On September 29, Real Madrid, which seemed to have found a way forward, ushered in the most important city derby against Atletico Madrid at the beginning of the season at their home stadium.

The last two seasons have not been particularly good, with President Enrique Cerezo and Director of Football Luis Caminero hiring homegrown coach Xavi Garcia, who had enjoyed great success at Watford, after Simeone's move to Serie A to coach Inter Milan, was forced to make the decision to change managers midway through the season due to a long period of slump.

After that, the team's original assistant coach, former Argentine international Boggs, and Atletico Madrid's veteran captain Gabi, who had just retired for four years, all worked in the position of interim head coach for a while, but could not lead the iron army, which had almost disintegrated Real Madrid's Barcelona and Western Super League two-man situation in the past decade, to regain its former hegemonic spirit.

In the end, it was the Spanish international who left a brilliant performance in Deportivo La Coruna and Zaragoza as a player, and coached more than a dozen domestic and foreign teams after retiring as a player, Pakohemes became the new manager of Atletico Madrid, which can be regarded as ending the team's chaotic state.

After a hard-fought fourth-place finish in the league, the Sheets began to bounce back last season, but there was still something missing from the outside world. Although they took advantage of the civil strife on Real Madrid's side to finish second in La Liga, the reality of being pulled down by Barcelona with nine points also proves that they are still a huge gap from their peak form.

Atletico Madrid, who have always been known for their sharp vision in the transfer market, have invested a net of 60 million euros in the summer to bring in several new signings, but their performance since the start of the season has been somewhat disappointing. Neither Paraguay international centre-forward Antonio Marin, who was brought in according to the club's characteristic South American striker traits, nor Romanian winger Dennis Mann, who had previously excelled at Bayer Leverkusen, or France international centre-back Marensar, failed to produce the performance that people had come to expect.

Since the start of the season, the Sheets have only achieved 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat in the first six league games, although the club is currently seventh in the first place due to the start of the season, and the first match in the Champions League group stage has also been won, but the fans and those who originally had high hopes for them are still very dissatisfied, the intensity of criticism is second only to the Real Madrid coach who played two consecutive draws in the first two games, and is also a key focus of domestic public opinion.

As a result, at this delicate moment, the two representative teams of the Spanish capital met in the league, and if they did not kill most of the eyeballs, it would be considered a ghost.

Since the venue of the match was placed at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, Atletico Madrid, who have been in poor form recently, are obviously determined to go all out to win and take this opportunity to boost the morale of the team inside and outside.

On the other hand, on the Real Madrid side, Li Mudi's mood is extremely relaxed, after he led the team to a comfortable victory over Zaragoza in the last round, he did not carry out even one closed training as the outside world expected, at least from the pictures captured by the all-encompassing media, there is no indication of what special tactics and arrangements he will adopt for this extremely important derby.

And in the eighteen-man squad announced on Friday night and the starting lineup revealed the next morning, people can clearly see that the Real Madrid coach did not make any changes because of the duel with Atletico Madrid, and still arranged the troops according to his regular rotation policy, hiding Mbappe, Varane and Ceballos.

This more or less aroused more fighting spirit from top to bottom of Atletico Madrid, and also made a group of people who eat melons rise up to watch the excitement, seeing others, especially celebrities, being slapped in the face, is simply one of the most interesting things in the world, and it would be too wasteful not to follow the excitement together.

As a result, in the data released by the media, the instant ratings of this Madrid derby exceeded 41% in the local area, and the number of viewers in the country exceeded 16 million, both setting a record in the past ten years.

Returning to the game, Pakohemes has a 12 number in the FM system for roster rotation and is a relatively flexible manager. It's just that due to the discrepancy of results since the start of the season and the importance of this game, he has fielded almost the same starting line-up in three consecutive league games, and this is with two games a week, and the players are generally not in the best physical condition. Four of them had a relatively large distance of running distance or a deviation in their physical fitness value, and their physical strength before the start was less than 90%, which laid a hidden concern for the game.

Similar to other big clubs, Atletico's squad is quite different from 2018 after six years of development. With the exception of goalkeeper Oblak, French left-back Lucas, two homegrown internationals, Koke and Saul, and Uruguayan centre-back Jimenez, who left the club and returned last season, the rest of the first-team squad is no longer the familiar face of Li Mudi.

And I don't know the specific reason, their academy has not produced any eye-catching good seedlings in the last five or six years, and a limited number of four or five people are substitutes in the bench, and rarely get the opportunity to play, which is also one of the important reasons why this Sheets Army, which can proudly claim to be the third pole of the Western Super League, is gradually falling to the top.

Fortunately, the club has always adhered to a good vision in terms of recruitment, and before this summer, it has purchased seven or eight first-class and second-rate top stars from home and abroad who have a current ability evaluation of more than 150 in scouting tools, and the overall strength can still rank in the top 15 in Europe.

It's just that after the departure of Griezmann, Godin and other original core players, Atletico Madrid's lineup has some characteristics of Li Mudi's team, that is, the main team and few superhuman individual performances. Although this is basically the same as the philosophy of Simeone's coaching years, after the front and back court do not have the most trustworthy core, the team will often encounter some key moments when no one can stand up to solve the problem, and when facing top teams, they often lack the ability to mark the opponent's top scorer or force the opponent's goal.

Such a team would have been very consistent, but they would not have won the tournament, and Simeone had already squeezed all of Atletico's potential out of the time before leaving. Clear-eyed people will be able to understand that if this team wants to have the capital to compete for the championship again, it is basically impossible without four or five years or even seven or eight years of painstaking accumulation, just like Inter Milan after winning the treble that year.

