While Real Madrid continues to search for the game, for the moment they have rescued the devastating effect of their mythological madness. When he can't find another way, it seems that it is enough for him to play dead, take a couple of hits, find himself in tow, play the bugle, unleash chaos of disorderly and continuous waves and win the game with a shot from Fede Valverde, for example. Or with three corners like in Rome. It's the same. Mourinho's Madrid under construction extended the full victory in the Champions League against a brave AEK, first supported as always by Courtois, then pushed by Bellingham and finally pressing the panic button in a match in which Vinicius seemed further from himself than ever.
The balances that Real has tested are still very precarious, connections in formation. A small alteration is enough for the mismatch to be noticeable. Although in Athens, the change was not anecdotal. Vinicius returned to the eleven, still in the rehabilitation process. Punished in the League, the Brazilian has few opportunities to shoot himself with real fire. The one in Greece was the last one with Madrid until November 21. On Saturday he cannot play and an international window arrives. This staggered calendar is not the most suitable for you to recover your pedal stroke. And it shows. It seems like he's playing around feeling around the walls, like a guy who wakes up in the middle of the night in a strange apartment. Or in the body of another.
The rest of the team didn't start very bright either. AEK was hungry, with Gacinovic multiplying everywhere and Jovic appearing with sense to open cracks in his old team, a place he passed through without leaving a scratch, nothing memorable. But at the reunion, the Serbian had all the maps in his head. He got off the top, received, turned and accelerated. This is how Majer caused the first tremor in the area, to which Courtois responded by sticking his foot out.
AEK was revolutionized while Madrid had not even begun to wake up. The contrast in gears was alarming. Jovic received the ball in front after a counterattack, turned, left it to Koita and the Mauritanian opened a gap with a step in front of Cucurella and beat Courtois. Real did not reconnect to the version that knocked down Barcelona. He carried the ball slowly, at a speed that made everything predictable and simple for the Greeks. Diomande did not escape from the right and Vinicius did not even try from the left. Every time he received he turned and played backwards.
While Madrid restarted, Courtois continued as usual, supporting the team with great saves, buying time for the machinery to find a way to reconnect the cables. But they handled the ball without the fluidity and continuity that game governance allows.
For these cases, Real keeps the resource of episodic sparks. A corner from Bernardo Silva combed by Militão, starting for the first time after months of pain, fell to Vinicius near the front. The Brazilian put it into the six-yard box and Bellingham pushed it into the net, but the VAR reported an offside. Madrid had already warned AEK whose enthusiasm was fading.
The next puncture was a tense pass from Cucurella into the area that Bellingham transformed into a precise and elegant finish with a stroke of genius, a left-footed backheel from the outpost of nine in the heart of the area. In that lost stretch, the Englishman's will and physical dispersion were the only thing that worked as glue in a directionless game. Bellingham recovered, distributed and reached the area. A total footballer. But a single footballer.
The tie gave the Greeks a point, but Madrid could not find a way to hurt them again. They monopolized the ball, they approached Brignoli's area with it, but they got lost there. In those congested final areas they conveyed a feeling of crowding, of a certain disorientation. There where the mist rises when motivated defenses tighten, Madrid greatly missed the light of Güler's lighthouse, that clairvoyance to clear swampy scenarios with the wand of his pass.
The game was becoming a ball for Madrid, who, in their disorientation, left more and more players lost at the top. He split and opened ways for AEK to hit him on the counter. And he did it. Pilo scored between Courtois' legs from inside the six-yard box.
Mourinho began to assemble the emergency unit on the wing, centerer Trent and finisher Espí. With them already appearing on the field, Bellingham filtered a Güler-like pass that Dumfries sent to the area, where Mbappé, with his touch, pushed the tie into the net. Comeback mode had been activated. Also a bit like Güler, Endrick left the Frenchman alone with the outside. Brignoli cleared the crossbar with a swipe. The final riot, that very Madrid tradition, was closed by Valverde with a shot from outside the area in added time, a nugget of gold glistening in the murky water.
