Real Madrid won their Paris dress rehearsal 3-1 against city rivals Getafe on Saturday. Here are three takeaways from the game.
BBC on song
It’s quite strange to see the BBC back on the team roster consistently. Not long ago, it felt like Gareth Bale’s injuries had scuppered any chances of fans getting to see the trident compete regularly. Thankfully, that hasn’t been the case so far in 2018 with Cristiano and Co. getting another runout today.
The attacking trio was vital in Real Madrid’s win today, Karim Benzema has been at his very best in recent weeks, and continued that rich vein of form at the Bernabéu on Saturday. The Frenchman provided the assist for Ronaldo’s first goal and was involved in the build-up for the others.
Gareth Bale got on the score sheet and proved he can co-exist in a lineup with Isco, with both players rotating for turns in the middle of the pitch.
23 - Karim Benzema has assisted Cristiano Ronaldo’s 23 La Liga goals, more than any other Real Madrid player. Essential. pic.twitter.com/TjXadaCSTO
— OptaJose (@OptaJose) March 3, 2018
As for Ronaldo? It is fair to say that the new year has had a similar effect on him as the full moon has on a werewolf.
The Portuguese winger scored his 16th goal of the season, nine games ago, and had four league goals at the time. The brace today also meant he has officially crossed the 300 goal mark in La Liga in 286 appearances.
It will be interesting to see if the BBC get the go ahead for Tuesday with both Benzema and Bale seeing out the full ninety minutes, one would hope that such impressive form will be enough for Zidane to give all three the nod for Tuesday’s big tie.
Theo Hernandez showing his worth
Recent matches have offered us a chance to see the bench a bit more (shout out to Dani Ceballos who is still in the doghouse for no reason). Marcos Llorente got a second consecutive start on Saturday and put in another good account for himself, however, Theo Hernandez really stole the show.
The Frenchman (or Spaniard, who knows?) ate Getafe alive until he was taken off for Marcelo, who carried on Theo’s good work. He put his unnatural pace to good use, stabbing in some really dangerous balls and coming back to help out in defense.
At just 20-years of age, it is both terrifying and exciting to see how good Theo already is with just a few successive starts.
From his short cameo, it seems Marcelo will be fine for the PSG game, but, the recent form of his understudy gives me a lot of confidence should Marcelo not be fit enough to start against the French champions-elect.
The penalty incident
Overall, this game was pretty dull, but, there was some controversy worth mulling over such as the Getafe penalty. The play leading up to the penalty was quite surprising on first viewing (I haven’t seen a replay yet) with Nacho seeming just to let Angel Rodriguez go.
Given how defensivly solid Nacho has been this season, his lax marking was quite disappointing but, as I have already written about, it not unusual for Real Madrid.
Next: Real Madrid 3 – Getafe 1: Full match recap
The Spaniard seemed to make yet another blunder when he went into the back of the Getafe attacker and conceded a stonewall penalty.
Replays later show, however, that Nacho had actually made a brilliant challenge sweeping the ball out of the feet of Angel before making contact with the forward. One can forgive the referee for pointing to the spot, but, it is worth pointing out that although Nacho did make a mistake to allow the chance, he recovered really well and was unlucky to give a away a penalty.