Real Madrid and Zidane Complete the 'Remontada' by Finding the Right Balance

Water dripped from the roofs above and the roads glistened. Almost all day the rain had been heavy, the skies gloomy. For a marquee night, Madrid was soaked.  

It wasn't at all what they'd wanted.   

Five days earlier, when Marca's front cover had essentially ignored the events of the night before and instead focused on the comeback, the "remontada," the envisaged scene was one of intensity, ferocity, heat, fire. On Tuesday morning, that was the case again when the cover of AS read: "It's remontada night."

It wasn't just a performance they wanted. Instead, the demand was for an occasion: a packed Santiago Bernabeu, a raucous crowd, an edge in the air palpable, the intimidation real. But the soaking rain felt like a threat to all of that: Would the edge be dampened? Would there be something missing? Would their parade be pissed on?

For Real Madrid, Tuesday night's clash with Wolfsburg in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie began with those questions and plenty more, but it ended with something very different. 

By 10:38 p.m., the Bernabeu had reached ecstasy after witnessing the occasion it wanted. The one it demanded.

Despite the rain, fans had been strong in both number and voice; Cristiano Ronaldo had grabbed the first, the second and then the third; manager Zinedine Zidane had ripped his trousers in a mix of excitement and tension; chants of "how could I not love you!" rang around the stadium. 

Madrid had won 3-0.

The comeback, the remontada: They'd done it. 

In the build-up to Tuesday's clash at the Bernabeu, Zidane had stressed the need for patience in the face of the two-goal deficit his team were required to overcome.

"You have to play this game with your head," he'd said. "We're not going to win the game in 10 or 15 minutes." When Luka Modric reiterated the message—"we have to concentrate a lot, go in with a cool head and most importantly, play football," he added—it felt telling. 

For the hosts, the risk was that the occasion and all it contained would push them into a chaotic state, robbing them of clarity and turning excitement into errors. A week earlier at the Volkswagen Arena, Wolfsburg had punished their systemic flaws, and in owning a two-goal advantage and the knowledge Madrid would have to come at them, the visitors were a genuine threat to do so again. 

"We did a lot of good things in the first leg," said Wolfsburg boss Dieter Hecking on Monday, "and it would be great if we could reproduce them here."

But Wolfsburg didn't. They couldn't. 

In the opening exchanges at the Bernabeu on Tuesday, there was a significant shift evident in Real Madrid. In just the third minute, Karim Benzema looked to take the ball down off his chest well inside Wolfsburg's half; a week earlier, countless others would have bombed forward to join him, but here they didn't. The midfield held their shape. The back four was a unit. Both Marcelo and Dani Carvajal—in the full-back posts where Madrid had been slaughtered in the first leg— were in line with Pepe and Sergio Ramos. 

Straight away, Madrid had shown their intent: they would attack but not over-commit; they would be positive but not reckless; they wouldn't let Wolfsburg get at them. 

Just 30 seconds later when Carvajal went forward up the right, Marcelo held his defensive position on the other side. When the Brazilian then went forward as the move unfolded, Carvajal immediately returned to his. 

Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images

It was this sense of improved balance that was the theme of the night. 

Consistently when Madrid attacked, they did so with intensity and purpose—a seemingly possessed Ronaldo led his team's ferocity on an emotionally charged night, involving the crowd, lifting them, gesturing for them to contribute—but most notable was the sense of structure. 

The first goal was a prime example. 

Though the cross that found its way to Ronaldo came from Carvajal in an attacking position on the right side of the penalty area, it wasn't the result of charging ahead with no thought for consequence. Instead, a defensive act from a conservative position had got him here, Carvajal intercepting a pass from Maximilian Arnold to Julian Draxler on the halfway line to snuff out a potential counter-attack. 

Seconds later, Madrid and Ronaldo had their second, this time from a corner. Carvajal had been instrumental again, emblematic of his potency on the night, but still, it was the way he and those around him put a premium on discipline that stood out: They picked their moments. They exhibited the patience Zidane had asked for. There was nothing cavalier. 

The results were profound.

Supported rather than isolated, Ramos enjoyed perhaps his finest game in a difficult season. Alongside him, Pepe wasn't forced to deal with wingers running at him. Out wide, Marcelo didn't watch his opponent hare away from him. In midfield, there was a presence rather than a thoroughfare for opposition attacks. 

From Madrid, this was more like it. With a shift in mentality, there was structure. Balance. Everything that wasn't evident in the first leg. 

"What we had to do today was play with intensity but using our heads," said a delighted Zidane afterward. "That was my message, to not think it would be easy and to play with our heads. We achieved it."

They did. Despite the rain, despite the questions, despite the deficit, Real Madrid overwhelmed Wolfsburg to complete the remontada. The key: They didn't allow the remontada to overwhelm them.