ANDl Real Madrid receive tonight at Lightning, the revelation team of the League, with an almost perfectly defined eleven. There are no doubts in defense or in the center of the field, in which the low of Fede Valverde conditions the combinations of Carlo Ancelotti. To find the unknown you have to go to the front, with two of three fixed seats. Benzema and Vinicius They are untouchable, and for the remaining position, in which Rodrygo had become strong until his injury, two footballers oppose: Eden Hazard and Marco Asensio. But Carletto anticipated yesterday that the Belgian will have minutes (he did not say the same about the former Spanish international), although he did not specify whether to start.
The game, then, is presented as the umpteenth opportunity for the redemption of Hazard, a footballer to whom a sector of the madridismo He’s still waiting, even though it’s been almost two and a half seasons since he landed on the Bernabeu and Chelsea’s crack just a couple of details have been seen with the white.
In fact, injury, who have been an essential part of Hazard’s troublesome Madrid trip, do not seem to be the Belgian’s main problem now. Medically fit in the last two games, he barely played five minutes in Elche, of those considered garbage. Unprecedented in the victory against him Shakhtar, added 21 against Osasuna, zero in the Classical, 18 against Espanyol and 17 against Villarreal. He is not a starter since the loss to the Sheriff (September 28) and barely adds 408 minutes of play in 16 matches. Just over 25 per encounter and so only five presences in the starting eleven so far in the 21-22 season.
Everything points to Hazard’s ownership tonight, as his competitor, Asensio, is preferred by Ancelotti as a midfielder. But there is a problem. I’d have to play for right band, being a footballer who has always started from the opposite side. But the left wing now belongs to Vinicius, and the times in which the Brazilian changed lanes to leave Hazard in his preferred habitat are far behind. It was the times of Zidane, but with Carletto the hierarchies have been reversed. And the numbers load the Madrid coach with reasons. Vini adds this season nine goals and seven assists, for Hazard’s five goals and nine decisive passes, .. in two and a half seasons. An eternal wait that Eden wants to end at once.
