La Liga: Barcelona’s Stunning Comeback, Mbappé Firing For Real Madrid & Five Star Villarreal Go Top

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1:35An army hung on her every word. My champions! I have sold my chariot on Carvana! T 'was a lovely SUV. An inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees, may I apply. Coming up on today's show. Barcelona produce a stunning comeback from 2-0 down to beat Levante. Kylian Mbappé's double helps Real Madrid to three points at Oviedo. And Mbappé finishes it off. Atletico Madrid are still searching for their first win of the campaign after being held by Elche. And Villarreal hit five past Girona to go top of the table.

2:27Buchanan who's on a hatchery. Stay tuned for all the action.

2:42Hello and welcome to The Rest is Football La Liga with Alex Algeo, Sid Lowe and me Gary Lineker. A reminder, this is our new weekly episode where we'll be focusing on La Liga. Does what it says on the tin and all the best action from the Spanish top flight. And if you're watching this episode on Spotify or YouTube, you'll be able to see all the goals and incidents we're talking about as we go. First, though, Alex and Sid. Sid, where are you this time? I'm in Oviedo this morning. Oviedo played against Real Madrid last night. Unfortunately, it didn't end well. You hung on for a while. How many games this weekend so far?

3:21Oh, just one. Just one? Oh, quite a week for you. I've done this game properly. you know go and actually be in the city for a while good I watched the game but I saw you at Craven Cottage Alex what a wonderfully civilised place to watch football beautiful isn't it watching from a rooftop bar that's where I was I've been all over like Sid I was at Palace Frederikstad on Thursday Crystal Palace and then Chelsea West Ham Arsenal Leeds Fulham United and I'm off to Kazakhstan this afternoon for Celtic's Champions League playoff game against Kyra Almaty. So Sid, have you been to Kazakhstan? I haven't.

4:00I'm surprised by that. I'm really hoping some Spanish team gets the chance to go there. You know what's happening here Sid, she's getting competitive about the match. Right. I'm going to look around and see if there's anything in Astoria so I can find some local level game today. I'm going to watch a park team or a bunch of kids in front of the shops or something. Brilliant. Let's get into the action now and I think we have to start with Barcelona again this week. Here's a quick reminder of how their game against Levante played out first. Levante just looking to escape down their left-hand side now.

4:36Tolian might be the target. He cushions it back for Ivan Romero. A touch away. It's Ivan Romero. Levante leads. Well, Levante are off and running again here. Another counter-attack is launched. Here's Brugge. Alejandro Balde racing to get back. He gets the block in. It comes to Morales, deflected over the crossbar. And Levante just asking the question here about whether that was handball from Balde. The VAR has made the check and the penalty has been given. It is Jose Luis Morales. Scores and the champions are in all sorts of trouble now. Jamal. Pedri. Thinks about a shot. Super. the comeback starts here in emphatic fashion from Pedri it is Rafinha's corner Torres hooks it goalwards Torres hooks it in and from 2-0 down it's 2-2 Jamal towards the back post it's in it's an own goal from Unai El Gethebal it is 2-2 from Barcelona they have done it the hard way but they have beaten Levante by three goals to two it was funny I was watching the match and I kind of came into it quite late and for the first five minutes or so I was thinking oh Barcelona started quite well and then realised it was Levante playing in a very Barcelona-like kit.

6:21It's one of the nicest kits actually in La Liga this year but Levante his new home kit but yeah it's the one that throws people quite often if you come to it late and you're not sure who's playing at home and also as you say because the way that Levante played and they went for Barcelona it's not just that they scored the first goal it's that they caught Barcelona a handful of times it's true that I suppose this is this brings us to that obvious debate that we have all the time and it seems a bit endless and a bit cyclical with Barcelona about this idea of the high line and you look at the stats here well Barcelona caught the Moss side loads of times right but you only need to not get it right once well it didn't kill them in the end obviously because they found a way back into it but but that is is if you like the kind of the underlying question about the defensive end of the pitch for barcelona as well and then the fact that they they tweaked the formation so they didn't play the usual 4-3-3 uh they played an extra man in the forward line with rafinha playing behind the forwards and it didn't quite work at half time i wrote in the group chat didn't i and i said gary have you seen the gate have you seen the score barcelona 2-0 down but we should know better with this barcelona side shouldn't we obviously got straight back in the game at the start of the second half.

