On Saturday afternoon in the Spanish capital, it was
Madridistas in full voices gleefully yelling out their slogan “HALA MADRID”
after witnessing their club hand Atletico Madrid their first Laliga derby defeat
at the Bernabeu since the 2012/13 season. A narrow 1-0 win that ensures Los
Blancos remain League leaders until the foreseeable future. But do Real Madrid
stand a chance of winning their first League title since 2017 despite only
three points atop the league, and perhaps, put an end to Barca’s dominance in
the past two seasons?
FC Barcelona have been far too irregular this
campaign, erratic and routinely terrible especially away from the Nou Camp.
Numerous irregularities have lucidly been depicted in both their performances
and results over the course of the season. One time they play badly and win
with a huge margin at the Nou Camp, next - get beaten away from home after an
embarrassing display, and next - play well only to grind out results. A repeat
of this flawed ritual and the cycle lives on.
Granted, all these pattern of behaviours were under
the watch of former boss Ernesto Valverde who got himself sacked anyway, but
newly appointed manager, Quique Setien, a devoted Cruyffista with intense
obssession for possession-based free-flowing attacking football, has hardly
gotten the show on the road and despite his team racking up huge possession
stats in his few games in charge, Barca is a far cry from a team with
relentless ruthlessness. Setien’s first acid test against Valencia at Mestalla
exposed the teams flaws in the 3-5-2 or 3-3-4 formation, and unsurprisingly
when he reverted to the 4-3-3 set up in the Copa Del Rey game in mid-week, the
team responded positively with a 5-0 drubbing of Leganes at the Nou Camp. The
61-year-old Spaniard is working against the clock to put Barca in a better
condition to compete and the sooner, the better.
On the flip side, fierce rivals, Real Madrid, seem to
have found a formula, “the winning formula,” right on time at the business end
of the season where trophies are won. Notably, what most articles and
intellectuals emphasize when talking about addiction is almost certainly always
with a negative connotation. For instance, addiction to alcohol, drugs. But
what about positive addiction? Conversely, addiction could be positive, like
getting addicted to winning and always on the hunt for the next win. Dopamine
is secreted by the brain when one does something pleasurable, and what could be
more pleasurable to these footballers than winning games and having trophies to
show for it?
Simply put, Los Blancos’ 15 wins in the last 20 games
in all competition has an element of addiction in itself. What about Real
Madrid needing penalties to beat Atletico in the Supercopa finals in Saudi
Arabia? Long story short, outcomes of finals are either a win or a loss. Madrid
won, full stop! They might go on and win LaLiga as well; a trophy much yearned
for at the Bernabeu. After a lackluster first-half display in the Madrid derby
by the hosts, it seemed Atletico would once again get a favorable result as
they have done in their last six visits. But Zidane’s immediate 4-1-4-1 tweak
right before the second half commenced, which saw Federico Valverde move
centrally and in situ ensured whiles Lucas Vazquez and Vinicius Junior offered
width in those wide areas, the Uruguayan added penetration and dynamism in the
central zones too.
Ten minutes later, in the second half, Karim Benzema
found the back of the net to send the Bernabeu faithful into hysteria after
Vinicius and Mendy combined brilliantly on the left side of the attack.
Onwards, the home side matched on, playing with great flair and an admirable
gusto. There’s the belief; there’s Zidane, there could be the Laliga trophy at
the end of the season. It’s only mid-season with 16 Laliga games left and a lot
more games in other competitions like the Champions League as well as the Copa
Del Rey, but if Real Madrid could sustain their insatiable hunger for success
and further get addicted to wins, they might as well clinch all three trophies.
CREDITED
TO - Bright N. B. Antwi
