Getafe CF 1 – Real Madrid 2: Quick takeaways
By Ben Sundock
Real Madrid got a late game-winning goal from Cristiano Ronaldo and managed to break the La Liga record for most consecutive wins on the road with their 13th straight. Here is the quick recap of the match.
Zinedine Zidane didn’t do the best job managing the team in this match, struggling to accommodate for the Getafe tying goal in the 56th minute, but he put out a good formation and the best team possible for this match.
Starting a bit of an unconventional 4-4-2 with Lucas Vasquez and Marco Asensio starting as right and left midfielders respectively, Zizou took some chances to rotate his lineup and it ultimately paid off.
While Asensio was a bit quiet, Karim Benzema and CR7 worked well together up to, scoring both of the goals in this match.
Benzema’s goal was a bit fortunate as he made a good run and saw a pass from Ronaldo deflect off of a Getafe defender perfectly out in front of him to set up a 1-on-1 opportunity.
Benz still had some work to do after the deflection and used a nice dribble step around move to get past the final defender and drive the shot into the bottom corner. In his first game back from injury, the Big Benz was very creative taking three shots and linking up with Ronaldo well up front.
Although Benz scored the opening goal near halftime, the home side Getafe didn’t give up and fought back to equalize in the 56th minute.
The goal looked to be a pretty clear offside by the goal scorer Jorge Molina, but there was no call made as both Nacho and Marcos Llorente’s sliding efforts couldn’t stop the center ball.
The pass was very fortunate on the centering ball as it took a slight bounce off the leg of Sergio Ramos and Molina just put enough on it to redirect the ball into the bottom corner.
Real Madrid, despite controlling the possession for the entire match (like I predicted), couldn’t create the necessary chances to score. Rather, they didn’t have the right midfield to create chances to score.
Toni Kroos completed 91% of his passes, but had trouble linking up with the two strikers, Ronaldo and Benzema.
The change that won the game for Real was when Zizou went to Isco in the 72nd minute to replace Lucas Vasquez. As always, the bandy-legged bandit was up to his usual tricks crafting up opposing midfielders and playing great over the top balls to the forwards.
It was 22, Isco, who played the ball to Ronaldo which won the game for Los Blancos in the 86th minute.
Ronaldo was still nowhere near the level Real Madrid fans expect and if it weren’t for the game-winner, many fans and critics would likely be hounding Cristiano for yet another lackluster performance.
He didn’t pass the ball well, he didn’t get as many touches as he should have, and he wasted chances.
Despite the win, Real are still not playing at peak performance in the league for some reason. While getting the three points is a very good thing, this team still has some things they need to straighten out. Especially with red-hot Tottenham coming to town this week.
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