Vinicius and Lucas not available. Not surprised ZZ opted to start Bale seeing the bench. Doesn't mean anything for next season.
no DM .. What about Marcelo starting ? Was he also in good form but Solari did not play him because of personal issues?
so I suppose Kroos is going to sit in front of the defense? With Modric and Isco partnering him. I approve , a Kroos that plays further up the pitch is more of a liability than one that sits deeper.
imo the biggest surprise is Courtouis getting benched. He was brought in as the future and Zidane already sending a message thAt Navas is better than you and that he must raise his level in order to be considered
Casemiro and Llorente are both out so I'm not sure he had much choice. Will be interesting to see how this midfield works out.
Kroos at the 6 is great against lesser opponents. His vision, handling pressure and distribution are miles ahead of Case's.
Solari would have gone with a simillar lineup but with Ceballos instead of Isco and Reguillon instead of Marcelo and TC of course.. But with Vini out Bale, Benz and Asensio were the obvious starters today.
Sure. I'm not impressed with Courtois since day one. He seems to hit panic button several times a game. Very odd. The only thing he is better than Navas intercepting high balls, that's it.
I dont know about the forl of Celta but with no real DM and Marcelo back , I sure hope their counters suck.
We’ll do better with circulating the ball and as long as we press with intensity and people track back when necessary we shouldn’t suffer too much, and given that many are playing for their Real Madrid career right now I don’t see work rate being an issue for us today. Agreed.
Big vote of confidence to Marcelo given Reguilon is available. Hope to see an engaged Marcelo on the defensive end.
He needs to recover his offensive flair to be honest. He'll always range from poor to below average defensively, but it was what he did offensively that made him special.
He and Bale were both justifiably benched under Solari, hopefully today he does prove today that he still has it in him. He is a club legend and seems to genuinely care about the team, you could see him on the bench cheering when we scored and looking nervous when we were struggling while the other benchwarmers just look like they didn’t care one way or another.