Every process of change requires a cycle of adaptation and learning. The key to success lies in the speed and efficiency in assuming the essence of the new direction. The departure of Benzema, the signing of Bellingham, the arrival of Joselu and the uncertainty about the fate of Mbappé have forced him to modify his usual system.

The 4-3-3 has evolved into a 4-4-2 with the geometry of the rhombus in the center of the field. A model that its players have tried to assimilate in a preseason tour of the United States that ended this Thursday with a feeling of necessary improvement. In their last meeting, Real Madrid lost (3-1) to Juventus in a game in which their defensive weakness and lack of gunpowder were once again evident against the opposing team. The only goal for the white squad was scored by Vinicius. Madrid made 34 shots, which represents a very low percentage of success. Instead, Juventus only launched 11 times. In the previous game of the tour, against Barcelona, the whites lost 3-0 and shot 29 times. In total: 63 shots to score a goal. Xavi Hernández's team launched 12 times.

He accumulated a little more aim in the other two previous games, resolved with victories: 3-2 against Milan (13 shots) and 2-0 against Manchester United (15 shots). The sum of the four games reflects 91 shots and only six goals. One target every 15 throws. The scoring average on the US tour has been 1.5 per game. The percentage in the last League was 1.9.

The numbers reveal the lack of success of Ancelotti's rhombus, but the coach assured this Thursday that this does not worry him. «At the offensive level there is no problem. In defense we have to improve… It has been a positive pre-season. The team is not used to defending with diamonds and we have conceded many goals against. balance has been lacking. We need to fix it,” he said.

«The defensive aspect is the easiest to improve because it is a problem of positioning, concentration and attitude. In offensive pressure we were very good, but fragile in the low block. Lowering the block a bit may be an option to consider for the future,” Ancelotti continued.

The result of the Italian's new system depends a lot on the type of players that occupy the vertices of the rhombus. Kroos is not a specialist in defending in the position of 5, his benefits fluctuate depending on how the interiors close. Camavinga is very versatile, but sometimes he disperses. Modric has not yet reached the optimal level of form. With Tchouameni, the team seems more solid, but with less imagination. In the other part of the diamond is Bellingham, who has played well but in bursts.

On a defensive level, the team has shown itself to be very open because it forces the full-backs to go up too much to make up for the lack of opening in the field, so if they lose the ball at the start (Lucas Vázquez and Nacho have been unsuccessful) they remain highly exposed to kickbacks.

Offensively, Vinicius has been the best on this tour, but he has performed better when he has not started from the position that is assumed for him in the rhombus, but in his natural one: the left wing. Ancelotti says that he prefers to play on the inside because he scores more goals but that he is the best in the world on the outside.

Madrid seals a pre-season tour with an improvable performance. The group is not comfortable with the new system and Ancelotti still has work to do before next week's debut at San Mamés. The Italian trusts his squad. «I keep the good things we have done, with mobility up and the opportunities we have had. It may happen that we are not successful because we are less fresh to finish, but it is not a problem. I have seen many good things in attack,” he said minutes after the end of the match against Juventus, reports Efe.

Ancelotti got a grade of 6, highlighted the arrival of Jude Bellingham (“I liked him a lot”) and positively assessed the performance of Fran García. “He has played very well. He has a lot of energy, he reaches the bottom line well, he puts in good crosses… he is a reliable player,” he declared.

Sara Khadem, a chess player of Iranian origin who has just obtained Spanish nationality, has experienced a fleeting passage through the World Cup, which has been held in Baku since the end of July. The female grandmaster, who fled her country when she learned she would be arrested after refusing to wear the veil in an international competition, has the excuse that she hasn't been too focused on the boards in recent months..

The world number 15, former world champion under 12 and under 16, was one of the seeds in the women's draw of the competition, so she went directly to the second round. She was also a clear favorite against the Indonesian chess player Medina Aulia, her first opponent, who is 133 Elo points behind, a significant difference.

The World Cup has a knockout format, like tennis tournaments. In the early rounds, the paired players play two games, one with white and one with black.. If they finish tied, the ranking is decided in quick games.

In her first game, Aulia played with great quality and took advantage of the inaccuracies of the Spanish player. On his Twitter account, Khadem wrote, still optimistic: “The first round did not go well. I'll try to fight tomorrow.”

Indeed, this Thursday she appeared ready to fight and come back, despite the fact that she had the black pieces. Contrary to his defeat the day before, Khadem agreed to enter the Spanish opening, although he chose an unusual variation, to try to 'get his less experienced rival out of the book'..

Aulia played very well again, however. She made calm plays and was not nervous under pressure from Khadem, who had an increasingly difficult position.. The female grandmaster at least managed not to be defeated again, but the tables did not help her to qualify.

