It can be described as a double day of tragedy and joy, Real Madrid eliminated the defending champions Chelsea in extra time with Benzema's killer goal, leading Real Madrid to the top 4. On the other hand, Bayern were killed by Villarreal, breaking a small and unpopular goal.
Last summer, Austrian star Alaba ended his career at Bayern and chose to join Real Madrid. Today, he has finished his 101st Champions League game and is celebrating his victory by dancing awkwardly in the dressing room after the game. His performance in this game is indeed worth a dance to celebrate, all five attempts to steal all successfully, this is the value of Alaba to Real Madrid.
But his old club has recently been in a constant slump, and the performance of French centre-back Yu Palmecano has not been satisfactory to the fans. Seeing Alaba, who has recently performed more steadily, do Bayern regret it?
Come to Real Madrid to win
Due to the limited strength of the Austrian team, Alaba's career is difficult to break through at the national team level, but in more than ten years of bayern, he can be called a winner in life, and he has also grown into a world-class star. At Bayern, Alaba won 10 Bundesliga titles, six German Cups and two wins in the Champions League and Club World Cup, not counting other titles including the German Super Cup and the European Super Cup.
More importantly, in the process of winning these championships, Alaba is not a soy sauce brother who lies down to win, but a solid core player, who has a convincing performance. With such a wealth of championship-winning experience, strong confidence in the king and top technical ability, coupled with the period of play in the year of establishment (this period is a golden period for defenders), even for a giant like Real Madrid, Alaba is still a very important core battle force. The Bernabeu needs Alaba to fill the defensive vacuum left by the collective departure of Ramos and Varane, and even more needs the Austrian champion (8-time Austrian Footballer of the Year) to lead Real Madrid, which is in the throes of the transition between the old and the new, not to stop winning the title.
When Alaba signed with Real Madrid, Zidane was still in command at the Santiago Bernabeu, but shortly thereafter the famous carlo Ancelotti was replaced as the team's new manager. In this regard, Alaba said that it has no impact on his transfer, on the one hand, the ability of top professional players will not be shaken by the change of manager, on the other hand, he and Carlo Ancelotti have had a very pleasant cooperation at Bayern.
Although a midfielder, the Bernabeu now clearly wants Alaba to play centre-back to carry the team's defence, and it is true that although Carlo Ancelotti has arranged for Alaba to play full-back when he was in charge of Bayern, the latter has been in the centre-back position for most of this season. Alaba's technical prowess needs no doubt, and even as he approaches his age, his physical function is still at its peak, which is how he successfully integrates into the Bernabeu and is not afraid of new and difficult challenges.
The words and games against Chelsea show the role of Alaba. Due to the suspension of Militão in this game, Nacho started as a central defender for the Brazilian, but the latter's performance was indeed unsatisfactory, coupled with the fact that Real Madrid's midfield combination was effectively limited by the Blues in this game, which made Real Madrid very passive in the first 70 minutes, and Chelsea seized many opportunities. Ancelotti made adjustments at the end of regular time, and the Real Madrid backline also saw the spectacle of four full-backs on the ground. As the most experienced defender in this area, Alaba effectively suppressed the scene, and after The appearance of Camawinga, Real Madrid formed a barrier in front of the back line, which led to the drama of Benzema's death.
Forget Ramos
At the end of 2021, the CIES Football Observatory, a well-known Swiss sports research institute, unveiled the best player of the year for 2021, who is neither the new Golden Ball winner Messi, nor the stars of Lewandowski, Mbappe, Haland, Benzema, Salah, De Bruyne, but the former Bayern star Alaba who plays for Real Madrid.
CIES is a prestigious football research institute that publishes annually a study of the statistics and performance of players from around the world and selects the best players. This ranking is derived from CIES's original analysis and measurement method, which fully combines factors such as the individual quality of the players, their value and the team's level of competition in the league. Although CIES's model and analysis methods are not necessarily in line with the mainstream, the agency has a lot of data to support its own evaluation system, they can be called the best in the field of football analysis, they have their own voice.
In the 2021 rankings, Alaba is at the top of the table, followed by Manchester City defender Ruben Díaz, Inter Milan defender Milan Škriniar, Real Madrid defender Casemiro and Bayern midfielder Joshua Kimmich, with the only striker in the top 10 being Real Madrid Benzema, ranked 6th.
In addition, messi, the winner of the 2021 Ballon d'Or, is only in 24th place, Lewandowski of the Year of the Year 2021 is in 17th place, Jorginho, who is 3rd in the Ballon d'Or, does not even make it into the top 50, while Cristiano Ronaldo is in 39th place. The world's best player is a recognition of Alaba's ability and a recognition of the Real Madrid rookie's performance in the first half of the season.
After the start of the second half of the season, Alaba survived a period of slump and recently returned to form. If Real Madrid can reach the Champions League final this season, in addition to Benzema and Modric, Alaba's credit can not be ignored, he is enough to make people forget Ramos.
Text/Supine Braces - Yangyuan Zhang