Girona looked over the Bernabéu hill, perhaps glimpsed the summit of the League, and there they found the blow of Real Madrid, decimated, counterfeit, it doesn't matter. Vinicius is a nuclear weapon and Bellingham is a wreck. Ancelotti's team brought back to earth a group that had displayed happy, daring and exciting football. But he found himself with the team of a Madrid that has given him a 7.0 in the two games of the course, and he had a great afternoon heading to the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 on Tuesday in Leipzig, with the defense in a box and Bellingham limping .
4
Andriy Lunin, Lucas Vázquez, Ferland Mendy (Fran Garcia, min. 77), Aurelien Tchouameni, Dani Carvajal, Federico Valverde, Jude Bellingham (Brahim Diaz, min. 57), Camavinga, Kroos (Modric, min. 70), Vinicius Junior (Arda Guler, min. 77) and Rodrygo (Joselu, min. 70)
0
Gazzaniga, Eric Garcia, Juanpe, Yan Couto, Miguel Gutierrez, Tsygankov (Valery Fernández, min. 70), Aleix García, Portu (Pablo Torre, min. 45), Iván Martín (Jhon Solís, min. 70), Sávio and Dovbyk (Stuani, min. 70)
Goals 1-0 min. 5: Vinicius Junior. 2-0 min. 35: Jude Bellingham. 3-0 min. 53: Jude Bellingham. 4-0 min. 60: Rodrygo.
Referee Juan Martínez Munuera
Yellow cards Juanpe (min. 21), Yan Couto (min. 67) and Ferland Mendy (min. 76)
But what can you fear? He lives accustomed to exceptionalism, to splashing away from orthodoxy and the predictable. And in that uncontrolled magma, he handles himself wonderfully. The afternoon that the closest League contender appeared at the Bernabéu, Ancelotti looked at his troops and there was no center back standing. The fall of the last one, Toni Rüdiger, had been reported a few hours before the match. So they faced the highest scoring team with Tchouameni and Carvajal in the center of the defense. Two rookies with a couple of flying moments against Dovbyk, one of the top scorers. Does not matter. Girona left without a single shot on goal.
The accumulation of medical adversities has not brought discouragement, but rather has raised the competitive level of the team. They move in the emergency with astonishing naturalness. Tchouameni dominated the air in a role in which one of the best headers in the League was present: Dovbyk thus scored five of his 14 goals. Helped by Valverde, Lucas Vázquez greatly reduced the threat posed by Savio and Miguel Gutiérrez on the left wing.
Madrid grew from caution, after starting the afternoon with expectation, very close together while Girona, always daring, agitated the attack with Tsygankov, Portu, Couto and Savio. Ancelotti's battalion waited while Míchel, from a box due to his sanction, watched how his team did not wrinkle even a bit. While he established himself on a newborn defense, very little was enough for Madrid to scare the rival. A Bellingham twist control to clarify the whole picture, for example. Or an advance by Valverde, a pass to Vinicius, and a shot by the Brazilian from outside the area. This is how he opened the scoring, in a play in which the 7 was an entire attack system in itself. With no one ahead, surrounded by opponents, in a phase in which Girona seemed to dominate, he sent a missile across the post and began to appease the challenger.
Vinicius returned to the eleven after the cervical problem that left him without a derby. He was overdue hungry and Couto suffered from enthusiasm, another display of lethal imagination to which he added a dose of defensive work. To start the 2-0 lead he didn't even need the dribble. Suspicion was enough. While Couto was preparing to stop the escape, Vinicius saw a run by Bellingham and sent him a gift with the outside. The Englishman dribbled past Gazzaniga and hit the net.
By then, Madrid had already abandoned contemplation. The rearguard was conducted with the security of veterans. Ahead, they were already playing under the direction of Kroos and the impetus of Camavinga. The Frenchman swept the center, broke lines on the run and found passes with the finest venom. A formidable and indecipherable player. Girona also had its moments with the ball. But at the Bernabéu, against Madrid's most shabby defense, those stretches turned out to be harmless. Míchel tried to operate at half-time. He retired Portu and introduced Pablo Torre. A few minutes followed in which they looked a little more to the left wing, where Savio and Miguel worried Lucas in the expected way. But it didn't go any further.
Vinicius looked for Couto again, tied him up with bicycles, entered the area through the narrow corridor that was between the defender and the baseline and shot. Gazzaniga reached out, but his clearance was caught by Bellingham to score, which was the last thing he could do with his battered left foot. He retired immediately after two sprains, leaving the stands standing and uneasy about Tuesday's Champions League match in Leipzig.
Rodrygo completed the win. He launched into a long slalom and, as he stepped into the area, he whipped out. Madrid had tamed an event that was announced as a complex drink. So much so that even Güler, so protected from the thorns, found his moment and, in it, a penalty, which is the only thing that does not work for a Madrid that had just brought Girona back to earth. Joselu broke the stick. And there was no more.
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