7:26Two goals in six minutes, was it, for the comeback? Marcus Rashford taken off at halftime, which I don't know. We'll see how he reacts. But obviously, it's quite a big, big knock to his confidence, isn't it? Being taken off at halftime. Hansi Flick came out after the game and defended him. He said he played really well. But it's harsh, isn't it, taking him off halftime? What do you think, Gary? I think it was more of a, well, it was, he reverted, didn't he, to the way he normally plays, I suppose. So Marcus was obviously one of the ones to go and it was a tactical switch. I don't think it was probably necessarily a personal criticism of Marcus Rashford's game, but it's not the ideal start.

8:09It's not what you want when you get your first, I mean, obviously he came on last week, but he started this game for the first time that he would have been hoping for. but you know they were under the cosh it's like Sid talking about them tactically there this high line I mean it is very very high risk there's no question about that it's probably you can say well they concede a lot of goals because of that but the way they play will also produce a lot of goals and I think Flick has decided that the rewards are bigger than the risks and they're going to be games like we've seen well we saw on numerous occasions particularly I think perhaps in the Champions League last season where they went behind in matches and they were caught out in that.

8:48But they remain brave. They remain high. I don't buy this thing that they've got it off to an absolutely fine art where they never make a mistake. I think that's impossible with that game. And speaking as a striker that was particularly one of those kind of players I used to spin behind, love to get behind defences, I would lick my lips against playing this back four for Barcelona because Arsenal used to play a little bit like that when I played. I know you need to be a certain age here to remember this sort of stuff. And they used to famously stick their arms up in the air for offside and they were very good at it.

9:25But, you know, clever players will find them out. And I think we'll see that occasionally. But they back themselves to outscore you. It's like you said, Alex, even though, you know, you were half taking the piss out of me when it was 2-0. before I had the chance to even reply to you they pretty much got back into the game at 2-2 so they backed themselves but the fact that he made changes at half-time suggests that maybe he thought he got it wrong Sid Yeah and that tells you something as well about I suppose about us as journalists that sometimes we analyse a player's performance and we analyse it through him not through the structure through the system and I think this is a good example of that in terms of analysing Marcus Rashford because if you take his game and you isolate it from all of the context He said, well, actually, he was quite good.

10:13But it was the way that it, if you like, that it damaged everything else. Not because it's him, but because the idea of playing Raffini behind, putting him on one side, Lamin on the other side, people kind of eating up each other's spaces. And the structure was different and it didn't entirely work. And so I think that's kind of quite important. I hope that for his own sake that Marcus can kind of get that into his own mind and not take it as a personal slight. But of course, what it does do is pose that question. and go, okay then, under what circumstances and in which tactical context will he play?

10:42And how often will he get the chance to do so? There'll be injuries soon. There will be, exactly. That's what happens. Players need rest sometimes. Yeah, a lot of games, a lot of games as well. What about the penalty then? That was slightly controversial, I think. I turned it on at that moment because I've been at the Arsenal game. What, Jose Luis Morales, 38-year-old, scoring it. But harsh, I think. Baird's hand was really close to his body, wasn't it? Ref went to the monitor and gave it. That nonsense. Well, I mean, Gary's just used the word nonsense. That'll do for me, I think, pretty much.

11:12I mean, the one thing I will always say in handballs is I think we've reached this point where we've kind of talked ourselves into a circle of saying we don't know what handball is anymore. And I think we slightly con ourselves because I think we do know a little bit what handball is. It's just that sometimes the extent to which the arm is out is a little bit more for one referee and a little bit less for another. And, you know, this is one of those where, I mean, the example that's been brought up quite a lot is there's a handball, I must confess, I can't remember which Real Madrid player it is.

