Real Madrid Edge Valencia as Chaos Reigns Supreme, Just as It’s Done All Season

Alvaro Arbeloa headed it away, but it came straight back. Mateo Kovacic then thumped it away, but it came straight back. When it did, Sergio Ramos made a string of tackles, the first on his feet, the second while stumbling, the third while pulling himself across the ground like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Ramos cleared it, sort of, but it came straight back. It then ricocheted off Danilo and up the pitch, but it came straight back.

The sequence was entering its second minute, and the scene was one of mayhem: It was 10 versus 11, but the 10 were on top; players were on the ground as much as on their feet; shape and tactics were nowhere to be seen; legs, boots, heads and torsos were flying everywhere. 

Added time was entering its fourth minute when Marcelo won possession on the edge of the box. He thumped it away like the others had, but finally, this time, it didn’t come back. The whistle blew. Arms went into the air. 

A chaotic sequence at the end of a chaotic game had seen Real Madrid repel Valencia to win, 3-2.

Somehow. 

This, after all, was a game that had five goals, four of them brilliant and one of them offside. The shot count read 17-15 to Valencia, per WhoScored.com, eight on target apiece. Valencia hit the woodwork twice. Kiko Casilla made six saves. Diego Alves made five. 

This was the essence of this incarnation of Real Madrid on display for all to see: brilliant but flawed; explosive but vulnerable; everything right about them one minute, everything wrong about them the next. 

Again, chaos had reigned supreme around Madrid, just as it’s done all season. And yet, here they are. “Until the end,” read the headlines at both Marca and AS on Monday morning. Until the end indeed: On La Liga’s final day, Madrid will contest a shootout with Barcelona (albeit in different locations) for the title. 

Somehow, Madrid are still in it. 

 

 

Keylor Navas was sitting in a waiting room at Madrid’s Barajas airport, waiting for a phone call that would send him to Manchester. David De Gea was at the other end, ready to complete the reverse journey. 

But that phone call never came. 

At the back end of a ridiculous summer, Madrid had made a hash of the transfer process, and in doing so had bungled yet another thing. Another thing? You betcha. 

In the months leading up to that day at the end of August, Madrid had fired a manager they liked and hired one they didn’t. They then signed a €31.5 million right-back to give themselves their own headache. Then they let Iker Casillas bid farewell all by himself, only to then realise the mistake and make a song and dance about it the next day. That was even more awkward. 

In the background to all of this, Ramos’ dispute with the club rumbled along, before Madrid spent pre-season in Australia, China, Germany and Norway. “We spent the entire pre-season campaign in a plane,” Luka Modric would later say. 

So then came the De Gea mess. As summers go, it could barely have been worse, a sense of thoughtful preparation non-existent. 

And yet, somehow, nine months on, Madrid are still in it.  

 

 

The fans wanted them to attack, the media wanted them to attack and the president wanted them to attack, and one sensed the players themselves …

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