Carlo Ancelotti begins his fourth season at the helm of the real Madrid with a team that fulfills it, a reinforced staff with Chuamni and Rediger and where they came from Isco, Marcelo and Jovicthree totally residual players last season.
The European and League champion starts with a change of design that already appeared in the home straight of last season. The growth of Fede Valverde made Carlo Ancelotti change something that for months seemed non-negotiable, the 4-3-3, at least this scheme with a pure striker on the right wing. The Uruguayan is not a winger, he is a round-trip midfielder who has strengthened the white midfielder, better than Carvajal by making the winger always feel more protected and his value in attack was not lower than that of Rodrygo or Asensio. Indeed, from its power and its verticality was born the play of Saint-Denis which ended with the goal of vinicius and the Fourteenth to Cybele.
Few players manage to change a team’s drawing because they insist on breaking down the door. In Madrid he did it isco in 2017, when Zidane left behind Bale and the BBC, who was untouchable, before the push of a rampaging player who joined the Bermuda Triangle so that the 4-3-3 varies towards a drawing with four midfielders.
Valverde thinks about the Super Cup: ‘You play for Madrid to win titles’
Ancelotti Today he is a veteran coach, a seasoned coach whose decisions are based on his experiences. Among them, there is one whose Carletto He learned a lot from his debut on the bench. It was the day he said no Roberto Baggio so as not to change his playing pattern. “We were able to sign him for Parma. We played in 4-4-2. I spoke to him and he told me that he wanted to play as a midfielder, so the system had to be changed because he already had two attackers. I told him no; if they ask me today, say baggio and we change the system. I went to Juve, with the idea of 4-4-2… and I found myself Zidane. So I learned to adapt to the players,” he said. Ancelotti a Jorge Valdano.
The passage of time made him realize that it was a bad decision and that you are playing with the players you have more than with a preconceived scheme. Ancelotti He has proven to be a coach who is not limited to a game record. He made that clear last winter when he accused the Madrid to be a team that played against. “I like to have different game registers, that we are able to interpret very different game situations well”.
Super Cup debut
Con Fede Valverde Madrid are expanding the records and variants of the game. Last season, the Uruguayan started as a starter, although behind this decision was the absence of Kroos for injury The change of team system was not on the table, but until the end of the season there was not really a scenario to deal with it. Because Valverde was injured in October at Camp Nou and he entered a phase where it was difficult for him to have the energy he had before.
When he did, it was to add a lot to the incredible run of Champions League comebacks. In Paris, where it was very clear that either Madrid were playing at a different pace and with more legs or there was nothing to do, he only played the last eight minutes of a match in which Mbappé destroyed a Carvajal that never had help. Since then, Valverde has only missed eight minutes of the Champions League: four in London in the 1-3 against Chelsea and the last four of the final.
All this way, Ancelotti I mixed things up, but Valverde was always in the team. When Casemiro was missing, Kroos was the pivot and the falcon made from German; once the KCC was completed, he rejoined the team in the position he held before Rodrygo or Asensio.
The 2022-23 season is launched for the real Madrid next Wednesday with the Supercup Europe. I will, unless unforeseen, with Valverde in the starting XI play in this position which strengthens the midfield and at the same time strikes as if it were a winger. This will be the Uruguayan’s debut in this competition. In 2018, before the Atlético Madrid in Tallinn, he was a substitute. This August 15, with 27 on the jersey, he was a substitute and it was assumed that he would find a destination before the market closed. Finally he stayed. When Lopetegui left Madrid in October, there was a lot of talk about Vinicius but what really stuck in the Basque’s mind was whether Valverde and his energy shouldn’t have mattered. All he gave him was 36 minutes against the Victoria Pilsen das antes of the 5-1 at the Camp Nou, the sentence of Julen. Solari has arrivedand Valverde undertook a flight that is now imperial.