Real Madrid-Shakhtar: Merengue’s historic defeat in the Champions League against a...

Real Madrid

• Luka Modric
  54 ‘
  /
• Vinicius José Paixão de Oliveira Júnior
  59 ‘

Shakhtar Donetsk

• Mateus Cardoso Lemos Martins
  29 ‘
  /
• Manor Solomon
  42 ‘

Shakthar Donetsk achieved an epic in Madrid. He came to Spain living a “nightmare”, in the words of his coach Luis Castro, and he will return to Ukraine daydreaming. With eight headlines absent due to coronavirus infections, only 13 professionals among the 20 player roster, 14 (seven starters and seven substitutes) players under 21 years old and an inexperienced team with an average age of 23 years, gave the big blow. At the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium in Valdebebas, beat Real Madrid 3-2 for the first time in its history, He started his way into Group B of the Champions League with a surprising triumph and slapped a deadpan Zinedine Zidane team with a hard slap.

In just 12 minutes, between 29 and 41 in the first half, the Ukrainian team tore the Spanish apart. Mateus Tetê, Raphael Varane (against) and Manor Soloman they scored the goals to end the first half with a historic 3-0: It was the worst fall at half-time at home for Real Madrid in the entire history of European competition. All the differences that were seen in the previous one vanished on the playing field. There was no possible comparison: the Ukrainians did everything to win and the Spanish did everything to lose.

Real Madrid, which could not count on Sergio Ramos, Eden Hazard, Dani Carvajal, Álvaro Odriozola, Martin Odegaard and Mariano Díaz due to different injuries, was a team as weak as it was apathetic, imprecise and weak. Without clarity or reaction, he had a first part to be forgotten with too many distractions and defensive mistakes, little self-esteem and little imagination in attack. In front, a daring Shakthar who showed strong defensive solidity, was neat to play the ball, waited orderly and was very sharp in attack at pure speed with lethal counterattacks and with many people in the rival field to quickly recover the ball.

In the second half, Zidane’s team achieved a quick reaction with Luka Modric and Vinícius Júnior, authors of two goals at 8 and 13 minutes. From there, he began to corner his rival in the last half hour of play, but he could not twist the story, although in the end he was very close. In the added time, It was 3-3 with a Federico Valverde shot that deflected at Eder Militão, but was finally annulled through the VAR by a clear offside by Vinicius by blocking the vision of goalkeeper Anatolii Trubin.

The clean and jerk was not enough for Merengue to rescue at least one local point against the supposed weakest rival in the area and will now have to face the remaining five dates of Group B, which are also made up of Inter Milan and Borussia Monchengladbach. And the fall also broke a long winning streak: the previous 12 Champions League starts at home had started with a win. Now, Merengue must run behind in the next five games that will define their luck in the tournament and must overcome a historic barrier in their desire to conquer Europe again, since there was never a champion who lost in the debut.

Shakhtar had lost 4-0 and 4-3 to Real Madrid in the group stage of the 2015/2016 Champions League.

From the “nightmare” to a triumph to remember

Shakthar arrived at the duel against Real Madrid with 10 of the 25 players in his squad and nine members of the technical and auxiliary staff infected by coronavirus. And although the names of those infected were not made public and most have already overcome the disease, there were eight important surnames who were not in Madrid by decision of the coaching staff: the defenders Mykola Matviyenko and Serhiy Kryvtsov; midfielders Taras Stepanenko, Alan Patrick and Viktor Kovalenko; wingers Taison and Yevhen Konoplyanka; forward Junior Moraes. Also, goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov.

“This is a nightmare. It is a nightmare for all humanity; and to the extent that the teams are a segment of society, it will also affect us. I never thought something like this could happen to us. Running out of so many footballers for a match . It’s incredible. But it’s the world we have today, “explained Portuguese coach Luis Castro. “UEFA says that if you have at least 13 healthy players you are obliged to play. And I understand that because the business model of football is to play, buy, sell, play, play and play. So we will compete. No dramatization. We cannot. feeling it a tragedy. Today young people feed our future: they feel that each game is an opportunity to move forward with their life, and that is how the life of the club goes forward as well.

Thus, due to the different casualties, the Ukrainian team traveled with a roster of 20 footballers made up of only 13 professionals: goalkeepers Oleksiy Shevchenko and Andriy Pyatov (a regular starter who was a substitute); defenders Dodô, Davit Khotcholava, Viktor Korniienko, Vitão and Valeriy Bondar; midfielders Marcos Antonio, Marlos, Mateus Tetê and Maycon as midfielders; and the attackers Dentinho and Manor Soloman.

Meanwhile, the remaining seven players who were on the bench are from the quarry and are between 17 and 21 years old: Anatolii Trubin (19 years old) was the starting goalkeeper, while defender Mark Mampasi, midfielders Marquinhos Cipriano (21), Heorhii Sudakov (18) and Denys Shostak (17) and forwards Bogdan Vyunnik (18) and Danylo Goncharuk (18) were options from the bench in a match to remember.

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