Real Madrid’s manager knows it will be tough to beat Atlético on Sunday but the Italian is serene in his second spellHello again. The day that Carlo Ancelotti returned to Real Madrid, a chance conversation about something completely different unexpectedly bringing him back to Spain six years later, he looked around Valdebebas and saw familiar faces everywhere, comfort in the lack of change. “The same physios, the same kit men, the same journalists, the same vision, the same demands of greatness,” as he put it. “Everything is immutable: the only thing that changes is the coach.”It is there, anyway. Since he left, Madrid have been through five of them: Rafa Benítez, Zinedine Zidane, Julen Lopetegui, Santi Solari and Zidane again....
Serbian outcast had played only 81 minutes all season but was brilliant after leaping off the bench to replace injured talismanKarim Benzema was down on one knee which meant Real Madrid were down on theirs, or so it goes. Saturday had been good to them until then – Barcelona had lost at home to Real Betis and Atlético Madrid had been beaten by Real Mallorca with on-loan Take Kubo slipping past Jan Oblak in the last minute at the Metropolitano – but this was bad news, its significance expressed simply. A couple of words and a couple of explanation marks would do: Benzema and off. It was cold, wet, noisy and 0-0 at Real Sociedad where no one had won...
Brazilian’s rocket against Sevilla took Madrid top and suggested he is now among an elite group of game-changing players“Vinícius has a motorbike beneath his boots,” Carlo Ancelotti said last week. What the Real Madrid manager didn’t know was that he has a traction engine down there too. But late on Sunday night there it was, when they needed it most. Madrid were entering the 87th minute against Sevilla, the score even and a place at the top awaiting the winner, when a long ball from Eder Militao dropped from the sky by the left touchline. Vinícius chested past Lucas Ocampos, controlling and coming inside in one move, dropped his shoulder, went beyond Gonzalo Montiel and sent the ball tearing through...
Real Madrid and Barcelona meet in the league without either Sergio Ramos or Lionel Messi involved for first time since 2005Eduardo Iturralde González could see it coming. “I saw Sergio Ramos running towards Leo Messi and I thought: ‘He’s going to whack him,’” the referee recalled – and he was right. It was late on a Monday night in November 2010, Messi was left on the floor, a fight started and Ramos was sent off. On Saturday afternoon they should have been preparing for the latest chapter in a seemingly never-ending story. Instead, though neither had exactly planned it this way, they found themselves at Camp de Loges, north of Paris. Together.No one has played more clásicos than Ramos or...
Real returned home after 560 days away and the fans’ embrace of the once mocked Brazilian shows how far he has comeIn the end, the police had to pull him out of there. There was a party back at his place and Vinícius Júnior was enjoying this more than the last time he was there and probably more than he should have been, but he didn’t care and you couldn’t really blame him: this had been a long time coming and when at last it did, boy was it good. Boy was he. After 560 days, football finally returned to the Santiago Bernabéu and, having conceded inside 200 seconds, twice trailed and been reacquainted with whistles, the Brazilian put Real...