Therefore, the outside world's expectations for their final results are generally low, but the third place in La Liga and the Champions League round of 16 are still necessary, and another major indicator is that they cannot be at a disadvantage in the city derby (here refers to the duel with Real Madrid), otherwise from the coach to the players, they will be subjected to fierce criticism, and perhaps being swept away is also very likely to happen.

This is one of the reasons why before the start of the game, the media believed that Atletico Madrid, who were playing at home, would at least not be inferior to their opponents on the field, and perhaps even continue the glorious tradition of years to achieve the whole game. Because on this field, since November 2016, neither Zidane, Julen Lopetegui nor Guti have been able to lead the team to a victory in eight years. In 13 of the meetings in all competitions, Real Madrid only got a pitiful three draws, the rest were all away defeats, and the worst one was a 1-4 loss.

If you were to rank the worst away games for the Battleships, then Camp Nou and Wanda Metropolitano are definitely the top two frontrunners, and the latter still have a certain lead in recent years.

However, Li Mudi obviously does not believe in this evil, not only did he make a lot of rotation in the starting lineup, but also did not make special adjustments in terms of tactics, still using the 4-2-3-1 formation he has continued to use in the past three games, hoping to use a sharp offensive and defensive conversion strategy to drag down the opponent in one fell swoop, so that the home team gradually collapsed in the rhythm of Real Madrid.

Atletico were more in control of the ball in the opening stages, something that most people expected before the game, as unlike his predecessor, who was more efficient and concise in attack, Pakohemes himself was a coach who preferred a pass-and-possession style of play. And in addition to homegrown internationals such as Koke and Saul, they also have a short Spanish midfielder Sergio Gomez, who was born in La Masia and has a passing ability of 19 or even a full value of 20, the 24-year-old central midfielder who became famous in Dortmund and regards Iniesta as his idol does live up to the name of "magician" given to him by the outside world, and is a very rare genius in La Liga who can completely control the ball at his feet after Ronaldo and Messi.

With him in the center, it is difficult for the Real Madrid side to easily break the ball in a slightly larger space, such as 25 meters away from the penalty area line, which leads to a quick counterattack by the best hands.

It's just that the home team's flaws on the offensive side are indeed huge, and the strength of the middle is naturally needless to mention, but the ability of the two wing players is a little unsatisfactory, whether it is the new Romanian left winger Dennisman, or the local star Oscar Myrondo on the right, they have not been able to create any decent opportunities with the support provided by their teammates, so that Real Madrid's two starting fullbacks Odriosola and Aaron can deal with it very easily.

The two flanks were blocked from attacking, which also made the Paraguayan center Antonio Marin, who was alone in front of him, remain idle in the opening 20 minutes, his best ability to grab points was simply unable to play, and individual creation of opportunities was not his strong point, so he could only helplessly fall into the encirclement of Skriniar and Vallejo, like a fish struggling on the board.

On the other hand, Real Madrid's side did a very good job on the defensive end after the opening, the players' abilities were originally at the world's top level, and the careful teaching of two coaches who commanded the defense to reach the full value of the Portuguese Ruijorge and Brazilian Flaviotana Guila, coupled with the influence of the head coach, made the Galaxy Battleship, which has always been known for its strong attacking power, unknowingly establish a steel defense line that is not inferior to any team.

After absorbing the essence of Italy's chain defense and high pressing strategy, combined with the ability to fight individually, Real Madrid's goal is not something that ordinary opponents can easily attack. Although it is far from impregnable, it will be very difficult for Atletico to make a difference with today's performance, at least from the performance of the first 20 minutes or so of the game.

And the most important thing is that how can Real Madrid be a wreck that doesn't fight back, although the front trident of Rodrygo, Asensio and Mikel Oyarzabal will often retreat to participate in the siege, but they are always ready to launch a fatal blow, and Dybala, who served as the forward midfielder in this game, is also constantly running in the middle of the road, interfering with the opponent's midfielder passing and controlling the ball while always observing the position of the players on both sides, and formulating a plan in advance for a possible counterattack at any time.

In the 26th minute, Saul's 45-degree cross was headed out by Skriniar, and the visitors' two lagging central midfielders, Peperu and Febas, completed a link-up, and the ball was sent to the halfway line by the latter, and the retreating Dybala escaped the close marking of the Atletico Madrid player with a half-turn dashing action, and then strode towards the home team's penalty area.

Real Madrid's front three, meanwhile, were already in full swing in their respective positions, and in less than five seconds after their team-mates broke the ball, they launched a four-man counter-attack that went straight to Atletico's defence with only five men left behind.

The result of the counter-attack was Dybala's through ball that gave Rodrygo a chance to shoot 14 meters from 14 yards in a straight line on the right side of the penalty area, but unfortunately due to the angle and the interference of the defender, the powerful shot could not break Oblak's ten fingers, and the ball was saved by the Slovenian international, who was still in top form in the world.

Although he forced a corner kick, which also dealt a blow to the arrogance of the home team before, so that they did not dare to invest too many troops in the offensive end, Li Mudi on the sidelines was dissatisfied with the process of the attack.

He believes that the Argentine veteran made a mistake in his selection, and his personal dribbling was too much, which led to the failure to spot Oyarzabal on the right in the first place that he actually had a better diagonal opportunity. If he had been able to get the ball out early, Rodrygo's position and defensive environment would have been better in the end, and in that case, maybe the score on the pitch would have changed.

And similar situations have happened more than once this season, all because Dybala's style of play determines that he is more suitable as the absolute core of a team, he needs to get the ball more and master everything on the field, which is completely contrary to Li Mudi's fast, concise, and all-for-all philosophy. The Argentine star, who has always felt out of place with the team as a whole, has now become a big problem that needs to be solved urgently.