Every time Ancelotti meets Guardiola, it's like a showdown between two genres. However, what I want to say is not the transmission control vs the anti-reaction, but the starting point of their on-the-spot employment.
An Fat pays attention to me as the mainstay, and does not change.
Just like before this game, except for Casemiro, who can't be beaten with injuries, the other 10 cards in Real Madrid's starting lineup are all clear cards, and the only trade-off is whether to use Camaringa or Rodrigo. The result was a starter with Brazil's wings maintaining 433, allowing the French genius, who had confrontation but was not stable in handling the ball, to continue to play the backhand.
Guardiola plays the impermanence of the army, and the enemy is the first.
He himself has said that different personnel + different running positions will be arranged against different opponents, just like this one is missing two main full-backs, the left side continues to Zinchenko, but the right side does not use the midfielder he used to like. This may be because Teams such as Chelsea have proved that if they want to defend Vinicius alone, they must have speed and confrontation, and it is better to let Stones stay behind and add the ball and change the B seat to the right midfield to run to assist in defense.
Also in the face of the problem of how to fill the pit in the absence of the main player, it seems that An Fat has become radical and Guardiola has been conservative, but in his bones, he may still be the style of two people and two teams.
So the game is also played with a familiar rhythm. City opened with a high-pressure front, on-the-spot counter-attack, continuous attack, Mahrez facing a double-tiered defensive line to pull out the cross space, and De Bruyne's header at the back point broke the goal.
In 93 seconds, Real Madrid's frontcourt players had not yet touched the ball, and the backcourt players, like us, had not yet woken up, and the score was behind.
Of course, there is also a logical closed loop familiar with this season in the process of conceding goals: without Casemiro, you can only use Kroos to play the back; Kroos plays the back, there is no running coverage; there is no running coverage in the back, Valverde has to take care of both the recovery of the five guards and the arc top filling; Valverde can not take care of both, then as long as the cross is lost higher than Militon's airspace, the carvajal at the back point is in vain.
Pessimistic Real Madrid fans chose to abandon the pit to sleep, after all, this is the away to face the powerful Manchester City, the nightmare start also encountered the collective drop of teammates. Optimistic Real Madrid fans decided to hold on and then quickly reaped a second blow.
No way, if there is a solution to the above closed loop, it is impossible to find it for more than half a year at Ancelotti's level. If you really do what we keyboard men tinkered with, cross-down and play the back with Kamavinga or Modric, it's likely that either the backcourt can't get the ball at all, or no one can teleport to the foot of the front line.
Therefore, being suppressed by Manchester City is also expected. To make matters worse, however, the real Madrid backline did not perform much better than Kroos in this game.
Militang classic to see the ball does not look at people, Carvajal can never grab the position, Mendy is either the ball is broken or the wave is broken in the next step, even the most stable Arabba in the past has become Liu Xing, your big colander .jpg.
If you look closely at the whole process of the second goal conceded, you will find that Alaba and Mendy on the small penalty line are in 2 defense 3, Kroos's powerless slash interception, arc top defense is actually magic flute and Vinicius, Jesus stops the ball and turns around when the whole team looks petrified - it is simply a collective show of defensive chaos.
Pessimistic Real Madrid fans are already experimenting with the switch of deep sleep, optimistic Real Madrid fans... Suddenly, I was in good spirits.
Yes, this feeling is no stranger to this season's Champions League. Playing the front game of Paris, playing Chelsea in the first 80 minutes at the Bernabeu, whenever the world thinks that Real Madrid is finished, just give a breather, and then you can catch the last glimmer of life.
And they really see the signs.
Manchester City can indeed punch all kinds of punctures, poke the Real Madrid defenders everywhere, and create all kinds of scoring opportunities. But when the opportunity came, it was also a real wave, such as Mahrez playing style throughout the game, playing out of level, and also kicking out of the goal. The last one to make Guardiola completely crazy on the sidelines seems to be Sterling.
For example, Foden played well enough in this game, retreating to help De Bruyne to lead Valverde out of the defensive zone, and entering can make Carvajal very awkward, almost turning "British Prince" into a positive word. But he was a little bit worse, and it was also a shot.
I don't know whether I want to fight with the Real Madrid defense or the front line of the team, and Manchester City's defense has also begun to join the back wave competition. Not only was Stones unable to steal Vinicius, but he was always stealing the ball from the backcourt. Edson was originally an unsatisfactory personality, and when he met Benzema, he absolutely could not let go of the opportunity to prove himself, and began to jump repeatedly on the edge of the aura of wisdom reduction.
Seeing this, we gradually understood why the game was not over, so don't make up your mind.
City's overall strength is indeed strong, but there must be a gap in the other side of the high pressing; Real Madrid did not choose Valverde's 443/442 switch to play as a winger, although the short board covered by the midfield run is shorter, but the Trident can maintain the pressure of counterattack and pressing; and don't forget... Even if this team is in a desperate situation, there are often some big hearts that will not give up, such as the former Ronaldo and Ramos, and now Benzema and Modric.
