Morata vs. Carvajal, Nacho could decide Madrid derby cup clash

For better or worse, Álvaro Morata is centrally involved in two of the all-time iconic Madrid derbi moments, something that will unquestionably be floating around in the striker’s mind ahead of Wednesday’s Spanish Supercopa semifinal between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid (stream LIVE at 1:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+) — a contest whose intensity has been magnified by the fact that the two clubs meet again in the Copa Del Rey on Jan. 18.

For better: it’s Morata who deliberately blocks off Atletico’s Diego Godín as the Uruguayan tries to run with Sergio Ramos when Madrid take their 2014 Champions League final injury time corner kick.

Atleti are up 1-0 (via Godin) and achingly, tantalisingly, there are only 2 minutes and 10 seconds of that added time left. With perfect timing Morata steps into Godin’s path — a combination of bright thinking and dark arts — and Ramos, suddenly unencumbered, soars and scores an unfeasibly beautiful header into the postage stamp-sized gap between the right-hand post and Thibaut Courtois’ full-length dive. Los Blancos run riot during extra time, and history’s only Madrid derbi Champions League final slips through Atleti’s hands.

Just a note here: Atleti is the club Morata supported as a kid, the one where his professional career started and the club which enjoys his grandfather’s fanatical support. Not a way for him to endear himself.

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For worse: It’s the dying moments of the Spanish Supercopa final four years ago. Another Madrid derbi, but this time, Morata is wearing the red-and-white of Atleti.

We are in extra time, and there are precisely five minutes left. Atleti launch the ball out of their own penalty area, Dani Carvajal miscontrols the ball as it drops out of the sky and when Saúl Ñíguez hits a well-weighted pass into Morata’s path, the striker’s deft first touch takes him clear, on his own, with the opportunity to beat Courtois (Madrid’s keeper on the night) in a one-on-one situation. With five minutes left. In a final.

I’m betting you remember it now, and what happens next.

There’s a Uruguayan revenge factor involved. Fede Valverde, though quick, is never going to catch Morata and so the midfielder launches himself, legs fully extended, and hacks Atleti’s centre-forward to the ground just before he’s about to dispatch the ball past Courtois. (Or just before he fails to do so: you define yourself as a Morata appreciator or hater depending on what hypothetical conclusion you’ve come to.)

It’s an automatic red card, Valverde walks the walk of shame/pride, Madrid hold out for penalties and — of course they do — win the spot-kick shootout easily. Not only do they lift the trophy, but Valverde is named man of the match.

Morata was left with sore legs, no medal and ghosts in that famously phantom-infested head of his. Maybe that accounted for some extra passion when, the last time these two sides met, back in September, Morata scored two peachy headers in a 3-1 win to hand Los Blancos their only defeat in any competition so far this season?

That night, in a heaving, passionate and ultimately exultant Metropolitano stadium, all three Atleti goals came from left-wing crosses, and all three goals were scored with headers — Antoine Griezmann’s was sandwiched between those two from 31-year-old Morata.

That night Madrid featured Lucas Vázquez at right-back and David Alaba at left centre-back, with both of them having shocking performances. Positionally, their GPS totally failed them, concentration kaputt and culpability ultra-high. Two stalwart, smart and “winning” players, but a terrible day at the office.

This week, neither of them are in the squad: Lucas is injured in the short term, while Alaba faces a long, tough recuperation from knee damage. The man tasked with avoiding Atleti’s left-wing crosses, off which Morata will be hungry to feed, will be right-back Carvajal; the man tasked with cajoling, barging and bullying Morata out of the game at centre-half will be Nacho, and those facts deserve their back-story.

For the longest time, Morata was the guy with all the ability, athleticism and physique, but too little of the kill-or-be-killed mentality. In a nutshell, he liked to be liked. He was a genuinely warm, gregarious, funny and boyish fella. But when things got ultra-demanding, super-high pressure or plain old down-and-dirty nasty … he had fragilities. Carvajal, Nacho and Morata share a past, and those fragilities are what the Madrid pair will, unrelentingly, use to try and deter Atleti’s leading scorer this season.

It’s only seven months since the three men were together lifting Spain’s first national-team trophy since 2012, the Nations League victory against Croatia in Rotterdam. This wasn’t a wholly new feeling, mind you: the trio won U21 Euros together in 2013, while Morata and Carvajal were in the Spain squad that triumphed at U19 Euros two years earlier. Nacho was with Morata when he debuted for Real Madrid Castilla — the final youth stage before the first team — and also when the striker, then aged 20, scored his debut first team goal (for Jose Mourinho) away to Levante.

These are three Madrid-born men — for whom a derbi like this feels of super-heightened importance — who debuted for Los Blancos within a couple of seasons of one another, each of them products of the youth system at that club proudly called “La Fabrica” (“The Factory”), but three men with extremely different destinies and personalities. Tactics aren’t irrelevant, nor are the parts to be played by Vinicius Jr., Valverde (again), Toni Kroos, Antonio Rüdiger, Koke, Griezmann, Jan Oblak or Samuel Lino on Wednesday in this semifinal, but the contest between Carvajal, Nacho and Morata will be a real clash of mentalities.

The long, lean Atleti man isn’t any less hungry for victory, but the smaller, meaner Madrid men have the edge in ruthlessness. They are tough-minded and rough-mannered on the pitch: they compete to the far edges of the laws. Morata wasn’t that way, but the fact that his Atleti-mad grandad really did stop speaking to him when he signed for Madrid suggests that there’s grit in his DNA somewhere.

What’s happened to this vastly under-rated striker — who shares a 33-goal season partnership in all competitions with Griezmann — is that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have made him a much steelier competitor in recent years. He admits that over a rollercoaster career, there have been a handful of occasions when, psychologically in tatters and feeling undermined, he considered abandoning football early. Sports psychology has changed him radically and, now, he’s both at his happiest and most prolific.

On the subject of the €42 million-per-season offer to play in Saudi Arabia where, unfortunately, this Spanish Supercopa is being held, he recently told El Larguero radio show: “Everyone at the club knows that beyond what [Diego] Simeone said to me to convince me to stay the fact is that I’m absolutely dying to win a trophy for Atleti. That would be worth more than ‘more money,’ that would be worth more than playing in other countries where I might be more ‘comfortable’ because I’d be treated differently than here in Spain.

“The biggest thing which made me choose to stay at Atleti last summer was the idea of lifting a trophy with them.”