Without Courtois, without Militao, without Casemiro and without Benzema. The goalkeeper, the centre-back, the pivot and the center forward disappear from the Real Madrid photo in one year. It is a complete security corridor, as Luis Aragonés called it. It is the only giant in Europe to which this has happened in twelve months and in full wave of titles. Ancelotti has to rearm the board. It is difficult to gauge which absence is the most serious.
On May 28, 2022, Real Madrid won the Champions League in Paris against Liverpool with the four now absent in the starting lineup. The series of events would begin a few weeks later. The first sounded surprising. On August 19 of last year Casemiro, the sentinel of the white team in the center of the field, signed for Manchester United. A vital piece in four Champions Leagues, Madrid responded to the pivot’s request for an agreed exit. The Frenchman Tchouameni was the one destined to inherit the position.
Courtois’s last miracle against Liverpool: he took them out of all colors
The next one was no less thunderous. On June 4, Benzema He announced his departure from Real Madrid after rejecting a continuity that was supposed to have been agreed. The white route sheet suffered a shock that has not yet healed. The center forward fell of the modern golden age. The ‘9’ on the shirt is still without an author.
The last friday Courtois, angel of the last Real Madrid Champions, he suffered a torn cruciate ligament in his knee in training. The most normal thing is that the Belgian goalkeeper is lost all season.
Image of the Real Madrid eleven in the Champions League semifinal against City in the 21-22 season
The plague had no end. A few hours later it was Militao who fell into calamity after a bad step in San Mamés. The prognosis is the same. The Brazilian central defender had seized the throne of the white defense with his physical power and forcefulness. It is difficult to expect him to play a match again this season.
The complete fracture of the security corridor was consummated, which can now be the one that forms Kepa, Rudiger, Tchouameni and a center forward that sometimes will not exist. This great change of alignment is an anomaly that does not find similarity in any great one in Europe. Despite the modifications none have completely replaced the central house.
Barcelona
The Barcelona team has suffered two casualties in its spine, those of Busquets and Piqué. With Ter Stegen and Lewandowski avoiding and scoring goals, Xavi was left without Piqué in November. The central defender announced his withdrawal after verifying that it was difficult to have a place in the first deck of Barça.
The end of the League also brought the goodbye of Sergio Busquets after fifteen seasons in the first team. His destiny was to join Messi in Miami. The youth squad left school in a vital position. Oriol Romeu has been signed in his place. Now the key quartet is made up of Ter Stegen, Araújo, Romeu and Lewandowski.
Piqué’s farewell, from the moment he arrives at the Camp Nou until he plays with his children after the game
psg
Living in a volcano called Mbappé hasn’t affected PSG’s main corridor in the last twelve months. The team now coached by Luis Enrique retains Donnarumma and Marquinhos. The future of Verratti, the Italian who has the Arab League in his pocket, is in doubt. In attack, not having a pure center forward, the marches of Messi and Neymar. With the arrival of Gonçalo Ramos he strengthens the position of striker. Donnarumma, Marquinhos or Skriniar, Ugarte and Ramos are poker by Luis Enrique.
Manchester City
Guardiola can boast one more season that its central structure is made of granite. The European champion looks Ederson, Rubén Dias, Rodri and Haaland. It is in other areas where problems accumulate due to injuries, as has happened with Kevin DeBruyneor the marches, as has happened with Gundogan.
Onana’s first big fight with Harry Maguire
Manchester Utd
United is one of the karaokes of European football for movement and agitation. The Old Trafford entity has changed several of these key pieces in one year. This summer his relationship with De Gea ended. During last season he suffered the loss of a Cristiano Ronaldo who went to Al-Nassr. Among the unknowns is the highly controversial center-back Harry Maguire.
In those places they have entered Onana, goalkeeper from Inter, for which he has paid 52 million, and Hojlund (75 kilos), who join Lisandro or Varane and casemiro to be the beam with which to look for a new successful stage.
