It happened in Lille, but it could have happened in any of the fields in which Real Madrid has played this season, which has started the course walking along the ledge, facing defeat, without finishing finding a structure with which to organize itself and govern the game. And it happened at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium. There the last European champion surrendered after 36 games without defeat. But he once again showed that kind of lack of skeleton, that lack of game direction. He barely bothered Lille until he disregarded the maps he couldn’t follow and surrendered to chaos. It then produced a few minutes of danger, a shower of balls into the area that were met with the success of Chevalier. It was a final cry before melting on the second day of this new Champions League in which he looks far from the top after visiting one of the rivals he least feared.
1
Lucas Chevalier, Bafodé Diakité, Gabriel Gudmundsson, Alexsandro Ribeiro, Tiago Santos, Mitchel Bakker (Thomas Meunier, min. 87), Edon Zhegrova, Benjamin André, Ayyoub Bouaddi, Rémy Cabella (Osame Sahraoui, min. 71) and Jonathan David
0
Andrii Lunin, Ferland Mendy (Fran García, min. 45), Éder Militão (Kylian Mbappé, min. 56), Dani Carvajal, Antonio Rüdiger, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Federico Valverde, Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga (Arda Güler, min. 66) , Vinícius Júnior and Endrick (Luka Modric, min. 56)
Goals
1-0 min. 46: Jonathan David
Referee Maurizio Mariani
Endrick (min. 45), Camavinga (min. 58), Jude Bellingham (min. 77), Rüdiger (min. 78), Modric (min. 80), Jonathan David (min. 92), Bafode Diakite (min. 95 )
Fresh from the Metropolitano cauldron, they stumbled like Atlético in Lisbon, although with less noise. Real appeared in Lille with several debuts in the eleven. They were Lunin and Camavinga’s first minutes, and Endrick’s first start, while Rodrygo and Mbappé waited on the bench, who seemed to have completed a brilliant recovery. The four midfielders, with Tchouameni and Camavinga holding the double pivot, announced Real’s control, but Lille, despite being hurt by casualties, gradually took control of the ball.
Zhegrova managed the game for the French while Madrid was unlucky. The whites’ meeting was a succession of discontinuous impulses. The center of the field was once again a suspicious place, where no elaboration was recorded. Lille had won that area and Madrid seemed disconnected. Neither Valverde, nor Tchouameni, nor Camavinga managed to get the team together. And Bellingham and Vinicius barely appeared, while Endrick exhibited his unbridled courage.
Despite that kind of emptiness that Madrid displayed at the start, it caused Chevalier to panic with two sparks. Vinicius tested the goalkeeper from distance after a Bellingham steal, and the goalkeeper responded very confidently down low. Just like when Endrick ran and ran diagonally until he entered the area and found himself face to face with him. The Brazilian shot against the goalkeeper’s body.
The ticking of the clock did not wake up Madrid, who saw how Lille continued to grow, continued to play under the baton of Zhegrova, who marked the times, hid the ball and found Jonathan David at the far post. Lunin deactivated the header, but the ball returned to the Canadian forward who insisted with another shot. The Ukrainian raised his left arm from the ground and cleared it with the fingertips of his glove. He had returned from the refrigerator as if he had never stopped playing. And it was his first night of the course. But not even that shock woke up Real.
Lille kept pushing. Until she found herself with a foul near the front, which Zhegrova also took care of. He shot into an area full of white shirts and hit Camavinga’s left arm, something that escaped the referee’s sight, but not the VAR’s surveillance. Lunin faced Jonathan David again, but this time the Canadian deceived him and Lille went into the break with an advantage.
In the locker room they seemed to receive the shock that had not caused them even the scare of Lunin’s two successive stops. After the intermission, Mendy disappeared and in his place was Fran García, with more progress upwards. A little more intensity also appeared. But it was insufficient. The first dangerous shot was registered by Lille. Zhegrova again.
Ancelotti then decided to remove Endrick, the youngest starter in the club’s history, and Militão, and turn to Modric and Mbappé: the hope of a little order and some spice. Although the Frenchman was transparent on his return. Lille responded with a counter from Zhegrova and David. Madrid had all the connections loose, and to achieve this, Lille had barely needed a disciplined order. They had not even resorted to asphyxiation due to physical waste. A formidable confidence with the ball, a conviction full of success, was enough for them.
Madrid was not going. And he began to drown in anguish. Although there he also found a way to unleash the last blows: balls into the area that came to nothing. That’s how he melted in Lille after hanging around him a lot.
