La Liga: Rashford Makes Barca Debut In Controversial Win, Espanyol Stun Atlético & Cazorla Makes Emotional Return

0:00Coming up on today's show... Gola! Lamin Jamal inspires Barcelona to an opening day victory despite plenty of controversy. He should have stopped the game earlier. Atletico Madrid are stunned by Espanyol. And it's in the back of the net! Athletic Club hold off a Sevilla fight back as Nico Williams stars again. Nico! And Marcus Rashford makes his Barcelona League debut. Stay tuned for all the action. What a goal!

0:42Hello and welcome to the Resties Football. Today with a bit of a difference. This is a new weekly episode for this season where we'll be focusing on La Liga and all the biggest and most interesting stories from Spain. If you're watching this in a video on Spotify or YouTube, we'll also be bringing you the best of the action with match highlights as we're talking through the games. I'm delighted to say that joining us for these shows every week is the, I'm going to say, quite brilliant Alex Aljo. That's very kind. Alex, who worked for Real Madrid way back when. Also with us is Sid Lowe, Spanish football expert.

1:26I think I can describe you that. And also one of the hosts of our sister podcast, the Spanish Football Podcast. So good morning to you both. We're recording this on Monday morning. I should add at this point, of course, that Real Madrid on the opening weekend of the season don't play until Tuesday. but we will show you the goals in a later episode when we come to that. But how are we all for a start? Sid, you are in a reception area of a hotel so there might be a bit of background noise, right? There might be. You might get a little bit of Spanish TV in the background. If you're really lucky, you'll be able to hear what's happening in the rest of Spain beyond the football pitches.

2:06Yeah, I'm in the middle of a four-game run and there's a little bit more travelling to do today having been in Biadial on Friday, Mallorca on Saturday, Barcelona last night like for Espanyol's game against Atletico Madrid. And I'm halfway through that final bit of the journey to go to Elche against Betis this evening. I don't think there's a person in the world that watches more live football matches than Sid Lowe. It sometimes feels like it, you know. I mean, I should try and cut it down a little bit, but do you know what? There's nothing quite like actually being in the stadium for it. Do you still get that buzz, Sid, at the start of a new season?

2:37Do you get as excited every year? Yeah, I do. And I'm always really conscious of the arrival of the new teams. The teams that have been promoted are always the ones that excite me the most. And this year, you know, throwing my bias out there at the very, very start, I'm even more excited because this year, finally promoted 24 years later, Real Oviedo, who are the team that I support as well. So my professionalism is going horribly out the window this season. You need to tell us why Real Oviedo. Do you know what? It's actually really just chance. It's the city that I did my third year of my degree in, when I was doing a degree in history in Spanish.

3:12And so the third year was in Oviedo. when Oviedo were a first division team, but we were relegated in 2001 in Majorca. I was actually at that game, which has meant that essentially my entire professional life has kind of unfolded without needing to worry about bias. I think this year I'm in big trouble. I don't think anyone of mine too much with bias about Oviedo. Alex, you've worked together before, haven't you? Yeah, I was going to say for the same reason, year abroad, third year abroad, I happened to end up at Real Madrid TV. So slightly different team to support, but the same reason. But Sid, yeah, we used to, I presented the match preview with Sid Lowe as my guest.

3:51That was the first show I presented in television on Real Madrid TV, which good memories, Sid. Good memories for sure. Are you a Real Madrid fan, Alex? I think I'm going to admit, I have to say I support Real Madrid. Yes, of course. Of course. I owe them a lot. I owe them a lot. I probably wouldn't be here with a career in television without Real Madrid and my experience there. I spent a year there on, it was Jose Mourinho's last season, 2012-13, and then went back when Zidane came in January 2016 and spent another almost four years there when they won the three Champions Leagues in a row. So it was an amazing, amazing time to be at the club.

4:25And yes, I do support Los Blancos. Los Blancos. Prefiero Blaugrana, personalmente. Anyway, so, yeah. So we've got a bit of Barcelona-Real Madrid rivalry that you need. before we come to we'll start with Barcelona but first Sid I'm sorry your team lost

4:55do you know what it was it was one of those moments where you kind of you start watching the game and within five or ten minutes you think yeah this first division business is quite tough this loss this loss are a lot better than us Villarreal were, I mean Villarreal obviously not just a first division team, they were a Champions League team and they were significantly better than Real Oviedo, although Oviedo did actually have the chance to lead with an early penalty, completely gifted to us, we thought wow, what an amazing presence to get on the opening day and then Solomon Rondon sadly struck one of the worst penalties I've seen for a very very long time and we were beaten 2-0 Real Oviedo, you feel they can have very few opportunities today they can ill afford some chance like that, go begging.