Paco Vallejo, only classified

In general, the day was not good for the Spanish-speaking chess players. The Menorcan had miraculously saved himself the day before, after overcoming a position that seemed irrecoverable. Its king was a kind of Houdini who escaped from a real hunt for the pieces of the Serbian Velimir Ivic.

In his second game, Vallejo played much better, always calm and without rushing, knowing that a draw was enough for him and he was never satisfied with it.. Their only mistake was perhaps coming to a finish with mutual time trouble, a situation where mistakes are more conducive.. Despite everything, the Spaniard maintained his advantage and ended up also winning in the second game.

Another joy, for a temporary moment, came from the hand of Eduardo Iturrizaga, who already in the first round had to overcome an initial defeat. Against the Ukrainian Anton Korobov, a high-level player, he also started losing, but managed to balance the duel in a brilliant game. Quick tiebreak games await you, which will not be easy.

Jaime Santos and David Antón have also been forced to decide their pass in speed chess, after signing two tables each. The first comes from overcoming the first round with ease, against a much inferior rival, but now his enemy is the Uruguayan George Meier, a tough grandmaster. Antón has not been able to overcome the local player Abdulla Gadimbayli for the moment.

There is still almost a month of competition to go and there have not been too many surprises, with Magnus Carlsen looking for his first World Cup, the only major trophy missing from his showcases. Their most dangerous rivals seem to be the Indian chess players, with several stars who have not yet turned 20, led by Gukesh D, 17 years old and already among the top ten in the world..

This Thursday it has also been known that the chess player Alan Pichot, 24 years old and until now Argentine, has changed flag, like Sara Khadem, and goes on to defend the interests of the Spanish team. The man from Buenos Aires has been residing in our country for months.

“I have a constant lack of control”. Álex Ruiz (Málaga, 1994) is one of the best paddle tennis players in the world, partnering with the Argentine Juan Tello and, at the same time, he has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes since he was ten years old, a chronic disease that raises glucose levels in the blood and forces an injection of insulin to keep sugar at bay. Sleeping and eating well affects blood glucose a lot,” he summed up in a chat with EL MUNDO, admitting that “it is a very tense situation.”. The stress of the sport, especially of a paddle tennis in which many points are decided in the famous golden points to break the games, does not help either. On the contrary. “Pressure and tension affect me a lot.. destabilizes me. I also suffer a lot from time and weather changes.”

Do you remember any game in which it affected you a lot? Something happens to me in all of them. It is difficult because of the issue of sugar, that you run out of strength. And then at the end of the games, due to the tension and the nerves, my blood sugar shoots up.. Always. Let's say that from 250 milligrams of blood glucose per deciliter in blood, the doctors recommend that you not do any type of activity because it can be dangerous, and at the end of the games I am usually at 300. I try to control it and adapt.

The solution? Insulin. But this one is also changeable. “The body changes all the time and I have tools to solve it, but for example a dose of insulin that used to work for me may not work well for me now. There is no pattern that you can establish and follow in your day to day because it is a constant change”.

When he was diagnosed with the disease, Ruiz was told that he would not be able to dedicate himself to any sport. A stigma that still prevails today and that has made it a benchmark for young people suffering from diabetes.. “More pressure”, jokes the Adidas athlete, who has just presented his new Adipower Multiweight Ctrl shovel. “The children have the same doubts as me and I try to help them. I can tell you that I dedicate myself to what I like and being able to reflect that in society makes me proud.. I don't have perfect diabetes because that doesn't exist, but I do manage it as well as possible. Each diabetes is a world and maybe things that work for me are not good for another person,” he says.

The paddle tennis calendar, another problem

The world of paddle tennis lives immersed in the constant controversy between the circuits. Right now there are three: World Padel Tour, Premier Padel (led by Al-Khelaifi) and A1 Padel (owned by Fabrice Pastor). The exclusivity that WPT demands from its stars has been the trigger for the vast majority of discussions that have taken place in recent months. Meanwhile, A1 manages its own players, who do not play any of the other two tournaments, and Premier wants the best in its events, even if it costs thousands of euros in compensation. This generates a chaotic calendar that never stops and in which players cannot stop so as not to lose points or money.. While Premier and WPT negotiate, many of them have already been injured as a result of the pressure and effort. “The problem is that we have to play World Padel Tour yes or yes this year and we have to play Premier because it is the future. What we demand for the next few years is that we can play the tests we want, that it be like tennis, an average, not a sum like now”.

