A spark from Brahim Diaz in the 48th minute, after a very worrying first half, saved Real Madrid from the fire in the first leg of their Champions League last 16 meeting with RB Leipzig.
His winning goal was a thing of beauty, shaped entirely by his hand.
Dani Carvajal sent the ball out wide, where Brahim, sensing his marker press from behind, suddenly performed a magical feint to slip away into space before quickly turning again, instantly on the run.
Now driving on goal, the 24-year-old showed strength, balance and poise as he dribbled away from two hard challenges. When he then reached another defender, already in the box, he cut inside slightly and curled a sweet shot into the top far corner.
Seven seconds, nine touches, a masterpiece. Pure Brahim.
It is worth adding another number, this one more difficult to understand after his marvellous, match-winning strike: Brahim started Tuesday night as Madrid’s 18th-most used player in terms of minutes played.
“He scored a spectacular goal, unbelievable,” Carlo Ancelotti said after his side’s 1-0 victory. “The first thing I thought when he started dribbling? I shouted: ‘don’t lose the ball!’ And the truth is that he didn’t lose it (laughs)”.
Everyone was in awe of Brahim’s move, including the injured Jude Bellingham, whom Brahim referenced in his celebration. To his own increasingly common gesture, he added the Englishman’s already familiar open-armed pose, performed with a great smile across his face.
🤔 It’s giving déjà vu vibes… pic.twitter.com/vrR8forJc0
— Real Madrid C.F. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@realmadriden) February 13, 2024
“Oh my god Brahim!!!” Bellingham tweeted, along with two blushing-face emojis.
Bellingham and Brahim are great friends in the Madrid dressing room, but as has happened several times now this season, it was only Bellingham’s injury that allowed Brahim to start.
In Spain they say ‘lo que funciona no se toca’ (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it) and that must have been what Ancelotti thought when he chose the Malaga-born Brahim instead of the other options at his disposal, such as forward Joselu, the other main alternative to Bellingham.
It is now six wins in six games for Real Madrid without Bellingham, all of them with Brahim starting. In those matches, he has scored four goals (three of which opened the scoring) and provided one assist.
Curiously, in the build-up to Tuesday’s match, Leipzig boss Marco Rose seemed far more concerned about whether Bellingham would appear than his replacement. “I won’t believe he’s out until he’s at the stadium tomorrow,” the German coach stated.
For his part, when asked by The Athletic at his pre-match press conference, Ancelotti had cast doubt over who he would pick.
“Leipzig are very strong at aerial balls and Brahim is not a giant,” Ancelotti said.
The Italian is not wrong. According to Madrid’s website, Brahim is 1.70m tall (5ft 5in) — but his standing at the Spanish club is only on the rise.
Brahim’s curling shot was struck from just inside the penalty area (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
Brahim, who first signed for Madrid from Manchester City in 2019, returned last summer from a three-year loan spell at AC Milan totally convinced that he was capable of making the impact he has. Madrid, too, based on his performances in Italy, had decided his ‘Erasmus’ trip was over, that he was ready to come home.
Tuesday’s match was far from an easy one, and Madrid were made to suffer. Leipzig ended the night with 14 shots, an anomaly for Ancelotti’s side. That’s why even Brahim acknowledged the importance of Andriy Lunin’s work.
“This is also yours, great game,” the attacking midfielder wrote on social media, captioning a picture of the two together — holding his player of the match trophy alongside the Ukrainian.
According to Opta, Lunin became the second Real Madrid goalkeeper to make nine or more saves in a single Champions League game without conceding since at least 2003/04, when they began collecting such data. The other case was Thibaut Courtois in the 2022 final against Liverpool, when the Belgian also made nine stops.
In the photo with Lunin, Brahim was no longer wearing the bulky icy bandage he had been treated with after coming off in the 84th minute, when he suddenly pulled up during a counter-attack.
By then, the around 2,000 Madrid fans in the stadium seemed far less nervous than they were in the first half. In the game’s second spell you could hear all the traditional chants, from ‘we are the kings of Europe” to ‘Madrid, Madrid, Madrid’. And both Brahim and Ancelotti played down the significance of any possible injury, although the player will undergo tests in the coming hours.
The way he left Tuesday’s stage was at least reassuring. When the referee blew the final whistle, he hugged Vinicius Junior back on the pitch and gestured to the travelling support, also acknowledging some of his rivals.
With one of them, Dani Olmo, he chatted for a few moments. Brahim will perhaps meet him in the next international window, when he wants and hopes to be called up by Luis de la Fuente.
Brahim is also eligible to represent Morocco, who have made approaches to the player, but his desire is to represent Spain, and with nights like yesterday, it is hard to imagine that will not happen really soon.
(Top photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
