DBasia.news – Real Madrid were surprisingly helpless when hosting Barcelona in the 2021-2022 LaLiga continuation. The coach, Carlo Ancelotti revealed the cause.
In the match which took place at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, Monday (21/3), Madrid had to accept the fact that they were defeated by a striking score of 0-4. This result hampered Los Blancos’ steps to the championship ladder.
Before the match started, no one expected Madrid to lose by a landslide. That’s because Vinicius Junior and his team mates are in their best performance.
The absence of Karim Benzema due to injury is also considered not to have much effect. Madrid does have a number of other attackers to replace him.
But the absence of Benzema in fact affects the tactics used by Ancelotti in this match. He bravely changed his team’s standard formation from 4-3-3 to 4-2-4.
Ancelotti paired Casemiro and Toni Kroos in midfield. Meanwhile, Luka Modric was pushed forward to support the trio of Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo and Federico Valverde.
But Madrid’s game clearly appeared to be unoptimal with this formation. Ancelotti was manly enough to admit it.
“Playing Modri? as a number 10 was meant to help play from the back and find space behind the line with Rodrygo, Valverde and Vini Jr. But this plan didn’t work,” Ancelotti told the club’s official website.
“Barca were better than us and deserved to win. It’s not hard for me to accept that I didn’t manage the team well.”
“The mistake was that we tried to push them a little higher up the pitch and they played from the back really well. After they got the first goal, we fought even harder to regain possession,” he added.
Ancelotti seems to have prepared this scheme specifically to deal with Barcelona. He did not want to divulge the players who will replace Benzema.
But the Italian coach did not want to drag on the regret. He wants to bring Madrid to get up and win two prestigious titles to make amends for this mistake.
“We have to stay calm and keep our heads up because this defeat is very painful. But we have to remember that we are nine points clear of second place,” he stressed.