“He formed a crisis cabinet, with the players. He changed everything, formation and positions. Tactics is the aspect that is least recognised”
Mg London (England) 01/06/2024 – Champions League final / Borussia Dortmund-Real Madrid / photo Matteo Gribaudi/Image Sport in the photo: Carlo Ancelotti
It all happened in the interval. Borussia was dominating the Champions League final. Then Ancelotti “in tune with the opinion of his players, ended up being the switch that began to change the fate of the final”. El Paìs talks about the “crisis cabinet in which several veterans participated, as well as the technician”.
“I didn’t arrive angry, but I needed to clarify things,” said Ancelotti. “The players also spoke and we discussed the system change together. It’s not like I made the decision alone. I told them, ‘Look, for me we have to change a little bit.’ They agreed”.
Fede Valverde was one of the protagonists of the reorganization of Real Madrid: “In the second half it was a bit crazy with many changes in formation and position, but it gave us stability”,
And so, here it is: “We move from the usual initial 4-4-2 to 4-3-3, with Vinicius and Rodrygo on the outside, also pressing, and Bellingham and Valverde on the inside. If in the first half the balance of shots was eight to two for Dortmund (no one on Real’s goal), in the half hour of the second half, which elapsed until the 0-1, the score had already begun to stabilize: three-five for the Bianconeri. Carvajal’s goal definitively turns the game around.”
El Paìs recalls Ancelotti’s strictly tactical merits, which are often little considered: “in 21-22 he successfully chose to exploit the Casemiro-Kroos-Modric trio to go on the counterattack, and then hone in on Valverde on the right. Last season, in the moment of post-World Cup crisis, he managed to support the team by making a move that seemed risky: Kroos alone at the pivot and Camavinga at left back to leave room for Rodrygo in attack. And last summer he made his most applauded decision: to bring Bellingham closer in the absence of a natural world-class replacement for Benzema. After three months he squares the circle by sending the Englishman to cover the left. In parallel, he convinced Vinicius to play in the central areas to produce more goals, and Tchouameni was invented as a central defender due to injuries and lack of reinforcements.”
Now, writes El Paìs, “another tactical mission awaits him: creating a Real Madrid without Kroos and, predictably, with Mbappé”.
Napolista ilnapolista © all rights reserved