11:41I think it might be Rudiger in the Clasico last year, which is similar to this. Ball going towards goal, hits the arm, looks like it's going in, but it's close enough to the body that it's not given. I mean, this for me is not even as clearly going in as that one was. And it seems a little bit harsh. Alex, you said that they came back very quickly in the second half. It's a little kind of quirky thing that, you know, sad people like me enjoy. The goal at the end of the first half was scored so late and the goals at the start of the second half were scored so early that they both came before the goal at the end of the first half.

12:12Yeah, I saw that as well. It's mad how they do it, isn't it? One goal was scored after 53 minutes and the next goal was scored after 48 minutes or so. That's crazy. What a goal, by the way, Pedri. Wow, I mean, he was brilliant in that game. Oh, what a goal. But unbelievable goal. Inch perfect. Goal aso. And not like him, I would say. that's the thing that makes it interesting for me is that he really put his foot through this well I say he put his foot through it he put his you know the final three toes of his foot through it and sort of bent outwards which we don't see Pedro do very often we don't actually see him take on those kind of shots at all from that kind of distance we don't see him do that often a little caveat I suppose that's probably worth throwing in here is that the fact that Barcelona got those two goals back so early I don't know about you but it inclines me to think that the response wasn't really about the tactical shift It kind of happened too soon for it to be like that.

13:06One comes from a corner and one comes from a shot from there to the area. It's not necessarily that because they've gone back to what they know that it happens. And then later in the game, he goes all out with three at the back, four men up front, two very, very wide, opening the pitch as much as possible, two through the middle. At that point, of course, you have to. That's not really a kind of clever tactical thing. It's hang on, it's 2-2 and time's running out. Let's put everything we've got on the pitch. Do we think there's a better midfield player in the world at the moment than Pedri? It depends what you want your midfield player to do.

13:35Yeah, exactly. Well, Rodri's a different style of player altogether. And obviously I'm talking about the moment and Rodri's not been playing for a year or so, which was in my thinking. Okay, okay, okay. If you had to take one for your club, wherever you are at the moment, because you'd have to take into account age. And I think I'd take him probably. I would as well. I love watching him as well, because even in those games where he's not at his very best, there's a smoothness to him. There's a quality of touch to him that others haven't got. And I think one of the really interesting things about Pedri is the shift that he's undergone in the last 12 months with Hansi Flick.

14:08He's playing much, much deeper, which means he's much, much more involved in the game. He's broken, I suppose, that straitjacket of assuming that a technical player needs to be protected by the people around him and needs to be given the freedom to be a number 10 or maybe drift on either side of midfield. He's actually playing effectively at the base of midfield with one other as the pivot position and sees the game so clearly from there and so much quality and people come and try and press him and try and get the ball off him. And he's really, really good at turning away from that. He has a touch of Iniesta about him, a touch of Xavi about him.

14:40I know that's easy. I know it's the obvious thing to fall into, but he does have a little bit of both of them. It's really not easy to have a bit of both of those players. What a combo. What a combo. Right. Should we move on to the Real Madrid game then? their victory at Stid's beloved Oviedo. Here's how the action unfolded.

15:03Well, Mbappé should be this deep. Tramini won the ball back. Here's Mbappé. Oh, what a finish that is from Kylian Mbappé. So clinical from the Frenchman to give Real Madrid the lead. Here is Alhassane. It's still Alhassane. Can he find a cross? He can find a teammate. And Sebo!

15:35Here's Vinicius winning possession back. He's got Mbappé to his left. And Mbappé finishes it off. The goal made by Vinicius Junior, finished off by Kylian Mbappé.

15:52Hassan, can he get the shot away? He can! what an effort that was from Fedevina and here is Brahim and here is Vinicius and Vinicius finishes it off cool as you like 3-0 win for Real Madrid and really interesting team selection from Xabi Alonso starting Rodrigo, he didn't play a single minute did he against Osasuna on Tuesday No one expected him to start on the left. He's been linked with a move away. Vinicius Junior dropped. Were you surprised, Sid? Xavi Alonso would probably take issue with you using the word dropped. And I think a lot of managers do that now. Partly they do it to protect themselves, of course, because this is dropping people.

