Just as much as what you see and hear in every narrative, the absence of what is not there plays an equally large role in making it seductive, intriguing, or shocking. When Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Lamine Yamal vacuumed the sound out of the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday night, punctuated solely by the shouts of a few Barcelona fans meant to be hidden in the corner, that silence and everything you feel with it is one that few other spectacles can replicate.
On reflection, Carlo Ancelotti might have taken the moment to close his eyes and appreciate it. Since before the final whistle in El Clasico, he has faced a wall of sound, from keyboard to headline to radio station, all indignation and reproach. If you take one conclusion from this week’s coverage in Madrid, it should be that President
Florentino Perez is fed up. The bespectacled Caesar has thumped the big red button, and the machines of pressure, from which Ancelotti had been as free from as any Real Madrid manager, can be heard between the lines.
Ancelotti is not blameless, but to think Real Madrid would be rid of all their issues if Xabi Alonso were there instead, is a simplification that will create more problems than it would solve. The first thing to say is that despite being mugged off by Inigo Martinez and Pau Cubarsi for most of the match, Ancelotti had it right. His plan was working in the first half.
