Let's play the differences. Do you see the eleven players above, the ones that go purple? They are the ones who destroyed Juve in the Champions League final on June 3. Now look at those below, those in white. They are the same. But they are not the same. Beyond Keylor's hair and the exchange of positions between Casemiro and Isco for the photo, between the two snapshots there are more changes, which explain why some wrote a page of glory and the others are blurring the next chapter.
Slow and dull game:
The Madridistas can narrate, with their eyes closed, the magnificent second part in which the one that the team of Zidane sat down to the Juve in a torture machine and made him suffer based on football. Those second 45 minutes, those who sealed Twelfth, immediately entered the safe of good memories. The Bilbao thing will be forgotten quickly. Or not. Of course what remains in the memory will be disappointment and not marvel at a game vulgar, slow, dry and at the foot that has nothing to do with what was played by the same players in Cardiff.
Depression state:
And of course, the game and the results bring bad feelings. While this Madrid sees Barcelona with spyglass and looks with snorts at the following appointments in the calendar, purple arrived after winning the League, with morals through the clouds and with the possibility of making history, to close an incomparable year in the modern club records.
Goal scoring drought:
Madrid scored four goals against Juventus Turin in the Champions League final. And almost without ruffling. This Madrid chains two consecutive fishing trips returning with the net empty. Zero goals in the Metropolitan, zero goals in San Mamés. And the harvest in the League is not being much better. 25 goals in 14 games, less than Celta, Real Sociedad, Valencia and Barcelona. And the top scorers are Isco and Asensio. Cristiano and Benzema are in drought. Bale is expected. It is not known when, it is the problem.
The bench is not the same:
What if the match gets stuck? Zidane last year turned his eyes and had on the bench Morata, Asensio, James, Danilo ... This year is not the same. In San Mamés he did not exhaust the changes. Kovacic and Mayoral entered. Ceballos did not play for a minute, like Theo or Lucas. The wardrobe background is not the same as last season's, as was shown against Fuenlabrada, as Zizou shows, without saying it publicly, every time he has to resort to reserve. He does not do it.
No physical spark:
Is it a problem of form? Zidane insisted in pre-season that the preparation was aimed to be at the top in the two Super Cups that were played in August. Madrid won both and with the most brilliant football that is remembered. The double bath to the Barça raised to the altars to a team that, past that peak of programmed form, has sunk in a valley of which is not able to escape. When has Pintus scheduled the next rush?
Disconnection between players:
The players roam the field as if the one with the same shirt running around on the same turf that he was not his partner. There is a clear disconnection between the center of the field and the front, accused and pointed out, but that does not find in the rest of the team that help to score.
Fortune gives back:
Fortune does not accompany either. That shot of Casemiro that plays in Khedira to describe an impossible parabola for Buffon now turns into shots to the stick, in volleys that escape by millimeters. Luck, like deodorant, has abandoned Real Madrid.
Lack of motivation:
What if it's a matter of hunger? It is not the same to see yourself in a Champions League final, with the option of becoming the first team to win two European Cups consecutively, to find you in a season that chokes, after having won everything, after a League conquered after of years of hardship. Will the European champion have lost motivation?