16:42Maybe the word sounds a bit strong, but it is dropping people. It is shifting the formation. And their managers, and Alonso did this last night, will always say, yeah, but I want a contribution from everyone, including those that come onto the pitch. and Vinicius came on and scored a goal and provided an assist and tried to win a penalty. He was booked for diving on that occasion. But, you know, to give you an idea of kind of how much danger he was creating. For what it's worth, I think the context of the game was better for him then because at that point, he had a step forward, were trying to attack.

17:06There was space for Vinicius to run into, which is, of course, where he is really dangerous. This is his first away goal in La Liga since last October. So he'd been having a really bad time of it. I think I'm kind of reluctant to be, how do I put this, to be kind of conspiratorial about this. I'm reluctant to look at this from a political point of view. I'm reluctant to look at this in terms of the point of view of the market. But I actually think those are elements to take into account here in terms of the message you're sending to Vinicius, who's currently still not renewed his contract with the club, and that's not in a great position.

17:36The message you're sending to Rodrigo, who says he doesn't want to go. You say he doesn't want to go, but everyone thinks that, you know, if someone comes with the right offer, he probably will go. Managing him in the event of him staying as well. So I think this was a footballing decision, of course, But I do think there's an element of, if you like, group management in doing this. And Rodrigo had a pretty good game up against a very, very, very deep defense. And then Vinicius had a slightly better game, but up against a defense that made it easier for him because they were now four men instead of five, which they'd been in the first half.

18:07And Oviedo were throwing men forward, trying to get back into the game. So I think Vinicius obviously benefited from that, but played very well. What was he on the pitch for? 28, 29 minutes, I think, something like that. And I thought he was really quite good. The other significant change, of course, was that Trent Alexander-Arna was left out. Danny Carvajal came back in. How surprised were we by that? And what can we read into it? It's so hard, isn't it? Carvajal picked over him. He's going to have a real battle. We know how much the Madridistas love Danny Carvajal, don't they? But he needs to stay fit.

18:43It's really hard. Trent didn't touch the ball when he came on. And he's having a tough time with the media out there, isn't he? I've read a few comments. He's already been criticised. We know what the Spanish media is like. It's brutal, isn't it, Sid? Yeah. And look, there will be a lot of pressure on Trent. I suspect that actually, in a way, Trent will be isolated from the pressure in so far as he won't be reading all of it. He won't be reading what the Spanish press says. And actually, in truth, it's not a focal point of the attention at the moment because there's much more attention on Mastantono.

19:12There's a lot more attention on Arda Kula's development as a central midfielder. There's a lot more attention on Rodrigo and Vinicius at the moment. So this is the thing. Obviously, from an English point of view, we look at this and think, oof, this doesn't look good. This early in Trent's career that he's already had Danny Carvajal come in and play ahead of him. But this isn't really a central issue here, to be honest, at least certainly not yet. I wasn't at all surprised that Carvajal came back in. I was surprised it happened so quickly. I thought maybe week two was a little bit early for Carvajal to come back in, but I think it will happen.

19:42We've talked about this so many times with Trent. But at some point, it feels like he might evolve into a player who plays in a slightly different part of the pitch, a little bit further forward. There, of course, the question becomes, OK, which is the role for him in the Real Madrid team? Does he play that sort of nominally right-sided midfielder who tucks in and gets involved in the game a little bit, which is kind of what Bellingham might be unless Bellingham plays left. It's what Brahim is trying to be. It's what Bastantuano is doing, although he's a slightly different type of player. And so it's not an easy fit, actually, Trent Alexander-Arnold in the Real Madrid team at the moment.

20:14And in fact, when the early stages of this transfer, there was kind of a sense from Real Madrid that, well, we kind of don't need to do this yet. The timing isn't quite right. And Carvajal was playing brilliantly. Of course, what happens is that Carvajal gets an injury, which is what accelerates things a little bit. Now, that's not to say that this would not have happened without Carvajal's injury. but it certainly helped to convince Real Madrid that any doubts they had about it, this is actually something they needed to take on now because the long-term solution would be, don't know, Alexander-Arnold, but the short-term solution is going to be very difficult.