Athletic
One of the obsessions of Simeone is that the economic strength does not weaken the team. In the absence of a complicated market, the technician has managed to keep the main beam of the team armored. Oblak, Giménez, Koke and Griezmann They are the coach’s trusted belt if the Frenchman is understood as a striker because the striker position is sometimes free in the rojiblanca lineup.
Chelsea
If there is a club in which the ‘pause’ of marketing is not used, it is Chelsea. The London entity is in a permanent state of change. For very different reasons It is the team that comes closest to Real Madrid in a change of parts of its central skeleton. In a year he has lost Goalkeeper Mendy (Al Ahly), Kanté (Al Ittihad) and Havertz (Arsenal), although the German is not a prototype battering ram. Jorginho had already gone to Arsenal before.
Pochettino can still count on Brazilian Thiago Silva as head of defense. Now the London entity forms a main link with Robert Sánchez, Thiago Silva, Moisés Caicedo -the most expensive signing in the Premier with 116 kilos- and Jackson, from Villarreal.
Kanté poses with the shirt of his new team, Al-Ittihad
Liverpool
The Anfield project has not resisted the buy, sell, change of world football either. Klopp is in the rebuilding phase of the team. The German coach has lost both pivots last summer, Henderson (Al-Ettifaq) and Fabinho (Al-Ittihad) and one of his classic forwards, Firmino (Al-Ahli), who was no longer a starter.
Liverpool can now show on the pitch a pith made up of Alisson, Van Dijk, Mac Allister and Darwin Núñez.
Bayern Munich
Bayern seemed oblivious by philosophy to the cyclones that change the squad. Circumstances have put him in the carousel of changes, with influence in those nuclear positions of the team. In a year he has reformed out of necessity. A little over a year ago, his chain was made up of Neuer, Upamecano, Kimmich, and Lewandowski.
Image of Neuer after his injury last season
The Polish striker defected to Barça to leave a void that Sadio Mané never knew how to fill. Worse was Neuer’s. The German goalkeeper suffered a serious injury while he was skiing. The event affected the Munich season, which sought a guarantee replacement in Sommer. This summer continues in a Renewal Plan. The main link of him would be formed Neuer, when he recovers, Upamecano or De Ligt, Kimmich and Harry Kane.
Inter de Milan
The Italian runner-up has undergone touch-ups in his main vertebra, but retains the bases of a team that knows what it is playing. In goal he has changed to Onana (Manchester United) by Sommer. In the pivot Brozovic has followed the highway of Arabia until ending at Al Nassr. His natural replacement should be Asllani or Frattesi. Dzeko has gone on the attack and keeps searching for a carat battering ram. In the center of Skriniar Defense, who was already relegated last season, has gone to PSG.
With these conditioning factors and market fluctuations, Simone Inzaghi has in his chain of trust Sommer, Bastoni, Asllani and Lautaro Martinez.
Arsenal
The team of Mikel Arteta He is taking steps towards his re-entry into the elite that he stepped on in Wenger’s time. The project adds more than subtracts looking good. He only loses to Granit Xhaka in the pivot position, an indomitable Swiss who has been replaced by an English soccer starDeclan Rice.
In goal Ramsdale will have the competition of David Raya. The Brazilian central defender also remains in key positions Gabriel Magalhaes and the striker Gabriel Jesus, although the competition rains down on him with Havertz and Nketiah. The season has started with the conquest of the Community Shield against City.
The precious detail of Arsenal with David Raya’s grandfather: “I’m going to cry”
Milan
Saying Milan in recent seasons is impossible to associate with stability. The team does not stop at the technical office. However, for the new campaign Pioli retains a good part of his starting team, but with a hole, the one left by Sandro Tonali (Newcastle) in the heart of the milanista game.
The technician has his particular security chain made up of Maignan, Tomori, the new Loftus-Cheek and the incombustible Giroud, which will have competition from Okafor. The security corridors of the greats of European football are getting oiled. None has suffered as much as Real Madrid’s.