5:36Solomon looks Looks like he might have put on a bit of pudding over the years. I don't know if that's been a bit unkind. He was playing for Pachuca, wasn't he, at the Club World Cup? I think he played every minute of every game for Pachuca out there and he looked all right. What do you think? Has he still got it? Rondon? On the evidence of the first weekend, and obviously I don't want to make a conclusion based on that, but I think we have to wait and see. But there wasn't a huge amount there. But then it's an entire team and I think Obiedo are aware of this and this is one of the difficulties, I guess, of starting the season two weeks before the tri-assel window closes.

6:07So this isn't necessarily the team that it will be as the season progresses. And I think I'll be able to know that. There will be more signs. In fact, Eric Bidey is just about to join the club. And so hopefully with maybe three, maybe four more signings, I'll be able to be better equipped to survive this season. Yeah, down to 10 men as well, weren't they? Reyna sent off two softish yellows, I think you could say. Yeah, my dad would be biased and say, yeah, it was a terrible decision. Absolutely. Yes, there's nothing wrong with being biased. I'm going to be biased all season for Barcelona. Let it go, let it go.

6:40Reality is the red card didn't help, of course, but Pierre Gallo are a genuinely good team. I think they're the best placed team in La Liga to get close to the other three. And obviously it would be Barcelona, Madrid, and I've had to finish one, two and three almost certainly. And I think they're the best placed to be fourth this season. Wouldn't disagree with that. Let's start talking about Barcelona's victory at Mallorca, where they won by three goals to nil. Before we have a chat about that, let's just remind ourselves how that game unfolded. Lamine Yemal patient build up from Barcelona the cross comes in and the header and the first goal of the season and it's Rafinha who scored it it's taken him seven minutes to get the first of the new campaign still Lamine he gets the shot away blocked might come back to him brings it down touch from Ferran Torres Ferran Torres with the shot and and what he should have stopped the game earlier because he's going to give the ball to Barcelona I think no he's giving the goal he wasn't able to take it he's chasing back now trying to dispossess Dijon he does do that but the red is going to be shown

7:51Laminjimal and the shot and the goal well that just about completes a miserable night for Mallorca this match was quite extraordinary for me I mean obviously nine men they ended up with Mallorca but I need an explanation for the second goal because it seemed to me quite clearly I could hear the referee's whistle when there was a head injury on the field of play which pauses should pause play when the referee blows a whistle and then obviously it was Ferran Torres wasn't it that knocked it in great finish somehow after a few minutes of consultation they gave their goal Sid, have you got an explanation?

8:37You were there. I sort of have. The first explanation is to say that there wasn't a whistle, although the referee makes a gesture when he looks like he's about to. No, he leans forward. I could hear a whistle. Was that come from the crowd then? I definitely heard a whistle. It must have come from the crowd because he said he didn't whistle and he was leaning forward as he went to whistle. It was interesting listening to Arasata, the coach of Mallorca, because he said he's on the touch sign, obviously, and he heard the fourth official, who of course has the ear feast and is talking directly to the referee, say, stop it, there's a head injury.

9:08And the referee decides not to, but the referee's body language is to look at the player on the floor, which is Antonio Rea, rather than to look at the play. And then so Barcelona score, and you have this slightly strange celebration in which Ferran Torres, and I think it's Dani Olmour, if I remember rightly, kind of slap hands with each other, but as if to say, ah, nice finish, it's a pity it won't count. And the next thing you know, it does count. And so everybody goes crazy. I think if the referee had been clear in his body language that he was letting it go, then maybe this wouldn't have been quite so controversial.

9:37But the fact that he appears to do so, and the fact that once the ball went in, rather than running back to the centre circle or even gesturing to the centre circle, he goes towards the player on the floor, sort of tells you that in everybody's mind is there's a player who's down. So in everyone's mind is, well, of course it's not to goal. And then suddenly it's almost as if the stadium sort of bit by bit is thinking, hang on, he's actually going to give this. And I guess it's something that VAR can't really intervene with either because it's subjective, isn't it? It's the ref's decision. Here's the thing.

