Aroma of Champions in La Cerámica

Immersed in the fight for the League, Real Madrid visits La Cerámica in what is also a dress rehearsal for the Champions League. In three days, Carlo Ancelotti‘s troop will set foot in the Parc des Princes to cross sabers with the fearsome PSG in a clash that devours the attention of the fans due to its substance. But first, the whites must resolve the difficult test that Villarreal will pose, who want to continue climbing the table that has them caressing the places of access to the maximum continental competition, in whose current edition Unai Emery’s team is still alive, that in ten days he will receive Juventus with the aim of continuing to battle the titans of the continent. The aroma of the Champions League will permeate the old Madrigal this Saturday.

Real Madrid has not won in the groguet fiefdom since the 2016-17 campaign, when a goal from Álvaro Morata in the final stretch culminated the comeback of the squad that Zinedine Zidane led at the time (2-3), champion at the end of the tournament. Since then there have been four null fights between whites and yellows in the tile shelter.

That equality of forces was also repeated this year at the Santiago Bernabéu, where Emery’s block dried up a leader who had just scored 21 goals in the first six dates of the championship. The yellow submarine surpassed its adversary in a first part that exposed the local weakness to press high and resisted in the second the timorous claws of the hosts, who suffered a full-fledged humility cure.

The memory of that confrontation will fly over La Cerámica, where the most dangerous visitor from Primera faces the highest scoring team at home, with both intending to stop the opponent’s dynamics. Villarreal has 19 of the last 24 points in the game and has accumulated four wins in the five most recent games in their fortress. Thanks to that streak, the yellow team has gone from being eleventh on matchday fifteen to now being sixth, one point behind Atlético and three behind Barça, which delimits the Champions zone. It is, therefore, a bad place for Ancelotti to dose forces thinking about the trap that awaits him in the city of light.

offensive sinkhole

«We have a good position in the League, but it is a League that is being very competitive and I will put the best team possible. Then we will have time to rest », stressed the Italian, who after the long-suffering victory against Granada recognized that Real Madrid is not exactly in his sweetest moment. Not surprisingly, the Whites have only been able to win two of their last four duels in the regular tournament. A bump that began with the defeat against Getafe and continued in the agonizing draw with Elche two dates later. Those stumbles have not caused more damage due to the failures of his pursuers, but the leader cannot be misled.

Ancelotti’s main task is to search for gunpowder in the absence of Benzema. The man from Lyon, doubtful for the lawsuit with PSG, will miss his third consecutive appointment, which forces the Real Madrid coach to find an answer to a problem that he has not been able to solve for now. Isco brings associative ability as a false nine and has recovered the competitive gene, but he has little edge. Jovic emerges as a more classic alternative, although the coach has other unorthodox options such as Hazard, Bale or Rodrygo.

The good news is that Vinicius is back, who arrives more rested after serving a penalty for accumulating yellow cards. In midfield, Valverde could give oxygen to some of the members of the squeezed media trio, while behind the great unknown is who will occupy the left-handed lane, because Mendy has his sights set on Paris.

Opposite, Emery comes with the casualties of Rubén Peña, Coquelin and Gerard Moreno, but he is ambitious. “We want to see how we are against a demanding rival like Madrid, a rival that is leading and that is showing strong, but that knows that this will be a demanding game for them,” said the Hondarribia coach. The Argentine Lo Celso, great reinforcement of the yellow submarine in the winter market, could debut as a starter, after leaving good feelings in the minutes that he played starting from the bench last day against Betis.