“We will play and then we will see,” Carlo Ancelotti had said, so Real Madrid did their part and by the end of an ultimately easy night, life looked good again. The European champions started this match as the 22nd best team in the continent, somewhere towards the bottom of a table that keeps everyone guessing and supposedly on the edge of a catastrophe, and finished it six places higher and feeling as if they are among the favourites again. If, the coach was keen to stress, they can defend better.
Madrid had been defeated by Lille, Milan and Liverpool, but there was time still and a revival to come and now a 5-1 victory over Red Bull Salzburg in their penultimate game has lifted them back among the seeds for the playoff round. With one game to go, against Brest next week, and the team taking shape, it also leaves them a single point off the top eight. Two goals each from Rodrygo and Vinícius and another for Kylian Mbappé mean Ancelotti’s side still have a small chance of completing the first phase of this new format going straight through to the last 16, although seven teams still stand between them and that target.
In the end, in fact, Madrid may even be disappointed that they had not drawn even closer here: 4-0 up inside an hour, withdrawing Jude Bellingham with 30 minutes left and replacing Mbappé and Rodrygo 10 minutes after, they “only” scored one more and then conceded late. That ultimately left Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, level on points, one and three goals away respectively, almost within reach. “I think it’s very complicated, almost impossible to finish in the top eight,” Ancelotti admitted.
Yet the Italian remained satisfied and rightly so: for all the pressure, all the pessimism, this was a night that put things back where they are supposed to be, and with little real drama, just a manifest superiority – and a glimpse of a side that should frighten everyone. “There’s so much quality upfront, we will never have problems scoring goals,” Madrid’s coach said. “We have to improve defensively; that’s the key to being successful.”
This was always likely to be an opportunity not just to secure victory but chase goals, to do something about that measly looking +1 goal difference. In that seemingly interminable table, there were only two teams below Salzburg. Fifth in the domestic table, for the first time in 10 years they are not Austria’s champions; coach Pep Lijnders had been and gone; and the Champions League’s youngest team had won a solitary game – the only one in which they had even scored. Eighteen times they had conceded, an invitation for Madrid to attack. Salzburg hadn’t played a competitive game for a month, and few expected this to be competitive either.
And so it was, even if to begin with that analysis appeared flawed and the visitors would score at the end. It was Madrid forced to defend first when Fede Valverde, filling in at full-back, had to move fast to deny Oscar Gloukh and Dorgeles Nene then flashed a ball across the six yard box. Soon after, Mads Bidstrup’s shot deflected over. And then Gloukh came in from wide and struck just past Thibaut Courtois’s far post. Salzburg had come to play, at least for a little while.
With their first shot, though, Madrid took the lead and a hold of the match, any threat from Salzburg fleeting and soon forgotten. Fifteen minutes had gone when Vinícius delivered a diagonal pass looking for Jude Bellingham, arriving in the area, and while he could not bring it under control the ball ran through to Rodrygo to score the opener. A single shot carried Madrid five places up the table at that point, from 22 to 17, and nor would it be a single shot or a single goal. There were more places to aim for as well.
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Madrid had started now and on 34 minutes Rodrygo scored again. A gorgeous exchange with Bellingham, setting up the Brazilian with a neat back-heel, saw him sweep a superb shot in from the top corner of the area. Madrid wanted more, the chase on. Vinicius was booked for diving in search of a penalty just before the break – suspended, he will miss the final game – and then, just after it, they were given the third. Janis Blaswich controlled a back pass and bafflingly walked the ball straight back to Mbappé, who took it from him, muchas gracias, and rolled into an empty net.
Vinícius was next, released by Luka Modric and cutting inside to smash in the fourth. The pace slowed, players rested, but it wasn’t done yet. With fifteen minutes remaining, Brahim Díaz and Valverde set up Vinícius to score his hundredth goal for the club, slipping the ball beyond Blaswich. The chase was on, two more teams to catch, qualification virtually secure, but the last goal would instead belong to Mads Bidstrup, volleying past Courtois on 86 minutes. A win and +4 would have to do, and it would do fine.
Source: theguardian.com