One of the stars, Juan Lebrón, number 1 until this year, has been injured for several weeks and his partner, Ale Galán, has had to find a new partner in his absence. “If you stop, you miss five tournaments. You can't, because the sponsors also demand you, you lose ranking points, which in the end is what matters most…”. Reflecting on the calendar is more than necessary: “The calendar is crazy. From Málaga, with the heat, we are going to Mendoza, with the winter cold. This is the body, and mine, being a diabetic, suffers a lot” , analyzes the Andalusian, who is asking for changes for next season: “There is no time to recover, to work on mistakes… There are many injuries, people who play every game with bandages…”.

A registration that enters a minute late, a lost pulse to the club, a teammate who takes their place in the eleven or, sometimes, a strategy that goes wrong. There are many reasons that turn players into “hot potatoes”, footballers without a team in May or June, for footballers' agents. Some, like Mariano, Eden Hazard, Diego Costa or Sergio Ramos have a better chance of finding a team, others have it more complicated.

The age and the minutes in the field would be the two barriers that footballers face in their career when it comes to finding a team, according to Álvaro Navazo, representative of the You First agency, one of the strongest in the Spanish market.. For example, Mariano, a Real Madrid striker, is barely 30 years old.. However, you have to put together three seasons to add 1,000 minutes of play (11 games). This factor closes the horizon of teams that could be interested in their services.

You don't have to leave Real Madrid to find a case very similar to Mariano's, perhaps more bloody since Vinicius' irruption, such as Eden Hazard's. He came to the Chamartín team for 100 million euros and, despite enjoying more opportunities than the Spanish-Dominican, after just 10 games in his last season (less than 400 minutes), he leaves discipline through the back door. “When you play little, the normal thing is to take the first thing that comes to you,” says Navazo and completes, “the players have to realize that the important thing is to play.”

EFE

Something similar happens to Adama Traoré, a winger who played for Barcelona and with Luis Enrique's Spanish team, but who at Wolverhampton has not been able to give his best version. Just 12 starts in 34 games and since July 1 without a team, although it sounds for several teams, some Spanish. “You have to do a season of 30 games to get back into the wheel,” explains Navazo about the importance of the minutes.

Sergio Ramos, for his part, did not come out in the best way for Real Madrid. On top of that, his first year at PSG was much better and he was plagued with injuries, he barely played a dozen games. In this second, despite the fact that his performance increased, the team has not fully met expectations and there has been a change not only in coach, but also in politics, which has left him without a team. And Ramos, today, is 37 years old.

“Age is the most difficult factor when it comes to placing a footballer,” says Navazo and talks about the fact that clubs tend to go “year by year”. That policy was the one that, precisely, distanced him from Real Madrid. “Sometimes it's hard for the player to see that problem and they don't realize that they already call him less because of his age,” he adds.

There are other players whose situations are different. There are footballers who, having a market, prefer to wait to try to “speculate” or take more attractive options. De Gea, Manchester United's starting goalkeeper and chosen as a Golden Glove last year, is without a team awaiting other offers, while his position has been occupied by the Cameroonian Andrés Onana. “When it comes to taking stock, you always doubt whether to speculate a little more or take the first good thing that comes along,” says the representative of You First.

AFP

The position occupied by the Atlético de Madrid youth squad does not favor him since “goalkeepers and defenders are the most difficult positions to place”. “The forwards always have a market, always”, Navazo adds. The problem also for the big players is that their range of choice of equipment is more limited than that of the average players.

For example, Diego Costa, striker for Lagarto, who went through big European clubs and who today, at Wolverhampton, has played his last and worst season with just one goal in 25 games.. Without a team, it sounds like Brazilian teams, but with humble goals like avoiding relegation.

Another of the vicissitudes of these categories of players are the transfer bonuses. Options that very few have and that do not always occur. “There are great players who receive more offers to be free, but not because those clubs are going to pay a transfer bonus, but because if they had to face a transfer, they would not even consider it,” Navazo details.. In addition, advances in medical technology have made more and more footballers assume the risk of being injured without a contract as recovery time has been cut.

modest football

However, these problems affect 1% of footballers. There are others, those who are not fighting for million-dollar contracts, who must take advantage of their performance, especially in the peaks of the market, which are between February and March in order to be able to place themselves and not be without a contract in June, although “those who have not stood out have the same problem in February as in June,” according to Navazo. Because the job of the representatives is “to tell them the truths even if they don't want to hear them”. “We can have a different opinion, but the one that counts is the market,” he explains.

As in everything, there are exceptions and the You First agent remembers the cases of Kroos and Modric, a rare bird in this world of football. “It is difficult that there is a player who says that he will be up to a certain age and retire. Most always want to extend their career as long as possible,” he concludes.