Real Madrid and evasive Zidane fail to convince after Bernabéu horror show
Zinedine Zidane said the two goals that Real Madrid conceded against Club Brugge were “a bit of a joke”, but nobody was laughing. What they thought would be a routine victory became a rescue mission. They had, as one headline had it on Wednesday morning, “stared into the abyss”: trailing after nine minutes, two down by the break, defeat would have left them with no points, six behind Brugge and Paris Saint-Germain, one behind Galatasaray. Instead, they came back to draw 2-2, the damage limited, Casemiro suggesting that the “point might have kept us alive”. Yet there was still damage done, questions that remained unanswered.
This time, that was particularly true of Thibaut Courtois, James Rodríguez and Gareth Bale, although it can be expanded to virtually the whole team, still failing to function, lacking a pattern, an idea and the “intensity” to which Zidane often turns. The Belgian goalkeeper was withdrawn at half-time; the explanation given was that he had been sick, vomiting at the break, but no one had been forewarned and no one offered an explanation for his ailments.
Bale and Rodríguez, the two men who had ended up staying in the summer despite being seemingly on the way out, were not included in the squad. They weren’t fully fit, Zidane said afterwards, a reason offered retrospectively: there had been no prior agreement with Bale, who was ready to play. Nacho was withdrawn too, with ligament damage that will keep him out for a couple of months.
Madrid remain bottom of the group but while first place seems unlikely now, they will expect to get through. If, that is, they improve. There is “no margin for error now”, the club’s institutional director Emilio Butragueño admitted. “This can’t happen again,” Vinícius said. “We have to do more, and better,” Sergio Ramos insisted. “As simple as that.”
Beaten 3-0 in Paris, Madrid have a single point after two games: they have never started a Champions League campaign as badly. And it really was bad. Zidane claimed that Madrid had never played a first half like it. “What I take with me is the second half; we played with commitment and heart,” he said.
Like the performance, like much of what the coach said after it, that didn’t entirely convince. Madrid racked up 15
second-half shots, three more than in the first half, but only five of those were on target. Fifteen minutes of fury soon fizzled out and genuinely clear chances were few. This comeback was ultimately incomplete.
After three league games in which they had allowed a solitary shot on target, Zidane stressing the importance of solidity, they had looked vulnerable every time Brugge came forward, the ease with which Madrid were undone startling as Emmanuel Bonaventure scored twice. Even the second half’s best two chances arguably fell to Brugge: at 2-0 and in the last minute. Both would have ended it, and gone very close to ending Madrid’s Champions League hopes.
In part, the fact that this should have been a routine victory may have explained the performance. Asked whether there had been a lack of concentration, Luka Modric conceded: “I don’t know, maybe.” But there are broader questions, fears not allayed by the post-match analysis, which offered few answers and in fact served more to deepen the doubts. Zidane’s explanation over Bale and Rodríguez was short and vague, hinting at a certain continuing disconnect, as was his response to questions about Courtois. Madrid said that the goalkeeper had stomach problems and had been dizzy and sick at half-time, driven home by his father, unable to continue. “He had … things,” Zidane said.
When Courtois didn’t come out for the second half, the fans didn’t know that. They had loudly whistled the team at the end of the first half, their displeasure expressed long and loud as the players made their way off. The keeper, while not directly to blame for either goal, has not won over supporters who would mostly have preferred Keylor Navas to stay, and was a target for much of the first-half frustration, exposed to their anger.
“Courtois hits rock bottom,” Marca said. As Alphonse Areola came on, replacing the former Chelsea keeper, as far as the supporters knew this was a decision, not an obligation, and a statement too – and they cheered. The first thing Areola did was produce the save that denied Bonaventure a hat-trick that would have made a bad night even worse.