In the 20th minute, the foundations of the Bernabéu moved more, physically, than the Madrid players. The structure of the stadium swayed slightly with the jumps of the 3,500 Dortmund fans while the white footballers took refuge behind and watched paralyzed by the Germans’ unintimidating ball movement. The stands, meanwhile, looked on indulgently at the inaction of a team that fell down the slope with no brake in sight. At half-time, already at 0-2, whistles were heard, which sounded more like disappointment than anger. The staff witnessed the inert deployment of their people in shock.
Until out of nowhere, on Chamartín’s European groundhog day, Vinicius emerged and put the game in the centrifuge to raise a dead man. A demonstration of leadership, insistence and faith from the winger, culminated with a fourth flag goal and a fifth chest blow, which contrasted with Mbappé’s loss for almost the entire night, in the photo only in the center of the 1-2. With the building falling apart, the team held on to Vini and he rescued him from the drift.
“When we got to the locker room at half-time, we were all very quiet and we said only one thing: ‘if we score first, we’ll come back again’,” said the hero of the evening in Movistarthe author of a hat trick in half an hour and, above all, the one who started the engine of another express comeback. “The key has been believing in ourselves. We knew that anything can happen in our house. But we have to improve and start like this from the beginning. If not, the coach can’t stand it. In the second half we changed the dynamic,” the Brazilian celebrated a week after attending the Ballon d’Or gala in Paris as a great favorite.
“We wake up at half-time,” Thibaut Courtois insisted, “but it’s not always going to work. They come to us too easily with passes near the area,” lamented the Belgian goalkeeper. Carlo Ancelotti, between the dry spell of the first half (“we were timid, they scored two goals against us with little,” he admitted), and the manna of the last half hour, preferred to appeal to the desire for the mental effect of 5-2. “The second half could be the key to the season,” he pointed out four days before the classic. What he had no answer for was the low intensity, again, with which Madrid appeared.
Ancelotti’s long hug
During Madrid’s long hour of shipwreck, few represented bankruptcy better than Mbappé. Located in the center of the attack and again with Rodrygo on the right, the Frenchman seemed just as disconnected from the game as on many afternoons. Few unmarkings, almost no pressure and not even a gesture of anger. Except for the center of Rüdiger’s target, he left more numbers (five shots in total and two on goal) than a sense of danger. Vinicius closed his great night with seven shots, four of them on target, and an overwhelming reaction. “I told him [a Vini]”, revealed Lucas Vázquez, “which was the Ballon d’Or. The exhibition he has given is worthy of it. He is a player who deserves it more than anyone after having turned the tables,” said the scorer of the first goal, also erratic in the Germans’ first.
Ancelotti’s men took refuge in a middle block in the first half with the intention of launching transitions. That was the plan. The execution led to a very passive squad. He neither threatened up front, except for the attack of fury from the two suits in a row after 0-2, nor did he defend himself well, as Carletto had claimed (again) in the previous one.
The anxiety was maximum in Chamartín and Madrid clung to what was always its last board in the ocean, Vinicius’ left shore. The people said goodbye to the night with chants of “Vinicius, Ballon d’Or” and with Ancelotti hugging him. “It is rare to see a player do a second half like Vinicius’,” Ancelotti concluded about the man who took Madrid from misery to explosion.