Pressing qualities
Ancelotti’s bet on maximizing Valverde’s qualities in pressing came true. There were frequent situations where he was part of the first wave, and then managed to run and work in the second. It didn’t go right away, Verratti played through Marquinhos (Benzema was against him, but turned off) – Valverde corrects the mistake and glues the pressure: Fede’s work in pressing was top notch. 10 successful pressing actions (that is, with the return of the ball within 5 seconds after pressing) – no one else did more than 6. And 43.5% success rate: the rest have a better result of 30%. In some way, Madrid was forced to increase their pressure, because the usual way of defense worked much worse than usual.The difference between Kroos and Casemiro without the ball was striking. When “Paris” got to this zone, there were fires. I don’t want to be too hard on Tony. He forced a return to the match, played out of position and was traditionally good in terms of passing. But when defending, the problems were obvious: somewhere the German lacked tenacity to take the ball away; somewhere he found himself in a half position; somewhere he made wrong decisions, trying to meet attacks at speed. In each of the described aspects, Casemiro is impeccable. One example – Kroos leaves the support zone, trying to put pressure on Verratti, but does not have time, while leaving free Mbappe behind: A quick pass game from PSG – and the ball is in Mbappe, which Militao flies late: Yes, Eder could put out the fire – instead he missed the ball and let Kilian into the kill zone. But the chain of problems began precisely with the rash decision of Kroos. When Casemiro plays, the load on the central defenders is reduced – he holds the support, and he still manages to insure their advancement.
Player’s gameplay understanding and key aspects of it
With Kroos, the situation turned upside down – now Real Madrid literally depended on the accuracy of the center-backs during promotions, and it was often necessary to advance to the support team. This mechanism did not always work. In attack at Real Madrid, Asensio acted in a very free role. There was this idea: Dani Carvajal gives width on the flank, Asensio goes to the center or even to someone else’s flank, and Valverde, if necessary, makes jerks to the right to support Carvajal. On the left, Nacho acted more carefully, and Vinicius (or even Benzema) was responsible for the width: The idea was interesting and well-defined, but it cannot be said that it directly worked. In the first half, the main source of threat from Madrid were crosses. In the second, the highlights (including goals) came from pressing and fast attacks.