Ancelotti clings to his Vinicius-system

After playing the first three games away from home, winning all three, Madrid finally played their first game of the new season at the Bernabéu - a gala occasion to celebrate as LaLiga and European champions against rivals Betis, Copa del Rey winners and joint-leaders. The game promised and delivered. Betis are a side who, in years gone by would be termed as ‘a team that plays and lets play’. And seeing as Madrid is a side that also plays, the game was happy, fun, with frequent chances in both areas. The first big scare was for Madrid when Carvajal made contact with Fekir inside the box, an incident that referee Sánchez Martínez either didn’t see or downgraded to a fuzzy borderline call.

Moments later Vinicius opened the scoring. Journalist Antonio Romero coined the term Vinicius-system in his SER commentary, which I have borrowed from him. That’s pretty much the style that Ancelotti’s Madrid plays these days - give the ball to Vinicius and follow him as he sprints up-field. When he gets into his stride, as Ancelotti himself noted, very few can catch him. And on top of his pace, he is now much more decisive in the final few metres - which is surprising when we recall his indecision from two years ago. He’s Madrid’s greatest asset at this start to the season in which Benzema has lost his state of grace - not that he is playing badly, he is playing more as a ‘7′ than a ‘9′ or ‘10′. While wait for the angels to return, there is Vinicius.

It was a good game, which left no one feeling shortchanged - even during the break, in which we were able to watch one of the mountain stages of La Vuelta - the final stretch of the ascent to La Pandera, which turned the heat on the race. And there was another decent game over at Anoeta, where Sadiq got off to a dream start and Griezmann repeated his routine of coming on for the last half hour. Barça brought the action to a close, and put Julen Lopetegui’s job in jeopardy. Sevilla started well, but couldn’t find a way past Ter Stegen and by the time Barça had calmed down, it was all over. Xavi has built his team around the formidable Lewandowski, who is served very well by two great wingers - players with whom he gets on with superbly. All in all, that made for an exceptional afternoon of football.