Five Bullet Points From Real Madrid’s Win Over Valencia
Valencia defended in a 5-3-2 or 5-4-1 block depending on Danjuma’s positioning, and Real Madrid just carved them and pulled them around like puppeteers, simultaneously erasing Danjuma as a transition threat with how well they counter-pressed and tracked.
Key points
- Valencia grew more and more frustrated that their usual mind games didn’t work, and in the end, it was them that got in their own heads more and more.
- Also, check out the post-game podcast where Leah and I break down the win (and more) for 56 minutes: A quartet I trust.
- Pablo Maffeo, Valencia’s new CEO of brainless and talentless thuggery, again, didn’t come to play football.
Here is a new thing I’m committing to this season: Five semi-informal bullet points after each game.
But Real Madrid showed up focused and locked in — and I’d have to really dig deep to think about the last time this team showed up so ruthlessly and professionally at this stadium.
Additional details
- Mourinho made his five subs after the 84th minute, and two of those were in the 91st minute.
- Part of the benefit of this particular line-up is that in addition to people making great vertical runs to drag defenders around and create overloads in certain areas of the field, there are also capable deep passers — Huijsen, Konaté, Silva — to reward those runs.
- Valencia didn’t threaten much, but when they did, it was on his side.
- Javier Aguirre set up his back-five and threw bodies at Diomande.
- Watch Cucurella and Valverde flying into the left and right half spaces, and Güler and Bellingham both roaming intelligently to create outlets and solutions for their teammates.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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