20:46And Carver, how we'll fight for this, you know, that he's not going to back down. Yeah, Franco Mastantuono, 18 years old. He's only been with the team for, what, 10 days? He was with River Plate at the Club World Cup, saw him play out there. 18 years old, but so, so, so confident. Imagine signing for Real Madrid on your 18th birthday. That's what I was thinking. 18th birthday. don't get much better than that, do they? But Xabi Alonso obviously rates him a lot. I think it's fair to say if you sign by Real Madrid at 18, you've got a bit of potential. A little bit. And he's certainly... And Boquitos.

21:19He's certainly got bags of talent. Very exciting prospect. They do find them because there's obviously one or two of them that they've brought in over the last couple of years, young players. And I think Madrid, they do seemingly... taking a tactical decision in terms of how they sign players, either very young prospects or players that are on the end of contracts. Yeah. And that's obviously partly a financial decision. And obviously when you're Real Madrid, you're in a very advantageous position to do this. If you go to a player and you identify a series of players whose contracts are up in, say, 18 months' time, if you're Real Madrid and you phone a player up and say, listen, don't renew because you can come to us, That player is going to listen and probably isn't going to renew because it's Real Madrid.

22:08If Real Lovie had to phone you up and say, don't renew, they might think, I think I'll stay. It's all right. And not just I think I'll stay, but I think I won't take the risk of waiting. I think that's the other thing that Real Madrid are in a position where players will take the risk of waiting for them. Obviously, there's then usually a pre-contractal agreement and so on. But Madrid have been very clear on this, getting players at the end of their contract, getting players on free transfers and then going for what they hope will be the generational players from abroad. To give you an example of the age thing, by the way, and Franco signs at 18 because legally he has to.

22:38So this is all done and it waits till his 18th birthday for it all to be signed off. But he's got a contract officially with Real Madrid's B team. Vinicius and Rodrigo came on that as well. Now, there wasn't really a plan for them to cut the teeth in the B team, although Vinicius did actually play for Castilla a little bit. Ferry Valverde had a Castilla contract when he came as well. But it's about that ability to kind of, if you need it, give players the option. And also, if you need it from a registration point of view, you've got another option to bring them into the club. And the thing that really strikes me about Mastanto Ono is how enthusiastic Xabi Alonso seems to be.

23:14And I'll be honest with you, I feel like we're all running a little bit quick here because he's not really played very much. But you see it in the way that Alonso talks about him, that there's a genuine sense that, yeah, this guy's really quite good and has the personality to not be frightened by it at all. I'll tell you who else is quite good. A certain Kylian Mbappe, who's, I suppose people are going, oh, is he succeeding at Real Madrid? Forget how many goals he scored last season. He's adapted his position in many ways. Two more goals. I mean, the first one was a majestic finish. I mean, he's, what, he's in his mid-20s now.

23:48And I think if you'd have said five, six years ago with the way he's progressed as a footballer that he wouldn't have won the Ballon d 'Or by now, we would have been a bit surprised. I don't think he's going to win it this year, even though he's probably in the reckoning because of the fact that Real Madrid didn't win anything and that will count against him. That probably, I would imagine, will change at some point. But, I mean, he's an incredible footballer. The way he took the ball on the turn and finished it, that first goal was just so sumptuous, wasn't it, Alex? Yeah, he was the best player on the pitch in the game against Osasuna as well, wasn't he?

24:24We haven't shown the highlights of that yet, but he won the penalty, he scored the penalty. He also looks like he's lost a bit of weight. He looks like he's lost a few kilos. Remember he had gastroenteritis during the Club World Cup. Maybe he never put the weight back on. Well, Xavi Alonso says he did. Xavi Alonso, but not all of it. So I think maybe he's a little slimmer than he had been prior to that, but he looks stronger and, well, maybe he doesn't look stronger, but Xavi Alonso says he's put some of that weight back on and is in a better place. It's a funny one, isn't it? Because it sounds ridiculous to talk about a player who scored 44 goals last year and say that his first season was a bit disappointing.