“We will play and then we will see,” Carlo Ancelotti had said, so Real Madrid did their part and by the end of an ultimately easy night, life looked good again. The European champions started this match as the 22nd best team in the continent, somewhere towards the bottom of a table that keeps everyone guessing and supposedly on the edge of a catastrophe, and finished it eight places higher and feeling like favourites again.
Madrid had been defeated by Lille, Milan and Liverpool, but there was time still and a revival to come and now a 5-1 victory over Red Bull Salzburg in their penultimate game lifts them back among the seeds for the playoff round. With one game to go, against Brest next week, it also leaves them a single point from not having to play it at all. Two goals each from Rodrygo and Vinícius and another for Kylian Mbappé means they still have a small chance of completing the first phase of this new format in the top eight.
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