When exactly does something that is always unexpected start to feel a little too familiar? As always, this football game inside Real Madrid’s hot Center Court-style megadrome was a real nut-show.
Every drifter who used to play for Stoke, Newcastle, or Eintracht Frankfurt has his day. In the last few seconds of a Champions League semi-final, Joselu, Madrid’s 34-year-old star player Benzema, scored twice with his first three touches. This turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead and another final for these unstoppable power meringues.
Also see: Real Madrid makes it to the final again, and a late Joselu goal breaks Bayern’s hearts.
That’s going to be the five-thousand-word background on the Joselu I knew, Deep Joselu from Stuttgart to Madrid to the Potteries and now to London. There will, of course, be a lot of talk about magic, witches, and theater, as well as the world’s richest football club’s continued voodoo success, which no one can explain.
People don’t talk much about Real Madrid’s controlled and very deliberate freedom, like how their attack is free to make up the play and group together in a white combination punch that goes around and around. This is what’s great about Carlo Ancelotti’s strategies: they’re a change from the rigid, systemic, positional play of the Pep age of coaches to a kind of celebrity free speech.
Vinícius is the one who makes it work. He did awful things to Kimmich here. Is there anything scarier in football right now than seeing a pumped-up Vinícius in front of the white wall at that end, kicking the ball over and over again with his head up and his brain going crazy? For a while, it looked like Vinícius was in a physical battle with Manuel Neuer in the Bayern goal, not with Kimmich, who was just a prop and a beaded curtain that needed to be swung aside quickly.
At that time, Bayern seemed like a team that was trying to look like a team. Harry Kane doing his best Spurs moves, like drop, spin, and pass for the quick man, is the only real offensive threat. Madrid did block those angles, with Toni Kroos pressing around Kane and making it hard for him to pass. Why did it take so long? Why don’t more teams do this? Once more, how clear Ancelotti’s game plans are.
Kane touched the ball twice in the first 20 minutes. A lot of Antonio Rüdiger was on top of him. He acts like this when he knows you’re a threat like he wants to walk around inside your skin. It’s really just an act of praise.
Also see: “Disastrous”: Tuchel laments controversial offside call as Bayern give up in Madrid
But Bayern was still ahead. At first, it looked like the response was just an attempt to take a break and let the lactic acid wear off. Kane made a beautiful back-spun looped pass to Alphonso Davies, who was running down the left side of the field. Davies took five quick touches and scored with a beautiful curling shot inside the far post.
Bayern started to be Bayern, to hold on, and to show how stubborn they were. When Vinícius was on the left side, Madrid lost their rhythm. But both of the late goals still came from that spot. Rüdiger scored the last one.
Joselu, who is 34 years old and from Stuttgart, scored both goals with a pounce. He spent the night telling the story because it’s so good. Those 20 minutes in the Vini zone, on the other hand, were the most consistently good part of this Real team. They showed the science, clarity, and planning that lies beneath the magic and lights.
