Enzo Fernández vs Real Madrid: ‘small step’ at Bernabéu and once again Chelsea’s best

Hardly Enzo Fernández happy withdrew from the Santiago Bernabéu after a defeat for his team. But at least the midfielder of the Argentina national team can be satisfied with his performance in the match he played Chelsea lost 2-0 against real Madrid for the first leg of one of the keys to the quarterfinals of Champions League.

“No fear; respect, yes”, Enzo had answered the question on the eve of the match on how to face the task against the most successful team in the history of the continental tournament. Frank Lampard’s plan, the new DT of the English cast, was to leave the Madrid coliseum in good shape to aim to settle the series at Stamford Bridge, as he had done against Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16.

For this, it was crucial that the midfielders of the England team neutralized one of the best midfielders on the planet, with Uruguayan Federico Valverde, German Toni Kroos and Croatian Luka Modric as star players. At the time of the battle, Fernández gave stature, even more than his teammates Mateo Kovacic and N’Golo Kanté. And he did it with one condition: he had been booked, so a yellow card would have excluded him from the London rematch. Therefore, he had to moderate the intensity at each intersection to avoid another card.

In addition to friction, the former River and Defensa y Justicia player was also active with the ball at his feet, especially in the first half hour of the match, even though he didn’t go deep or trample the opponent’s area as he showed he knew how do (very well) with the Argentina national team during the World Cup. In this he cannot be attributed too much responsibility. He is just one piece of a team for whom scoring is little more than a pipe dream this season: he has scored just 12 goals in 9 Champions League games and 29 in 30 Premier League games.

Beyond the defeat, the boy born and raised at San Martín has shown that he is not weighed down by the commitment to keep up with the big teams, as he already did this season against Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus when he was still a Benfica player. And he continues to accumulate flying hours: since his arrival at Chelsea on 1 February, he has started all 13 of his team’s games (10 in the Premier League and 3 in the Champions League) and has been on the pitch for 1,161 minutes out of a possible 1,170.