10:05So I think the reason why VAR can't interject with this is that the referee... Now, I don't know if this is a nuance that really makes any sense, but I'm going to go with it. The referee hasn't made a bad decision in terms of the rules of the game. He's made a bad decision in terms of the protocols for head injuries, just slightly different. So in other words, the application of the rules is not the same as the application of the protocol, which is about health, if you see what I mean. And so you have this situation post-game where Antonio Rayo says, look, the protocol is really clear. If there's any sense of a head injury, you stop it.

10:39Now, the referee's argument was that what Antonio Rayo does is he heads away across, which I suppose he does. It's not a ball kicked in his face from two yards. It's not something that he doesn't see coming. He heads away across, but then he stumbles and he goes down. And so the referee is saying to him, it's a clearance. This isn't needed. I quite like the response. I think it was Sergi Darder post-game. The referee had said, well, there was no concussion and Serge Gidale goes, oh, what? So now he's a doctor as well, is he? Not just a referee. So it's fair to say Mallorca were not particularly impressed by him.

11:08There was definitely no, the referee definitely didn't blow his whistle, even though it seems you can clearly hear a whistle as he puts this to his mouth. If you can hear it, then I'm more than prepared to say he did blow his whistle, but everybody post-game said he hadn't. And as I say, Arasati at the side of the pitch had said that he'd heard the fourth official telling him to, but not heard him actually do it. I mean, it is extraordinary. It must have been a whistle in the crowd then that we heard or some fake or maybe some AI intervention. Maybe somebody stuck a whistling on AI to make it look that way on the highlights of that particular goal that I saw.

11:44But it was... Great goal though. Great goal. It was. In fact, all three goals were really good, weren't they? I mean, that little ball that Lamin-Yemal does for the first goal that he does quite frequently now, doesn't he? And he makes it look so easy. That sort of in-swinging cross from an angle where for years and years and years, people used to say, well, you don't really want to be crossing from that angle. And when they did, they used to be away swingers. But that little bendy one that he does to the far post, it really works for them, doesn't it? It should be so predictable. But somehow, somehow it's not.

12:22At the same time, it's like the defenders don't expect it. He's just so good. The fact that he's bigger, faster, stronger, older than last season as well. It's a scary thought for any fullback, really, isn't it? He's so good. And he's so confident as well. He's so young, but you can just tell. He sort of owns it, doesn't he? What did he say when he scored in that training video the other day? He said, imparable, I'm unstoppable. You know, it takes a lot of confidence to say that at that age. If I was that good, I'd have a lot of confidence as well. I was that good. I mean, he's remarkable. And the goal he scored, obviously, he scored the third goal as well.

12:55I mean, they actually did quite well to keep that scoreline down, didn't they? Considering they were down to nine men for much of the game, Mallorca. and I suppose the referee didn't have too much choice in some of those decisions. Yeah, more red cards than shots on target. I was supposed to say that Mallorca dealt with it really well. Hansen Fitt was really pretty angry post-game. He said, I didn't like it at all. So once we'd gone to Nlutwitz just stopped playing where we didn't do it and I'm not having it. I don't like this match. I'm very honest. Three points, very important points, but I don't like this match.

13:32So after the 2-0 win and the two red cards, I think my team always only play 50%. So I don't like this. I don't like this attitude. So we have to speak about that. And we can do it much better. That's about him sending a message for future consumption. I'm not having you take your foot off the gas like this again. You've got to keep going in. And I think that's one of the reasons why he likes Lamin Imal. Because even if it's a personal ambition, driving Lamin to want to score the goal, and it was very clear in the second half that he wanted his goal. And it took a while, obviously, because he didn't actually score it until the very last minute.

14:07But I think even if it's driven by personal ambition, that's what Hansi Flick wants. He wants them to kind of keep going for it. And Barcelona didn't play because he did well. But I agree with you. I thought Mallorca managed it reasonably well in the second half. But I guess the context is that. The context is a Barcelona team taking the fresher off. And the context also is a Mallorca team who are put in a position where the ideas are clear. All you do now is you try and limit the damage. and I suppose he'd say, right, everybody back, hold on as best we can. They actually created a couple of chances, to be fair as well.

