3-1: This Real is in ‘orejona’

This Real is very serious in the Champions League. His performance in the first half against Benfica in Anoeta in front of 36,815 spectators was one to remember, typical of a candidate who did not advance to the second round or quarterfinals, but to win the ‘orejona’. This competition will put them in their place, but right now they are one of the more dazzling teams. For the second game in a row, they overcame the mighty Benfica in 30 minutes of local splendour, evident in goals from Merino, Oyarzabal and Barrene and Brais’s missed penalty. La Real will play in the Champions League round of 16, but they have already left their mark. That’s for beauty.

Another virtue that txuri urdin has is to recover from an environment that has become hellish with the indiscriminate and pitiful launching of flares by Benfica fans after the break. They threw them because they didn’t get them at the entrance. They messed it up outside. How beautiful football is on the pitch and how ugly it is. This cannot happen again as Real will continue in Europe. He is a mathematician. Three wins in four games, 10 points in 12 and 24 carat football. And all this with seven homegrown players including two Navarrese starters. This is true.

Dream part one

What Real did in the first half is part of Champions League history and will be told from parents to children and from grandparents to grandchildren. It can be called aurresku, that is, a Basque dance, a drop, a beating or simply a storm, which is what Real is and what destroyed Benfica. Champagne football. La Real scored five goals, although only three were validated, they didn’t get a penalty due to too many changes of executors, it was a sight to behold. A joy for a hobby that can barely assimilate so much stimulus.

It really all happened in the first 28 minutes, in the 22 from the first goal in the 6th minute to the 28th minute penalty missed by braise. The fans danced more than their breath to celebrate the excess of ‘txtxarro’, to spread all their happiness. Imanol decided to change Aritz for Traore which was obviously not there to play and where Imanol played in a careless manner.

The first, at 6′

La Real were a perfect machine and won by a landslide against a Benfica reduced to ashes. The connections of interiors with extremes are consistent from the beginning and the team, a real symphony orchestra. Merino He scored the first from a corner. hut located in the middle of a forest of legs barren, which is centered on the outside. Finished the rebound with a volley Aihen and at the second post Navarrese appeared to execute the header. The hardest part seems to be over, but Real want more blood. And he brought out his entire arsenal.

In the 11th minute, a bad pass from Florentine backwards he took advantage of it Oyarzabal to easily score second heads-up. All the advantages are Otamendi, which looks like the Lisbon tram or the funicular next to the Eibar TGV. In the 15th minute, he scored Merino, like a third, but helping himself with his hand. Debatable. The goalkeeper miraculously stopped his first attempt. The strategic play on the free kick was masterful, with three fakes in between braisewho put leather on the far post, and barren. In the 19th minute, the disallowed goal went to Oyarzabal, clearly offside.

Barrene’s Masterpiece

And the masterpiece came. The pinnacle of art. The royalists moved the ball side to side, until braise found open to barren. This one is broken João Neves, he sliced ​​him in half, and shot him in the corner of a long pole. What is an exhibition? The fourth did not come in the 28th minute because braise he missed the obvious punishment that was imposed on him Oyarzabalafter another prank by barren. The Galician wanted to go down in history with his fourth consecutive Champions League goal, but he hit the post. The first half ended peacefully with another action from Oyarzabalafter a deep pass from Zubimendi. Schmidt removed in the 30th minute Florentine of the field, it was a man-for-man change, but it brought three positions. And he stopped the bleeding.

Rafa Silva goals and flares

In the second half, the panorama changed and all for the worse. And not because of the goal Rafael Silva, a product of the various talents that Benfica emerged from, wounded in its pride and eliminated from the Champions League. Benfica fans started burning flares again and threw them onto the field, to the embarrassment of that club, the fans and the stadium security. Furthermore, incendiary objects remained in the stands, with obvious danger for those present, the innocent ‘realzales’, many of them children. The royalists lost concentration…and vision. A shame for football. Not acceptable. It’s not football.

And Real responded in a big way. He tried to ignore the environment, took care of the ball again, moved and turned it, and continued to hit like there was no tomorrow. Remiro a shell stopped Otamendi and then Real stretched and countered in the fourth with another shot of barren.

Real was held and the party returned to an attitude that was more worried than euphoric about the exhibition.