Real Madrid stepped onto the Santiago Bernabeu turf on Saturday afternoon sans three quarters of their usual defence and without Casemiro to act as their minder either.
No matter.
Zinedine Zidane’s side got back to doing what they know best – plundering goals.
It was exhilarating at times, their free-flowing pass and move football reminiscent of their best from last season. Unstoppable? In this form, absolutely.
Sevilla were no mugs. Though their record at the Bernabeu isn’t the best, it was the Andalusians first reverse in the last seven, since a narrow defeat at the Camp Nou over a month ago.
It was also the first time they’d failed to score since losing 4-0 at Mestalla back in October. Once Nacho had opened the scoring with Real’s fastest goal of the campaign (2 minutes 10 seconds) however, the writing looked on the wall for the visitors.
In truth they’ll be kicking themselves. For the next 20 minutes, they were well on top and had they scored during that period, then the outcome might’ve been different.
Real’s form at home hasn’t been great in 2017/18 and there were chances to make it even worse. Instead, they allowed Marco Asensio to rampage down the right flank to play in Cristiano Ronaldo, who made no mistake.
Tails were up, space was appearing and with confidence sky high, everything began to come off for Los Blancos.
A fortuitous penalty decision going their way just after the half hour was indicative of what sort of an afternoon was going to be on the cards thereafter, and Ronaldo’s second from the spot was a formality.
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The fourth from Toni Kroos and fifth from Achraf Hakimi were pure poetry – and we’d not even got to half-time.
It afforded Zidane the opportunity to bring on Marcos Llorente and Dani Ceballos in the second half, both players none too happy with their lack of minutes this season.
With minnows Al-Jazira also qualifying to play Real in the Club World Cup semi-final next Wednesday, all Zidane’s Christmases appeared to have come at once.
In two weeks time, Barcelona come to Madrid for the first La Liga El Clasico of the campaign, and the sign off before then couldn’t really have come at a better time. Their best performance of the season, followed by, one would expect, another piece of silverware.
A win against the Catalans really would back up Zidane’s prophecy that he expects everything to be just fine by February.
For now, they’ll bask in the glory of having turned a corner with a job very well done indeed.
