Vinicius becomes unstoppable

It was hard to believe in Vinicius. First, by inexperienced; then by hit by a car; finally, by ineffective when push comes to shove. His rebounding goals were ridiculed and his bikes censored. He did not play until Solari called him almost out of desperationHe came and went with Zidane, and Benzema found his company uncomfortable. But his impudence and courage saved him, always trying with the wind against, until Ancelotti arrived. Now it is priceless. In Kiev he scored two goals, the second for the Louvre, gave another, left details of a period player and pulled Madrid out of its first slump against a squishy opponent. It will make waiting for Mbappé entertaining.

Three games without victory in Madrid give for several calls of the nuclear safety council. More if in one or more the alignments have gone to court. That week of the multiple trauma on the scoreboards (the fateful Villarreal-Sheriff-Espanyol sequence) led to Ancelotti to traditional cuisine: Mendy on the left, despite his five and a half months in the sun; Alaba and Militao in the center, with or without discomfort; the holy trinity (Modric, Casemiro and Kroos) in the kitchen, because always, as in tango, one returns to the first love; and return to 4-3-3 with which he arrived under his arm for the first time eight years ago so that the BBC would square him. The best eleven possible at the gates of the Classical, because the Sheriff ate at the Bernabéu the arithmetic and moral advantage of the victory against Inter at San Siro and left no margin to distribute the load.

A Madrid against

Ahead was a Shakhtar with eight Brazilians, Ipanema in Kiev, and the ‘Jogo bonito’ proposal from De Zerbi, one of those coaches who have proven that even youngsters earn more by playing big. The distribution of the first minutes responded to the logic: the ball for Shakhtar and gunpowder for Madrid. Before the first ten minutes, Ancelotti’s team demanded Trubin twice, on shots from Kroos and Vinicius. The third shot, from Benzema, did not catch the door. Everything in a Madrid against, at full speed, to the liking of Rodrygo and Vinicius against an opponent notably better with the ball than without him.

It all happened before a long period of calming down. It seemed to Madrid that, without suffering, the goal would come to him by inertia. So he applied the flat rate, a sosote dominance with no effect beyond three-quarters of the field. That second version helped the Shakhtar, who doesn’t handle speed well and started to lose the ball with worrying frequency.

Own goal

The game had nothing to do with the one that Madrid prepared before the Sheriff, torn apart in the two areas, and which ended in a natural catastrophe: a loss after wasting 31 shots. In Kiev the news was scarce in the first half, because the blanks abounded in the fifteen shots of Madrid. Almost everything he tried was from outside the area. Almost everything Shakhtar tried was for his left wing, stretching Ismaily, to whose call no one came. At this point it must be remembered that the Ukrainians have lost the team’s two best scorers through injury.

In that sleepy match al Shakhtar he was awakened by a nightmare own goal. Lucas Vázquez sent a long ball to Benzema, who was in line, and then Kryvstov put his foot and his leg at the same time to overcome Trubin with Vaseline, who went out on an adventure. That goal made the game even more comfortable for Madrid, who had not felt his opponent as a real threat for a long time. However, Ancelotti’s team lacked one more point of nerve and the help of the full-backs, who so far this year, due to the continuous changes of guard due to injuries, have given little help to the cause.

The festival

The second half was something else. After the break, that recreational Madrid returned, comforting Ancelotti. The second goal was a work of engineering in which everyone was good: Benzema stole, he put the ball to Modric on the edge of the area, he put it like a knife in the area and Vinicius sent it to the net with the subtlety of a gunner by trade.

The third, also from the Brazilian and without letting the Shakhtar breathe, was for collectors. He took the ball on the left and was dancing on the corpse of four Ukrainian defenders until he crossed the ball into the net. He will tour televisions around the world and raise the poster of a footballer who was hard to believe in and is now immovable. He closed his great night with an assist to Rodrygo, a quieter player but very well connected with the goal.

That acceleration of a quarter of an hour placed Madrid in the Classical. Ancelotti took away from Modric and Kroos the minutes he will need at the Camp Nou, He satisfied Asensio and took Marcelo and Vallejo out of the closet, to send a message (perhaps misleading) that everyone will be important. But none as much as Modric, Benzema, who put the last finger of his hand and was crowned as player of the match, and Vinicius, on whom Madrid ride again.