14:34Yeah, obviously, big blow for them, Sid, losing Inigo Martinez to Saudi. Ronald Araujo played there. What do you think of him? No, I think that this is a big question for Barstone this year. I think a bigger question than any of us anticipated last year. So this season, we all know now that Inigo Martinez was a vital part of that defence. At the start of last season, we didn't necessarily know that he would start. And I think Inigo Martinez had, for me, two really important elements, quite apart from his basic talent and his ability to defend and so on. One is his ascendancy over the young players, his ability to manage the young players, to guide them, to kind of get the right kind of performances out of them, to maintain that determination to win at all times.

15:15The other thing I think with Inigo is if you watched last year and the very specific way in which Varsano defended with that incredibly high line, pushing all the time, making sure they press, the timing of that has to be perfect. and it was Inigo Martínez who led the timing of that and I think the big doubt this year is can Ronald Araujo do that because on the evidence of last season there's a risk that the answer is no and that he still needs to learn if you like the mechanics of it not necessarily the defending path because he's really good at that the recovery speed is good he's physically strong but that ability to both bring the ball out of defence and also time the line I think is the doubt that we've all got about Araujo this season Yeah I was talking obviously I did an interview with Marcus Rashford last week and if you haven't listened to that, I encourage you to do so, everyone.

15:59And he was talking about, actually, we were talking about in training and the intensity and stuff and he said Ronald Araujo was like one of those very aggressive trainers that like almost stamps all over you. He said he compared him a little bit to Chris Smalling. So that sort of player. And this leads us on to Marcus Rashford, a pretty quiet start, got 20-odd minutes, came on as sub as we thought he probably would do. Not much happened for him. Yeah, and he played as a central striker, didn't he? Rather than out wide, which is interesting. I personally don't think he should be playing as a central striker.

16:35I think that's where we'll end up seeing him the most. It was interesting, though, because if you look at the structure of that forward line at the weekend, when he came on, he was the furthest left of the three forwards, but he was a central striker. By which I mean, when that happened, basically, he went through the middle, Rafinha dropped to play behind him, and Laminio just kind of floated around doing what he wanted rather than it being a straight line of three. So he wasn't out on the left. And I think we probably will see him as a central striker a bit this year because I think the player that's going to need the most protection, the most rotation is Lewandowski rather than Rafinha or Lamin.

17:07So it's more likely that that's where he has to fill in. But I thought the moments in which he actually managed to get into the game at the weekend were those moments where he drifted out to the left, picked up the ball and then brought himself back inside again with the ball. So those moments where he was in the middle and, you know, Gary, this is the position you played in, and that some of the movements have to be clever and in tight spaces, and there's not really the room to make that run that he likes so much, going beyond people into space. I felt that there were times when it looked like he wasn't quite, the synchronisation of it wasn't there yet.

17:35Now, obviously, it's natural that it's not there. It's the first game of the season. Yes, he's had pre-season, but it's one of a couple of positions he's played during pre-season. It's still new teammates. It's a different start. It's against nine men who are playing very, very deep. And so I think he was denied the space into which he would be normally so effective. Yeah, I think the truth is in these circumstances, if you're coming on in a game and you're well ahead and you're playing against a team with 11 men who might want to try something to get back into the game, then you probably get some space.

18:07But if you're coming on against a team of down to nine men and they're basically saying, well, we don't want to get humiliated here. That is not the ideal start. The last thing you like, whether you're playing as a nine or even on the left, is the low block with every single player behind the ball. So there's not going to be much space. So I think there'll be easier, easier games for Mark. People keep saying, yeah, we'll rush for getting the team at all. I said, but nowadays, with the amount of football that's played, you need a number of players, don't you, across the front. And one of the reasons I'm sure they've brought Marcus in, that even if he's at the start of this season, not first choice in any of those positions, he can play in any of the three positions across the front line.

18:53Obviously, his best is on the left, but he has played many, many times as a number nine, even by his own admission. When I interviewed him last week, he says, I'm not a natural nine in the sense that I'm happy if I just score goals. He said, I'm not that kind of player, so I get that. But he can also play on the right. He did say his preference was on the left-hand side, though. But he'll get plenty of football this season. Yeah, did you speak to him, Gary, about coming off? Do you think he's okay with it for now, impact sub off the bench? Or did he make it clear he wants to be in that starting XI?

19:27No, we talked about the fact that it would be difficult. He knows that, he said, but he also knows that he's capable of playing in any of those positions on the front line. There's no way you can keep three players, And particularly, don't forget Lewandowski, he's late 30s now. He's about to turn 37 on Thursday. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But he's still a remarkably fit and brilliant footballer. So Marcus is not daft. He knows that he'll have to work for his place. And if he gets the opportunity at some point, which I'm sure he will, because there is so much football that they'll have to chop and change and rotate.

