Real must rediscover the lost art of the fightback
IT has been a sad but fundamental truth that, since Florentino Pérez took over at Real Madrid, the club has lacked a football philosophy. Marketing, money-making, branding philosophies? Yes. Playing, developing, coherent signings based on football criteria — phooey.
This week will help us discover whether his reign is also in danger of eroding a previously inherent and attractive part of the club’s personality.
It is both natural and justified that Real Madrid trade on the idea of being Europe’s most successful club. They have held the ‘Cup with the big ears’ so often that, if the trophy could speak, it would be in Spanish.
Winning it again next month would not simply give them their 11th European conquest, it would use the home of their nearest rivals, AC Milan (seven wins), to put further distance between them.
But in order to even make it into the last four, after losing 2-0 against Wolfsburg in Germany last week, Los Blancos need to tap into something just as ‘mythical’, just as nourishing to their psyche — the fightback.
In Spanish it’s called the remontada, and Madrid discovered right from day one that they loved to flirt with disaster before soaring to victory.
Yes, yes, I know it was before you were born, but their very first European Cup win, in 1956, when the Scottish and English champions Aberdeen and Chelsea were ordered not to participate in the new competition and Hibernian (rebels!) marched to the last four, included a serious remontada.
Madrid, led by Alfredo di Stefano, were two goals down to Hibs’ semifinal conquerers, Stade de Reims, in the first 10 minutes, before winning 4-3. They did it again in the final two years later against AC Milan — trailing twice, and being 2-1 down with 12 minutes left before winning 3-2.
The adrenaline rush, the need for risk, clearly became addictive. Part of their make-up. We all love a contest, we all love a drama — so anyone who thinks that the European Cup legend and Real Madrid’s legend as crown princes of the continent does not owe something to their tradition of fightback wins is kidding themselves.
Gleam and glamour, yes. But blood, sweat and tears along the way? Gorgeous. If you are of my generation, you will remember the habits which developed after those early years.
Dave Mackay’s Derby walloped Real Marid 4-1 at the Baseball Ground in 1975. It was glorious: mud, a goal-flood and Charlie George at his rampant, arrogant best. It should have been all over.
But as Vicente del Bosque, then in Los Blancos’ midfield, recalled: ‘In the bus which took us from Derby to London, we were still all carried along by optimism. We were totally convinced we would still knock them out and (Jose Antonio) Camacho never stopped predicting that we would win 6-0 at the Bernabéu.’
He was wrong on the scoreline but not on the goal tally. It was 4-1 at full-time, then 5-1 in extra time — adios to big Dave, Archie Gemmill, Roy McFarland and Colin Todd.
It all became a habit. Celtic won 2-0 at Parkhead in 1980, but lost at a packed, rabid Bernabéu 3-0.
Nor did Los Blancos ration their chutzpah to the European Cup.
Before winning the UEFA Cup in 1984, Madrid were 3-0 down to Anderlecht before winning 6-1 in the second leg.
It was Madrid’s footballing Molotov cocktail. Play rubbish, get spanked, wake up, fight back, overturn the deficit, qualify: win the tournament. A massive narcotic for their fans, and for all of us who chronicle them.
A year on and the Inter Milan of Liam Brady, Beppe Bergomi, Alessandro Altobelli and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge turned Madrid over 2-0 in the UEFA Cup semi-final, first leg.
But, yes you have guessed it, after the late Juanito, a little devil of a winger, told his marker Graziano Bini that ‘90 minutes is a long time in the Santiago Bernabéu,’ there was another dice-withd-anger-then-dismiss-it remontada as Madrid won 3-0 and made the Final — which they would win.
Buy a European ticket for the Bernabéu and you didn’t just get football — there would be thousands of fat ladies and, usually, they would not sing until very late in the 180-minute tie.
Juanito became the emblem — ‘We need 11 Juanitos!’ the Madrid football papers always declare when their team is trailing in any tie. But the last of these glorious remontadas came nearly 14 years ago.
Not long after Florentino took charge. Coincidence? I do not think so.
It was 2002, and Madrid’s most hated European foe, Bayern Munich, won 2-1 in Bavaria. Twice in the recent past the Germans had come to the Spanish capital and won, easily. Post the first leg, Oliver Kahn promised Madrid would ‘never’ win by two clear goals in order to reach the Champions League semi-final. But, with two in the last 20 minutes, the second coming with 250 seconds left, del Bosque’s boys did just that, sucker punched Barcelona in the semi-final, and then won at Hampden Park via that Zinedine Zidane goal.
Since then, however, Madrid have failed to overcome first-leg deficits against Roma, Lyon, Bayern, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus.
To the extent that Juanito’s boy, Roberto, pleaded with Madridistas to ‘stop invoking the spirit of my dad for the Wolfsburg return leg and leave his memory in peace because every time we do that nowadays the team messes up!’
Madrid have 23 goals in nine European matches this season and 31 home goals in the seven Bernabéu Liga matches since Zidane (left) took over from Rafa Benitez. So the remontada is within their powers.
But what usually marked this club’s glory nights after a defeat was keeping a clean sheet. Can this side do that? Can Zidane coach a defensive performance out of his midfield and back four.
Or, has the Florentino regime eroded the hunger, the organisation, the strategy and the DNA, which helped make his club great in the first place? We shall see.