A rare break in the calendar allowed Real Madrid a free week of preparation for the match this Saturday, January 3, against Levante. The game is part of the schedule of the twenty-second round of the Spanish Championship edition 2017/2018. It starts scheduled for 17:45 (Brasília time) at the City of Valencia stadium.

The recent performance of Levante

Levante also had no midweek commitments. This, however, is not new in the club, which does not participate in continental tournaments and had already been eliminated from the King’s Cup longer.
Longer training periods may even have helped the club improve the technical quality of players and improve strategies for games. This has been enough to keep the team out of the relegation zone. With 19 points (three wins, ten draws and eight losses), the Levante is the sixteenth placed in LaLiga.
The condition, however, is not one of the most comfortable. At the end of the twenty-first round, the difference for La Coruña, which opened the sticking region, was only two points. Levante were even better off on their way to their main goal of the season, which is to avoid falling into the Second Division, but three defeats and a draw in the last few games made it difficult.
On the previous day, at least he managed to start an important point by getting 2-2 with La Coruña at his rival’s home. After leaving at a disadvantage of 2 to 0, he was able to take advantage of the numerical advantage – the constituents had an athlete expelled – to reach the equality with goals at the end of the second stage.
To face the powerful Real Madrid, coach Juan Ramon Lopez Muniz has some medical doubts. They are in injury treatment and do not know of will be released in time to act the goalkeeper Raul Fernandez (11 games in the Spanish 2017/2018 Championship); defenders Ivan Lopez (three games, no goal) and Tono (12 games, no goal); and striker Alex Alegria (nine games, no goal).

The current form of Real Madrid

The first free week that Real Madrid had to practice in 2017 was propitiated by a failure. A 2-1 defeat at home to Leganés on Jan. 24 lifted the team from the King of Spain Cup, which opened its semifinal phase on Wednesday, January 31 and Thursday, February.
It is expected that coach Zinedine Zidane will seize the opportunity to create differentiated tactical options that will make the team grow especially in February, when it returns to the dispute of the Champions League of Europe against PSG.
In this scenario, the Spanish Championship has two roles. The most important of these is to serve as a training platform for international competition, since the title race is out of the question. By defeating Valencia 4-1 on the previous day, Real Madrid climbed to 38 points (11 wins, five draws and four losses) but did not leave fourth.
Winning at least one position is another goal turning the Spanish Championship into “B plan” in case of failure in the continental tournament. If they can not repeat their achievements in the last two years of the Champions League, Real will need to be among the top three in LaLiga to secure a spot in the group stage in the next edition of the competition. If you stay in a room you will have to go through the qualifiers.
Something unacceptable for a club with the investment capacity and millionaire cast that has Real Madrid. For this Saturday, Zidane depends on the medical department to know if he can count on two of his headlines.
One of them is the defender and captain Sérgio Ramos (13 games in the Spanish 2017/2018 Championship, no goal). She had suffered a calf injury and stayed away for three weeks. He lost six games in that period. He returned precisely against Leganés. He managed to go until the end of the confrontation, but he felt the bruise again. He did not play in Valencia and most likely will not be related to the duel this Saturday.
Another problem is the midfielder Isco (17 games, four goals). He left the game against Leganés with a hip injury, was out in Valencia and should be in the medical department, which also has reserve keeper Luca (no performances), defender Jesus Vallejo (three games, no goal) and midfielder Daniel Ceballos (six games, two goals).

History of the matches against Levante and Real Madrid
Real have not lost to Levante for ten games. There were nine wins and a draw in that period. Equality was precisely in the most recent confrontation. In Madrid, for the first round of the LaLiga 2017/2018 season, the teams were in the 1 to 1.

Resting, with time to train and better technically, Real is the best guessing option for the showdown. It has a price of 1.16 in Bet365. Draw shows return of 7.00 and success of the owners of the house pays 15.00 per real invested. Quotes were in effect at 15:46 on 1/31/2018.