In the early morning of Monday Beijing time, the national derby of Real Madrid and Barcelona will start. Xavi's civilian Barca is gaining momentum, and Real Madrid's morale is also high after winning the grand Paris. However, Barca are 15 points behind Real Madrid, so can the national derby in this context still play the feeling of "Mars hitting the earth"?
Barca are eager to prove themselves by winning this battle of the century, while Real Madrid are calm, Real Madrid have a full points lead, even if they lose the game, there is no symbolism, which is a background before tonight's battle of the century.
Benzema is undoubtedly Real Madrid's best player at the moment, but was injured in Monday's match against Mallorca. It was a question to let Benzema insist on playing the Battle of the Century, but no one at the normal point will let Benzema take risks, Real Madrid is 15 points ahead of Barca in the league, even if Barca wins the Battle of the Century and the make-up match against Vallecano, there is a 9-point gap, it is almost impossible to let Real Madrid lose 9 points in the 9 rounds, and Real Madrid still has important games in the Champions League, so Real Madrid has no reason to let Benzema risk playing. As it turned out, Benzema was not in the big list, along with his compatriot left-back Mendy. One of the advantages of keeping Benzema and Mendy out of the squad at this time is that France will not call Benzema and Mendy to play friendly matches without any reason, so that the two can rest for two weeks in Madrid, which is a perfect plan for Ancelotti, who does not like rotation.
The next question is who will replace Benzema, which is not an easy choice, Ancelotti said to reporters: "I have already decided who will replace Benzema, but I will not tell you." In the seven games that Benzema has missed this season, Jovic and Mariano have made two appearances for the Frenchman, in addition to Asensio and others have also played once for him. At present, Jovic is not in good shape, such as the match against Mallorca, the Serbian has been excluded from the big list, and the most normal substitute is Mariano.
But considering that Real Madrid are facing Barca, facing Barca, who will definitely play the ball and position attack, it is not excluded that Ancelotti will make tactical changes, such as arranging the counterattack of the three fast Mavinius, Asensio and Rodrigo to play Barca, of course, Bale may also start as a surprise, the Welsh like to play strong teams, and his speed is also fast, and replacing Benzema with him is also an option. Of course, Ancelotti can also use a technically good organization player like Hazard or Isco to replace Benzema as a fake center, and can use this tactic to pull out Barca's center-back and send counter-attack direct passes to fast Mavinius and Asensio on both sides.
Ancelotti also has a way, simply change to 442, send one more midfielder Valverde to play, so that there is a use of the fight with Barca for normalcy, so that Xavi's Barca can not play the control of the midfield they want most. The day before the match, Ancelotti tried out a formation in which Modric played a fake center, teamed up front with Vinicius and Rodrigues, and had Valverde, Casemiro and Kroos play in midfield. All in all, Ancelotti has too many options to replace Benzema, but it will undoubtedly change Real Madrid's game plan.
Does Real Madrid have to beat Barca to prove the gold content of winning this season's league title? This seems silly to me, let alone to the more pragmatic Ancelotti. Real Madrid do not have to prove anything to anyone, Barça have not beaten Real Madrid in 3 years, the last 5 consecutive games have been lost, even if Barca win this game can prove that Barça is actually more qualified to win this season's title than Real Madrid? It's a complete fantasy that no one believes, so Ancelotti has no pressure and he can withstand all the results of the game.
Although Barca have no main players absent due to injury, Barca's biggest question is actually similar to Real Madrid, that is, who will let the three strikers play, specifically, who will play the last striker except Aubameyang and Ferran Torres?
Compared with Real Madrid waiting for a midweek game, Barca can be described as a boat, going to Turkey in midweek to play a Europa League life-and-death battle, returning to Barcelona on Friday, and going to Madrid on Sunday, so maybe we can find a little clue from Xavi's rotation plan.
Neither Adama Traore nor De Jong started in the league, but in the midweek Europa League. Adama Traore is the least likely to start in the Century War, and from the rotational alternation order, Xavi is not ready to let him play in the Century War, and against Galatasaray, he was the first to be replaced, because of his poor performance, Xavi replaced Dembele in order to pursue a sharper offense.
Given that barca are eager to win this game and Real Madrid does not care about the situation, it seems that Barca should discharge the wind direction of Aubameyang, Ferran and Dembele, and Barca need to take the initiative this game.
But Barca boss Xavi also has a way to try to bite down on a piece of Real Madrid's meat, Xavi must consider that if he wants to win Real Madrid, he must play barca's style of controlling the midfield, but Real Madrid's midfield confrontation ability is very strong, if you only use the regular Busquets, Pedri and De Jong to fight Against Casemiro, Kroos and Valverde, it may suffer, so Xavi is likely to use Garvey as a winger, and Aubameyang and Ferran to play in the three midfielders, which is actually equivalent to adding a midfielder and liberating De Jong. Let the Dutchman step in from time to time to try to score. And Garvey has good physical fitness, likes physical confrontation, and is very suitable for playing games like Real Madrid. Judging by the order of rotation, Harvey is indeed ready for Garvey to play in the Battle of the Century, as Garvey has only played 22 minutes in Istanbul. In terms of rotation order, de Jong does not seem to be playing in the Battle of the Century, but the Dutchman was replaced by Garvey in the 68th minute in Turkey, possibly saving energy for the Battle of the Century. So in summary, it is very likely that Xavi will make a guest appearance as a winger, and in the 4-2 win over Atletico, Garvey will be a cameo left winger, although in some subsequent matches, this arrangement has not always worked well.
Compared with Real Madrid, Barca seems to be under pressure to defeat Real Madrid, Xavi wants to show that the team has reached the level of Real Madrid, Xavi also wants to prove that he is Barca's natural manager, which needs a victory to prove. But the more anxious you are to win, many times it will not have such a good effect.
Wen | Liang Hongye
Edit | ball lightning