'Serene' Zinedine Zidane takes win as faltering Real Madrid get ready for Spurs

Real Madrid has been in the spotlight. However, the win at the end of the week included Cristiano Ronaldo's first group goal of the season before playing against Tottenham in the Champions League.

Should you be stressed? Zinedine asked Zidane. "No, I do not think so," he said. It was late Sunday night at Santiago Bernabéu and the third round of the Real Madrid season had ended recently, as were the next two without a win. At the last minute, a goal by Toni Sanabria gave Real Betis a 1-0 win. Levante and Valencia, the last guests, had joined. Five weeks later, Madrid had lost seven approaches, Barcelona disappearing early.

"Maybe a year ago, we won recreations we did not deserve: now it's a different way, basically." It's football: you have to recognize it. It is still early, regardless of the possibility that there are seven approaches. "

In Liga, where title champions have required no less than 90 approaches for each of the past seven years, leaving seven is critical and in Madrid, overtaking is never worthy, although it can be clarified, and Zidane does not. does not focus irrationally around fortune. Freely, anyway. "From time to time, the ball would not like to come in," he said. "We had 26, 27 shots." Quique Setién, director of Betis, said: "To win here, you know you will stay and your goalkeeper must be great: winning here without fear is an ideal world."

For Madrid, the win was a start: when they beat Espanyol 2-0 before the break, Isco said: "It was time for us to win at the Bernabéu". Zidane was qualified to feel that he should not have taken so much time. Karim Benzema admitted that he could have played all night and did not score against Valencia. By the time Levante arrived, it was Gareth Bale who had openings. Against Betis, the chances fell to Cristiano Ronaldo. No notes.

Madrid had a greater number of hits than any other person in La Liga, and one way or another. In these three amusements, only 80. It is the couples who should have won. Zidane discussing efficiency before the goal. "Three goals at home are not many for us," he said. It could not even be considered a long-distance problem. Thirty-five unique groups from eight different nations had striven to stop them and had failed before Betis, 73 deviations later.

In the midst of these ideas, Zidane himself realized that shooting alone was not a dangerous beginning. Ronaldo had skipped school for five entertainments, suspended; Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, Marcelo and Benzema missed matches for damages. James Rodríguez and Álvaro Morata, the main aid provider and second-leading scorer last season, have retired.

By the time Morata went to Chelsea in late spring, Zidane said he needed another attacker. At this point, he anticipates that it will be Kylian Mbappé, but he joins Paris Saint-Germain. "I wish Morata stayed," Zidane admitted.

However, the team remained unimaginably solid (Dani Ceballos, Theo Hernández and Marcos Llorente added the youthful ability) and even the unfortunate deficiencies did not clarify the results. Indeed, Madrid had been terrible to abandon seven approaches; Yes, the siege can have saved them as it regularly did a year ago; Yes, the openings had been wasted, but Setien del Betis correctly demanded that his group had arrived in Madrid earlier. In addition, Zidane conceded after Levante: "I can not be happy with the way we play."

This Saturday, he said he was satisfied with the way they played at Getafe, but were not impressed by a late 2-1 triumph, with Ronaldo's first goal for the season.

In the last two weeks, when they won, Madrid did not move the ball so fast, nor hurried as much as at the end of last season or at the beginning, when Gerard Piqué admitted that unprecedented for a long time. the moment he felt second class. Protected, they seemed helpless. In advance, there is capacity but the thoughts are not yet fully developed.

"We are trying to produce soccer," Isco conceded. Since this fun of Betis, they have persuaded Dortmund, and there is something in Madrid that is like giving them a praiseworthy step, but less crushing Alavés, Espanyol and Getafe. After a first period dominated by Madrid, Espanyol hit the post and then backed down while the second started; Pedraza hit his pole twice in Alavés; against Getafe, there was a late pitch for Mauro Arambarri at 1-1 and his champion never felt inescapable.

"I am extremely angry," said Getafe's supervisor, José Bordalás. "We know they work very well in space, so we had to close them, it was very difficult for Madrid to shoot, I thought the way they hurt us was inside and we had an improvement to keep it that way, that's where the objective came from." When that happened, Zidane jumped out of the seat to celebrate.

Later, he said he would see Atlético v Barcelona, ​​which ended in a 1-1 draw, "as a football fan". He would also have looked like an administrator who plans to close the hole. Confident, but not stressful. Private research is extraordinary, but people in general stay. "I will never change," he said. "There is a word that I like:" tranquility. "This characterizes it and served it well.


"I enjoy every day," said a smiling Zidane on Friday receiving Getafe and Tuesday's visit to the Tottenham Champions League, which will be his 101st fun. So far, they have won 75; The infatuation of Betis was only his eighth. He has won seven titles, one every 92 days.