Real Madrid beats Levante 0-2 and Barcelona ties with Sevilla

Today's match was good for Real Madrid. Despite the fact the team has a lot of important players suffering from injuries such as Hazard, Kross, and Carvajal it had the best match so far in this season and it is also the first match Real Madrid wins with more than 1 goal of difference.

Vinicius is currently the best attacking player for Real Madrid, he scored his second goal in this season and the shot was very good. One of his weak points in previous seasons was his lack of aim when shooting but he has clearly improved a lot and is now much more dangerous when attacking.

Asensio also participated in the match since the beginning but he was more modest. He didn't create danger for the rival team and his presence was pretty much irrelevant. I am sure he will continue to improve but he better hurry because the Brazilians Vinicius and Rodrygo are being the best wings in the team despite their youth.

Benzema was the striker and he played the entire match so Jovic had 0 minutes today. I was hoping to see Jovic play a little bit but that wasn't the case. Benzema's match was not very good but not horrible. He had some good moments, especially in the first 15 minutes of the second half but he also finished some plays with crappy shots.

I think Benzema's age is getting noticeable especially when seeing how fast and fierce players like Vinicius and Valverde are. I also notice he was getting frustrated due to his lack of goals but in the last minute of the match he finally scored his first goal of this season so, in the end, it might have been a good thing to leave him for the entire 90 minutes. Although, if Jovic was there instead of Benzema he probably would have scored a goal too in the same situation.

Courtois had an excellent match again. After Real Madrid's overwhelming dominance in the first 15 minutes of the second half, where they could have easily score their second goal, Levante then found themselves with a sudden confidence boost and began to cause a lot of problems for Real Madrid's goalkeeper. As in the previous match, Courtois stopped each shot and was able to finish the match with zero goals!

Mendy, the left-back of Real Madrid, also had a spectacular match. He and Vinicius together have what can easily be considered as the best left side of any European team. Both of them are fast, strong, and unstoppable. The left side is definitively the strongest side in Real Madrid.

On the other hand, Barcelona also played today but unlike their previous 2 matches where they have enjoyed comfortable victories scoring 4 goals in the first match and then 3 goals, in today's match they were only able to score 1 and the match ended with a tie.

I was unable to see the first half of the match which is when the goals happened. In the second half, the first good opportunity to score a goal came with Griezmann but as usual, he didn't score. This player ever since going to Barcelona has been suffering a drastic decrease in his performance. Barcelona is currently playing with 4 players dedicated mostly to the attack, these players are Ansu Fati, Coutinho, Messi, and Griezmann and the later one is the only one who hasn't score a goal this season.

Griezmann is clearly feeling uncomfortable in this team. He isn't playing in his favorite position because he clashes with Messi & Coutinho so he is relegated to playing as a wing or as a striker which hurts his performance and probably makes him lose some confidence. Right now, he is like the black sheep of Barcelona's 4 main attacking players.

Both teams had played this Thursday so the accumulation of tiredness got noticeable. Barcelona had more talented players so their passes, touches, and movements were more precise, but Sevilla had a great defensive system in place and managed to neutralize any danger. Let's not forget Sevilla also had a very competitive match against Bayern Munich around 10 days ago.

There were chances for both teams to score their second goal and in the final 10 minutes Barcelona was overwhelming Sevilla and it looked like their second goal could have arrived at any moment but the seconds and minutes kept passing and in the end the result was a very respectful tie between 2 excellent teams.

The next matches for both teams are going to be in around 15 days. The matches for next week are with national teams and I will probably write a couple of articles if I managed to watch some of them.

Cheers!