Faith in Madrid falters, that the more he looks at the table, the more difficult it seems to survive it. But there are still believers. The set piece and Varane gave him a victory that he was unable to achieve by natural luck. The reverse of Benzema reappeared, who missed two occasions that no longer remain, Vinicius was insubstantial and Asensio walked in the sky and on the ground. A dull trident offset by an ambitious center-back against a new Huesca, with good prospects, who scored a goal and smashed two balls off the crossbar.
Madrid is a bad spring. Nobody knows if tomorrow the sun will rise or the rain will increase, if it will be meat or fish. And so it is impossible to escape unscathed in long-distance competitions that are played in the four seasons of the year. He is now in the dry season after the squad was squashed due to injuries, penalties and players on the run and because the delivery of two titles in a week has plunged him into a general depression, including Zidane, before the regime’s smile, now as sour as the atmosphere that surrounds the team. We finally discovered that it does not have elephant skin. This is how he arrived in Huesca, with few players and less hope, with more air of persecuted than of persecutor.
An explosive departure from Huesca
Zidane did not go off his roadmap: the usual ones, the spare parts where they had fallen. And many fallen (Hazard, Lucas Vázquez, Rodrygo …) Vinicius already needs to be in the eleven. The two months of substitution not only accentuated his lack of efficiency but also deprived him of his photogenicity. He is not reminded of a single adventure in that middle age to which he was forced. In Huesca they gave him an opportunity without either approaching that sorcerer’s apprentice that he appeared to be.
It was difficult for him to get into the matter, like the rest of the team, unable to hide his bad mood about the situation at the table. In fact, Huesca seemed to get on the starting line on that trampoline of the change of coach, which awakens the fixed ones, as uncertain, and the forgotten ones, as hopeful. In a single minute Okazaki was about to bingo in a shot at the near post and Rafa Mir crashed a shot into the side of the net.
This is how Galán scored 1-1.
REUTERS
It did not go further in the first half. He gave the ball to that toothless Madrid and waited for a gust of wind to take him ahead on the scoreboard. Madrid then commanded quietly, as so many times, without conviction to shelve one of the matters with the best resolution of those that await him. The bottom always invites redemption.
But nothing suggested enthusiasm in Madrid during the first half hour. From there, Kroos and Modric began to find leaks in that wall of three central Huesca. Vinicius was close to the goal in a Vaseline before the departure of Álvaro Fernández in a VAR offside start and Benzema took pains in a distant shot that the Huesca goal rejected. Two chances of medium hair in a team that did not go for the game as if his life depended on it because he knows he is not going. In this section, Asensio always lacked something. It is a constant in his career. There is no better raw material (speed, finishing, driving, hitting …), but manufacturing is something else. That talent about to take off forever remains on the ground.
The comeback
Huesca, on the other side, assumed to live with their backs to Courtois. He defended with order and application, waiting for Madrid to go to heaven, a recurring fact this season. And there are Martian defeats against Cádiz or Alavés or unthinkable draws like that of Elche, all hermetic teams, elusive from face to face.
And the case was repeated, this time with notice. On the way back from the break, Mikel Rico finished off as best he could and on the fly a ball that swung on the crossbar. And two minutes later, Okazaki started on the right, changed the third to the left and Javi Galán crossed his exceptional shot to the net. A great goal with Madrid decomposed in the retreat. There was more in those five crazy minutes: Rafa Mir repeated the crossbar in a boat soon after the third counterattack from Huesca in a blink of an eye.
Again Varane
The panic passed soon. Gastón Silva knocked down Asensio near the area, who started a counter. A lesser evil turned into a greater evil, because Benzema, without another specialist for 400 kilometers around, sent his missile to the crossbar and the rained rebound headed him into the Varane net. The game was already another, more seismic and more fun: Asensio shot to the side of the net, Courtois saved a goal from Mir, Álvaro Fernández another from Benzema, Marcelo (relief of the exhausted Odriozola) touched the stick, Rafa Mir also …
Without the ram on duty, Ramos, Mariano arrived at the party. It was Asensio’s best moment, the most willing and the best equipped to untangle the game. Before, Benzema had missed the match opportunity. Two meters from the finish line, he broke Álvaro Fernández’s chest, who was trying to get to his feet with great difficulty. One of those errors that travel the news the day after. And six minutes from the end, Varane, taking advantage of another rejection of the great goal of Huesca, saved a Madrid on the verge of disconnection.
