A title always adds up to secondary that it can be. If not, subtract. One more notch in history gives peace of mind, but above all, it transposes recent failures to the bin, those that have complicated the fight for LaLiga as Zidane well knows after the draws against Elche and Osasuna. The Super Cup can seem like an inconsequential competition. Ernesto Valverde, the same, does not think the same. A year ago he was dismissed after being defeated by Atlético de Madrid in the semifinal played in Jeddah.
The format of the competition created by the leaders of the Federation has raised the bar of the requirement, especially for the two great teams in Spain. Real Madrid and Barcelona arrive at this year’s Andalusian event with the need to win and incidentally, drive away ghosts of all kinds. Athletic and Real Sociedad think more about the eternal Cup final, but they do not despise going a couple of months ahead of raising a Cup at La Cartuja in Seville.
Neither Ronald Koeman,
nor Zinedine Zidane arrives with the urgency experienced by Valverde twelve months ago when he was dismissed when he got off the plane back to Barcelona, but what is true is that the demand of both clubs only means winning and this week they have the obligation to conquer the first title of the season the one that at least will serve to live a few days calm and without surprises. Limit situationsZidane already knows what it is to live in extreme situations during this same season. The Frenchman breathed easy after overcoming the group stage and making it to the knockout stages of the Champions League. Limit moment.
The positive response of the team both in Europe and in LaLiga raised the morale and self-esteem of the group,
but as is already known doubts are not worth it at Real Madrid, the same ones that have awakened the last two games played away from Valdebebas and that they have been a jug of cold water for the interests of all the madridismo. The French coach is the first to know the demands of his position, the one that Real Madrid has attached to its shield. A title, no matter how Super Cup, is always one more notch in history, and this time the interest has multiplied.
Winning each and every one of the matches
in which the white team participates is still valid and even more so when it comes after seeing how the League title has been complicated with draws against Elche and Osasuna, two rivals that seemed within reach of the Madridistas after the good previous games. The presence of Real Madrid in the final game on Sunday at La Cartuja has become something of an obligation. The bubble created by Zidane and his team seems to have broken with the aforementioned ties and with issues away from the grass and that are taking their toll in one way or another on the green. Since the beginning of 2021, Real Madrid has not managed to make the merely sporting the axis of its present time.
First, the unresolved renovations of Lucas Vazquez and Sergio Ramos and the one already defined by Luka Modric focused attention on the first days of the year, and then everything that happened with the trip to Pamplona and the subsequent one to Malaga, with the confrontation with LaLiga in the background. Zidane did not want anything to disturb the order that the team had achieved and two blows have arrived on the entire chin, which added to the lost points, have made the doubts appear again.
The coach did not like what happened around the game against Osasuna and said so. He thought about it before the tie and that’s why he said it. It was a complaint rather than an apology. The coach knows that it is not just another Super Cup, that the Andalusian event should serve to clear up doubts, grow in the lost security and return to the path achieved in December and that now it seems to be staggering somewhat.
