ancelottiwho knew the club and its peculiarities well, replaced Zidanewith no more notable news than the signing of Praisewhose career invited us to think of the Austrian player as the perfect replacement for Sergio Ramos. After a lifetime in bayernAnd what about Bayern, Alaba’s latest problem would not be the fear of wearing the Madrid shirt, a syndrome that has hurt several world-famous players.
Ancelotti picked up a more than well-known cast, with a high average age and a few young people who had offered more flashes than consistency. Camavinga he joined them. Madrid had disappointed in the last two European seasons and in the League leadership was presumed Atletico Madrid, champion in 2021, supported by a deep and compact squad. It has not been. One team has flown and the other resigned very soon.
If the football season is an exhausting route, dotted with obstacles of all kinds, Madrid has covered it with such a balanced rhythm that it reaches the peak of the season in an enviable condition, a merit that belongs to Ancelotti and that should include the physical responsible. The technician can regulate efforts when his rivals gasp for air. His illustrious veterans have responded game after game with extraordinary efficiency.
The Real Madrid players celebrate the League title they won, on the pitch, after the game against Espanyol.
JAVIER GANDUL (JOURNAL AS)
Benzema (34 years), modric (36), Kroos (32) and Casemiro (30) have played with a frequency that forced us to think about a drop in their energy at this point in the year. The reality is quite different. All three have been essential in winning the championship and are looking into the final of the european cupwhere Madrid has knocked down PSG and the Chelseatwo indisputable powers.
Far from announcing their twilight, the most veterans have improved their performance compared to the last two seasons, which in the case of Benzema was already prodigious. The French striker had never been in the top 16 in the World Cup standings. Golden Ball and his fourth place in the last edition is just as insane. He deserved the award much more than Messiinfinitely more than Jorginho and possibly as much or more than Lewandowski. Just in case, the new year has served to verify the injustice. There is no better footballer than Benzema right now.
Ancelotti chose a short and reliable model. After some doubts and tests –bale Y hazard were starters in the first two league games–, the Italian coach resorted to a line-up that only left a gap on the right wing, where Rodrygo, Asensio and finally Valverde have alternated. The rest are recited in a rush, among them Courtois, author of a sensational season. When the team has not worked, and sometimes it has not, the Belgian goalkeeper has multiplied his prodigies.
Without overpowering, Madrid has skated through the League, without looking back, smoothly and effectively. If you required power, you enjoyed the best possible guarantee: Vinicius. The young Brazilian winger began the season on the bench, with the mission of taking advantage of the minutes. He was in discussion and ended up undisputed, acclaimed. Vinicius is one of the great news in football. Bold, vertical, fast and constant in his efforts, his jump has been impressive. He doesn’t daze him at all, every day he interprets the game better, scores goals, anticipates them with his passes and forms a lethal partnership with Benzema. No one foresaw it, and perhaps Benzema less than anyone else, but the connection is magical, decisive in the phenomenal season of Real Madrid, the undisputed owner of the championship.