20:05And then it's up to him whether he takes that chance. But did he seem excited to be there, Gary, when you were with him? So excited. He was so excited. You could tell that. His energy levels were really, really good. Did you give him some good tips, restaurants, bars, nightclubs? No nightclubs. It's a long time since I was there, Alex. I don't think. There's a place we used to go to. And this was how bonkers football used to be. We used to go to a place that was a restaurant and a nightclub called Up and Down. I don't think it exists anymore. I mean, old people will remember it in Barcelona. up and down and you used to go there after a game and you'd have Terry Venables will be in there and some of the players I mean the coach and the players and we'd all have a good time I suspect that that probably doesn't happen now with Andy Flick yeah well so you have your dinner down and then you go up to dance on the tables up and down right that's how it works it was dinner up and and then down and then down and then down and then down and then down and then nightclub was downstairs if I remember rightly it's an awfully long time ago but we definitely had some good nights there let's take a quick break and then we'll discuss some of the other games when we come back and perhaps look ahead make a couple of predictions for this season but we'll be back shortly

21:22Welcome back to The Rest is Football La Liga we had a little break there and during it we were discussing nightclubs that footballers now go to in Spain come on What I was just talking about it was quite iconic place that's been there for years and years and years and years. In Madrid or Barcelona? In Madrid, in Madrid. But it's on a motorway. It's on a motorway. It just makes no sense to me why you'd have a club on a motorway because you can't just, you know, wander there. You have to get in a car. When you say on a motorway, I mean, surely on the side of the motorway. Yes, it's on the side. It's in a service station, Gary.

22:00That's where the Madrid players would go, would it? Yeah, yeah, a place to be, isn't it, Sid? It certainly used to be. It's been closed for a while. It became a very high-end Thai restaurant for a while. It had been a nightclub a few times. It is very, very close to that Popuelo area with places like La Florida and so on, and not far from Somosaguas and La Finca, which is where some of the really smart houses are. And I guess if you have to drive to a nightclub, yeah, the kind of places I don't go to. If you have to have a nightclub where you've got to drive to it and you're a professional footballer, you've got people who will drive you, it doesn't really matter.

22:32I don't suppose they're there stumbling out at whatever time in the morning, desperately trying to wait for an Uber to turn up. That's not going to happen to them. Good way to stick to the water as well. Biggest surprise over the weekend had to be Espanyol beating Atletico Madrid, didn't it? After Atletico started so well, didn't they, with that wonderful free kick from Julien Alvarez. What a goal! It was a good start. You know, it was a different start as well from Atletico Madrid. And a lot of the talk has been about how they're going to play this year, because they've signed so many players in the summer, 175 million euros worth of player, a slightly different profile.

23:07And I actually think that for about 70 minutes, most people were pretty satisfied with this, that this was a team that were pressing a little bit higher, that seemed to want a bit more of the ball. They almost score an absolutely wonderful second where they hit the post when Julien Alba has an amazing chance that he misses. It's a lovely, lovely move. And at that point, you think, if they go 2-0 up, it ends. And they get caught twice with two balls into the box. Teasing one and turned past O 'Black for the equaliser.

23:40that makes it sound like it was just two balls into the box out of nothing it was a slight shift in the game atletico madrid did lose a little bit of control and espanol did play by opening the pitch out putting the ball into the box a bit earlier getting two center forwards in there doing it kind of a bit old school in a way um and that caused atletico a lot of problems and and simi i really like simi only after the game is he you know this is a guy who's who's always talked about results. And whenever people have thrown the idea of style at him, he's always said, it's always about results. And so at the end of this game, he says, well, I can't exactly be the one who now says, yeah, but we played okay because I've spent 13 or 14 years telling you it's all about results and the result wasn't very good.

24:19Yeah, I don't want to question Diego Simone, obviously, certainly don't want to do that, don't want to anger him. But his substitutions, I couldn't really work out because he took off, what, Cardoso, Baena and Almada when they were 1-0 up. And Conor Gallagher as well at half-time. He looked fuming to be taken off. And then obviously the game got away from them. And then on the contrary, Malalor's substitutions, both the players he brought on, came on and scored and made the difference. But yeah, I couldn't work out why he took those players off so early. Yeah, Cardoso and Gallagher at half-time.