It was Modric's steal again that saved the ball that had almost been lost, mendy then sent a cross, Benzema first slowed down to avoid offside, and then fully adjusted his body to hit a volley that the goalkeeper feared the most. I can only say that if this opportunity is on the opposite side, not to mention this group of semi-finals, this year's Premier League and Champions League can write the finale in advance.
For the remainder of the first half (and halftime), the two coaches made a substitution adjustment.
Manchester City replaced Stones with Fernandinho. On the one hand, it may still be that the state has not fully recovered, on the other hand, Stones has neither the front top nor the rear of the position in this position, it is better to be like Ancelotti using Kroos to hit the back, on the bird to "break the can and break the fall".
Real Madrid replaced Alaba with Nacho, which is nothing to say because of injuries. Otherwise, even if Alaba didn't play well this time, he would definitely be stronger than Nacho who grabbed in the void. But Ancelotti's real adjustment was not in this substitution, but in the second half for Valverde to give up his half-heartedness in everything he wanted, concentrate on doing a good job at the back, help Kroos cover the defense, and limit the position to kill the crazy De Bruyne in the first half.
The adjustments on both sides were immediate, creating a misplaced hedging effect, resulting in the main story of the game in the second half not changing much.
Specifically: Manchester City lost one and then entered one by Real Madrid, and one two, three or four again.
Like the plus extended version of Mahrez + Foden below. Although Mahrez had already played better than other shots, he still hit the post. Foden's re-shot was also astute enough, but it still hit the moving human goalpost.
However, the side plot is different from the first half. De Bruyne was tightly restrained by Valverde, allowing City's attacking centre of gravity to tilt more to the right. Here, Fei Bird and his little Brazilian brother have a 1v1 duel.
Seeing that Vinicius did not return in time, Fei Bird suddenly stepped forward to break the ball successfully, and the following bottom cross assisted Foden to expand the score into two goals. As for Mendy's random shots, Militang's residual air defenses, Carvajal's weak back post, I really don't want to say anything more.
Soon, however, Vinicius was back on the field. Still in response to Mendy's direct pass, he made a gesture to return to the connection with his body to first lean against fei bird, and then ran around in the air to complete the "touchless ball pass", followed by a long drive straight in.
Although Manchester City has been strictly guarding against the strong point of Real Madrid throughout the game, the positive pursuit of B seats and the early movement of Rodri are three-man bags at every turn. But after all, to play a high pass control, once the back space is penetrated, it will definitely not be able to chase back.
Side Story 1: Vinicius vs Fernandinho ended in a 1-1 draw.
Side Story 2: The referee appears.
No, no, no, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the penalty decision for this game, or that there's any controversial move between the two teams. In fact, this is a rare and extremely precious "three high" competition of competitive height, fluency and athleticism. Being able to play this kind of game is not only due to the fact that both sides are focused on football, but also due to the high level of law enforcement of referee István. It was only at the end of the game that the dude was forcibly pushed to the foreground by the god of luck.
Ancelotti made the second tweak first, replacing Rodrigo with Camareunga and giving Valverdra the familiar right. In this way, in the positional battle, it is back to the familiar five-back width coverage, obviously trying to hold a ball gap back home to fight again.
However, the plan was unexpectedly disrupted. Kroos' foul on Zinchenko in front of the penalty area was blown by everyone, and the referee put the whistle in his mouth. Unexpectedly, the ball that B seat got was an offensive advantage + dead corner burst, and the Real Madrid player suddenly became the petrified state of the opening game. In the master duel, even if the tight attention is scattered for a second or two, it will be such a consequence.
City once again built up a two-goal advantage, but before they could get the heat up, they lost it again.
Kroos fired a free-kick cross, and when Laporte and Benzema competed for the top, they initially wanted dapeng to spread their wings, and halfway they were afraid of being blown and pushed to recycle, and the result was that the yin and yang mistakenly turned into a skyward orchid finger.
Penalty, the penalty taker was Benzema. The backdrop of the Champions League semi-finals, the weekend league has just lost two points in a row, who would have thought that he actually played a delicate spoon at this time.
Benzema said after the game: "If you don't take a penalty, you won't miss a point. The important thing is to have confidence in myself, and I will always have confidence in myself. And like him, the last one was Zidane in 2006.
This is a wave contest between the defenses, referred to as the back wave contest. The two sides do not distinguish between victory and defeat, and can only say that a wave is stronger than a wave.
It was also a fantastic showdown for fans, with seven brilliant goals and a 4-3 score that represented who reached the final. Thanks to Benzema, Hala Mahrez, for welcoming the return of Casemiro, Cancelo and Walker in the second leg.
Since such a game can never be seen enough, let's continue next week!