Courtois: “We wake up during the break, but it doesn’t always work out” | Football | Sport

In the 20th minute, the Bernabeu base were physically moving more than the Madrid players. The stadium structure swayed slightly from the jumping of 3,500 Dortmund fans, while the white footballers took cover behind and, paralyzed, watched the intimidating movement of the German ball. Meanwhile, the stands condescendingly watched the inaction of the team, which fell from the slope without seeing the brakes. At half-time, with the score already 0:2, the whistles were heard, sounding more like disappointment than anger. The staff witnessed the inert deployment of their men in shock.

Until, out of nowhere, on Chamartin’s European Groundhog Day, Vinicius appeared and put the game in a centrifuge to resurrect the dead. A display of leadership, perseverance and belief from the striker culminated in a fourth flag goal and a fifth chest strike, which contrasted with Mbappe’s defeat for most of the night, pictured only in the 1-2 center. When the building collapsed, the team held onto Vini and he rescued him from the skid.

“When we reached the locker room during the break, we were all very quiet and said only one thing: “If we score first, we will come back again,” said the hero of the evening in Movistarthe author of a hat-trick in half an hour and, above all, the one who started the engine of the next express comeback. “The main thing was self-belief. We knew that anything could happen in our house. But we need to improve and start from the beginning. If not, the coach won’t stand it. In the second half we changed the dynamic,” the Brazilian noted a week after attending the Ballon d’Or gala in Paris as a big favorite.

“We wake up at half-time,” insisted Thibaut Courtois, “but it doesn’t always work. They come to us too easily with passes close to the penalty area,” complained the Belgian goalkeeper. Carlo Ancelotti, between the dry period of the first half (“we were timid, they scored two goals against us,” he admitted) and the mana of the last half hour, preferred to appeal to the desire for mental effect. 5-2. “The second half could be key in the season,” he noted four days before the classic match. What he had no answer for was the low intensity with which Madrid performed.

A long hug from Ancelotti

During Madrid’s long hour of shipwreck, few represented bankruptcy better than Mbappé. Positioned at the heart of the attack and again with Rodrigo on the right, the Frenchman seemed as out of touch with the game as he has in many days. There are few identifying marks, almost no pressure and even a gesture of anger. Apart from the center of Rudiger’s goal, he left more numbers (five shots in total and two on target) than a sense of danger. Vinicius capped his great night with seven shots, four of them on target, and a stunning reaction. “I told him (Vini),” said Lucas Vazquez, “that this is the Ballon d’Or.” His game is worthy of it. He is a player who deserves it more than anyone else after turning the situation around,” said the scorer of the first goal, also unsustainable in the Germans’ first goal.

In the first half, Ancelotti’s men hid in the middle block with the intention of making transitions. That was the plan. The execution resulted in a very passive squad. He didn’t threaten forward except for a fury attack from two suits in a row after 0-2, and didn’t defend well as Carletto claimed (again) in the previous one.

Anxiety was at its highest in Chamartin and Madrid was clinging to what was always its last board in the ocean, Vinicius’s left bank. People said goodbye to the night with chants of “Vinicius, Ballon d’Or” and Ancelotti hugging him. “It’s rare to see a player perform like Vinicius in the second half,” Ancelotti concluded of the man who took Madrid from misery to explosion.