Benzema, Asensio, Hazard and Mariano before their last day in whites
Madrid wants to close second place and Athletic reach the Conference
Madrid ends the 2022-2023 championship at the Santiago Bernabéu with a classic whose final note hardly reaches enough for both of them. It will be an afternoon of farewells, like Benzema, Hazard, Asensio or Mariano, in the whites, and Balenciaga and Íñigo Martínez in the rojiblancos in the absence of knowing the future of other players like Ceballos or Nacho in the madridistas or Raúl García or Capa in the bilbainos
A final in which Ancelotti’s men will say goodbye with the bitterness of not having known how to defend or renew the League and Champions League titles, while those of Valverde have “committed big mistakes & rdquor; with the worst score obtained by the man from Extremadura against Athletic, although for him “the fact that every year the team fights for Europe is a success & rdquor ;: “It’s my seventh season here and in five we got into Europe & rdquor ;.
Ancelotti’s eleven
Ancelotti will present his stellar eleven, the one who has made his way convincing the Italian with his performance throughout the season. They return to the Vinicius team, who has become the MVP of the whites on his own merits; It is doubtful Benzema, who ended up affected by training yesterday, and Carvajal, the best representative of the white DNA in the squad. The Italian will pull that gala team if Karim is fit to play, with the aim of ensuring a runner-up that does not take away the bad taste of a bittersweet season.
Valverde recovers Nico Williams for a match in which he plays two cards: win and let Osasuna play to sneak into the Conference League. “You have to think about yours, not about others. The fact that they can think that they depend on that party – even Girona can think so – will help them. When you start to worry about something you can’t control, you lose energy.”
The ones he does not recover is his central pair Iñigo Martínez and Yeray Álvarez, although he makes up for it with his attack trident. An Athletic who wants to say goodbye to a course in which he has not convinced his fans, against a “fearsome Madrid & rdquor ;, as coach Ernesto Valverde describes it.