Real is the usual perfect machine, for Chelsea every game is a step backwards.
– “We will win 3-0!”. So said Todd Boehly, president of Chelsea, interviewed by Sky Sport UK before the match. On the wings of this ominous omen, the blues showed up at the Bernabeu to somehow straighten out a disastrous year so far. And it couldn’t have ended differently, that is with the 16th defeat of the season, given the now certified ability of its boss not to get a choice right – and starting tonight, a prediction – not even by mistake. A 2-0 which leaves little hope in view of the return, and which paradoxically is perhaps the only good news of the night for the Londoners. And then we’ll see who Chelsea will be, the one of the return. This season, the blues have changed almost more modules than coaches, and even at the Bernabeu they showed up with yet another different outfit from a truly troubled season;
– Saturday in Birmingham the defense was revised to 4, with the midfield back to 3 and Havertz central offensive pivot. Not even the time to digest the change, and here is the return of the defensive line to 3 tonight – to tell the truth almost more to 5 – with the returning Thiago Silva in the centre, Kanté together with Enzo and Kovacic in midfield and the Sterling duo Joao Felix in front, with Havertz surprisingly excluded after being one of the few certainties of the blues season. The plan was clear: suffer, wait and start again. Despite the very low center of gravity, the wide spaces between the departments and the 1vs1 given to the opposing wingers quickly blew the bank. If the current season had told us of a Chelsea tremendously in difficulty in finding the opponent’s goal, tonight’s evening ruled that at these levels the blues also have enormous problems in knowing how to defend themselves as a team;
– Real, on the other hand, is an almost perfect machine, tested over the years and forged by the many recent successes. Albeit with a Modric below its usual standard, the ball of the blancos turns wonderfully, thanks to the now habitual movements of Benzema to go out and to the still unchanged class of a huge Toni Kroos. If to all this we add the usual Courtoisdeciding on Sterling in the first half, and a Vinicius uncatchable – ask Fofana for confirmation – here is the difference in level between the two teams is revealed more clearly. The two goals were a natural consequence of the blancos domination. On the first one a Carvajal disguised as Modric put Vinicius in front of goal, on whose shot Benzema then arrived to put in the 1-0. The second, born from a corner kick, featured Asensio whose left foot from the edge of the area settled the score on more realistic outlines;
– If there is still someone who thinks about Ancelotti just like a great manager of men, tonight’s match is yet another demonstration of how the Emilian coach is actually much more. In the offensive phase Real occupied the spaces perfectly, with very wide offensive wingers to allow Carvajal’s internal insertions on one side and Modric on the other. Chelsea have practically never been able to restart, certainly thanks to a poor performance at a technical level but also and above all to a suffocating opponent’s high pressure, with the defensive line of the blancos well beyond the half pitch and the tireless work of Valverde and Rodrigo in raising the pace of pressing. Ancelotti then has the great ability to recognize strong players. Camavinga is one of these, and it would be a crime to deprive yourself of it. The Italian coach is using him as a left-back, to take advantage of his setting up technique and a physique that lends itself to fighting and running. A successful experiment, the umpteenth of his career;
– Among the wrong choices by Boehly we mentioned at the beginning, having over-evaluated several of his purchases is perhaps the most serious. Cucurella is by far the most significant example in this sense. Entered at the beginning of the second half in place of a bruised Koulibaly, the curly-haired Spaniard took less than ten minutes to ruin his game. As a left arm in a 3-man defence, to tell the truth, he had already shown that he was capable of causing incalculable damage, and the match against Aston Villa two weeks ago was there to prove it. A game that we assume Lampard lost, for mysterious reasons. Deployed in that position again tonight, his forward exit totally out of time caused Chilwell to be sent off, guilty of having committed a last man foul on the attacker who escaped from the Spanish defender. A blow to his Chelsea’s ambitions for a comeback, yet another gaffe in an unfortunate season. Enzo Fernandez’s proof is also insufficient, regarding disproportionate evaluations. Who knows if Boehly will make a prediction for the second leg as well. But if only these were his faults …