Today was a very important match for Real Madrid. After losing the first Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk, the team was in a very uncomfortable position, especially because all the 4 teams in the group are very competitive. Besides Real Madrid and Shakhtar Donetsk, the other 2 teams are Inter Milan and Borussia Mönchengladbach (I always have to google that name), all of them are very competitive, and finishing the group stage in one of the first 2 positions will be incredibly hard for any of them. So much so, that so far there have been 4 matches in this group and 3 of them ended up in a tie. The only victory was that of Shakhtar vs Madrid.
Today the match I saw was Borussia Mönchengladbach vs Real Madrid, Madrid's team was almost the same as in El Clasico, with the only difference of having Lucas Vazquez as the right-back instead of Nacho. I was expecting to see them playing a good match and it would be unfair to say they played badly but their lack of a world-level scorer was noticeable again. The team was able to approach Borussia's goal zone but without actually scaring the goalkeeper that much. In the first half, there were only 2 good shots from Madrid. One from Kross from outside the penalty area, and one from Asensio but he had almost no angle so it was easy for the goalkeeper to stop it.
Borussia, on the other hand, was able to score 1 goal in the first half after a small mistake from Varane and subsequent confusing moves from Madrid's defense that was unable to stop Borussia's good passes and the final shot. It was a good goal from Borussia but Varane's mistakes when doing defensive headers are getting more and more common. Maybe giving some minutes to Militao and leave Varane on the bench for 1 match could be a good idea?
Real Madrid was playing good and the best attacking plays were from them so being below the scoreboard was a bit unfair. If this wasn't enough bad luck for Madrid, in the second half, around 14 minutes in, Borussia scores the second goal after a bad bounce from the goalkeeper. It was such a silly play but a valid goal nonetheless and 2-0 for Borussia. It seemed like the team's morale was collapsing and then Borussia almost scored another goal but miraculously the goalkeeper won the 1 vs 1 against the striker. It would be hard to find when in history Real Madrid has lost the 2 first Champions League matches. This was going to be a negative record for them if they didn't start to score some goals and fast.
Vinicius didn't play a good match, he is not causing as much danger as usual and it seems as if his energy is less than usual. He probably has a lot of accumulated fatigue. The good thing is that Hazard has now fully recovered from his injury which will allow Vinicius to enjoy more rest in the next matches. 10 minutes after Borussia's second goal Hazard and Modric entered the field and Vinicius & Kross left it.
Asensio had some good shots in the second half of the match but none of them were goals, he clearly deserves to score his first goal this season and this will happen sooner or later but at least he is in good shape. He left the pitch around the 80-minute mark and Rodrygo came in. Coincidentally, once Modric, Hazard, and Rodrygo were on the pitch, the team started to score.
Real Madrid's first goal was spectacular, you can see it starting in the 3.20 minute in the video above. It was scored by Benzema but the main responsibility I think was from Casemiro. Valverde's cross wasn't very good but his initiative is valuable as always, it was Casemiro who saved the ball in the line with a header and left it to Benzema so he could easily score. It was the best goal in the match and Madrid was back in the game just needing 1 more goal to achieve a tie. This happened at the 86 minute mark so the match was close to ending.
After that goal, Borussia's players got scared. They knew Real Madrid was going to attack all in and they would have to defend with everything they got. This isn't the first time Madrid saves a match in the last minute, this is actually a classic from them. At the 93 minute mark, Modric made an excellent cross, Ramos passed the ball with a good header and Casemiro scored the second goal with ease. So much effort was finally rewarded. The truth is that it would have been unfair for Madrid to have 2 losses in 2 matches in the Champions League. They didn't deserve to lose in any of these 2 matches. Thanks to this goal, they have at least a tie which allows them to still have some chances to continue in the competition past the group stage.
Casemiro was the man of the match for Real Madrid. He gave one awesome assist in the first goal and scored the second goal. He is actually a defensive midfielder but he is also valuable when attacking. Real Madrid next match in the Champions League is going to be against Inter next Tuesday.
Tomorrow, I plan to watch Juventus vs Barcelona which is clearly the best match of the day. Sadly, CR7 won't be able to play because he has covid but the match will probably be fun either way.