A big triumph

0:01Baseball is back and the first pitch is on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven-time All-Star Aaron Judge, head to the San Francisco Bay to take on Rafael Devers' San Francisco Giants. This season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game. Watch MLB opening night, the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants, live on Netflix, Wednesday, March 25th at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific.

0:27Phil Kitromilides:They say you should learn something new every day. Like how you should only drink Jägermeister at zero degrees Fahrenheit. Ice cold. Like those frozen cavemen they find. Which makes you wonder, what would a caveman think of Jägermeister? Well, if you served it warm, he'd probably throw it in your face, say Oonga Boonga, and storm off. And nobody wants that. So drink it cold or not at all. Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister liqueur. 35 % alcohol by volume. Imported by Masked Jägermeister. U.S. White Plains, New York. Protein is now at Starbucks, and it's never tasted so good.

0:59Phil Kitromilides:You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.

1:18Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Rural Podcast. I'm Phil Kittram, ladies. I'm joined as ever by Sid Lowe, who is joining us live from Real Sociedad's Reale Arena, where he's doing something pretty mad, even by his standards in terms of relentlessly covering Spanish football. But he slept very little last night, drove up to San Sebastian, and he's doing something very special for ESPN. Sidney, we won't go too much into it because you're covering what you're doing on this week's TSMP Diaries. So we'll leave it for patrons at patreon.com forward slash TSFP to find out what you've been up to.

1:57But suffice to say, you're pretty bloody knackered.

2:01Phil Kitromilides:And I've still got the journey home to come. Yes. Anyway, all of which means let's bash out this podcast as quickly as possible. Before we crack on, we're talking about what happened on Matchday 29. We have a very important announcement. TSFP is heading back to London for another live show with La Liga. It's on Friday, the 24th of April, 6.30pm, upstairs at the Fox on the Green pub on Upper Street, North London, Islington. Tickets are on sale now. They're£19.50. That includes a drink and several hours of entertainment with us. It's an intimate... Several hours of drink. It's intimate, Sid. Very intimate.

2:38Tickets are limited. So get yours now. You can find the link in the episode description or on our social media. So this is what happened on Matchday 29. Friday night saw Villarreal beat Real Sociedad by three goals to one. Villarreal scored three. They could have scored seven or eight. Obviously, they read last week's newsletter where we were criticising them for not necessarily being a very good team. So glad that we spurred them on. Saturday saw Elche come from behind to win a massive six-pointer at the bottom against Mallorca. So they beat them 2-1. The relegation zone dropping Mallorca into it.

3:14Getafe continue their quite frankly ridiculous form since the turn of the year. They beat Espanyol 2-1. Espanyol also haven't won this year, so therefore was ridiculous for another reason. Levante beat Oviedo 4-2. Sydney was there to witness an insipid performance from Oviedo 1, which probably, if not mathematically, confirms their relegation. Osasuna beat Girona 1-0. And Valencia beat Sevilla 2-0 at the Ramon Sanchez Pijuan. We're still awaiting 100 % confirmation, I think. I haven't seen it yet, but Matias Almeida is going to be sacked by Sevilla. I'll have a little check while Sydney is talking at some point to see if it's actually been confirmed that that's going to be his final game in charge.

3:56Then on Sunday, Barcelona beat Rio 1-0. Celta were 3-0 up at home against relegation threatened Alaves. So far, so good. and then Alaves scored four goals to win 4-3, one of the most ridiculous scorelines in Spanish footballing history. Athletic Club beat Betis 2-1 and the Madrid derby finished 3-2 to Real Madrid. Patreon.com forward slash TSFB is where we are for most of the week, by the way. If you want Spanish football content, we do loads of content over there. A bonus pod every Thursday, a Q &A pod every Tuesday. There's a newsletter out for patrons every Monday as well. loads of content from€4.75 a month.

4:35Come and join us. It's even cheaper if you get annual membership. Sydney, loads of talking from me there. Let's hear about the Madrid derby, which you were at last night. Real Madrid beating Atletico Madrid 3-2. It was a terrific game in terms of a spectacle for the neutral, which these games often aren't. What did you make of it?

4:54Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, it was fun, wasn't it? And that was the most striking thing that was fun. I thought we saw some pretty good things from both teams, actually. I thought we were talking about it yesterday at half-time in our WhatsApp group, saying this isn't terrible for our moments. They probably should have scored goals. I also felt it was a first-half performance from Atletico Madrid that kind of showed the way against Real Madrid. And the underlying for me, if you like, is how Man City got it wrong, which is that you can resist Madrid up to a point. You can allow Madrid to come up to a point. And if you can overcome that first little wave of pressure, then the pitch opens up.

5:29Phil Kitromilides:And I thought Atletico Madrid managed that part of the game really, really well, creating chances, working their way through, scored an absolutely gorgeous first goal, really, really good first goal. And I actually thought, I mean, it's such a well-worked move. And it's the kind of move that, as I say, is that once you can overcome that first wave of pressure, the pitch opens, you use the ball well. Now, they had to use the ball really, really well to take it. And then it turned into a really fun game. I actually thought it's true that Atletico Madrid's second goal from Nao Molina came out of almost nowhere.

6:01Phil Kitromilides:But it's an absolutely brilliant, brilliant strike. They almost got a third when they were 3-2 down when Julian Alarev, almost out of nowhere, swings one against the post. And possibly you would say that Atletico Madrid didn't, in fact, definitely didn't make enough of the fact they had a man more for the last, what was it, 20 minutes or so. But it was a lot of fun. Very, very good performance, I thought, from Vinicius. I thought Trent Alexander-Arnold, who didn't start, came on and played 20 very, very good minutes. I think possibly the best minutes I've seen him play for Real Madrid. Brahim, I thought, had a very good game again.

6:34Phil Kitromilides:And I thought a couple of players didn't have very good games. And for me, the standout player who didn't have a good game was Jose Máximénez, who came on at half-time and I thought was surprisingly poor. Yeah, it was almost comic. He made sort of an error for the second Real Madrid goal. He almost injured Alexander Sorlot as well, trying to help out in the attacking final third as well. And yeah, they looked pretty ropey at centre-back in the second half. David Hanjko as well wasn't brilliant for Atleti in that second half either. There was a red card, Sid, Fede Valverde was sent off. I was surprised when the red card was shown.

7:17What did you think?

7:19Phil Kitromilides:I think it's not a red. I think it's fine for it to be a yellow. I thought this was a game in which... There's three decisions that people are talking about, a potential penalty at each end, one that's given to Real Madrid, one that's not given to Atletico Madrid, and the red card. I think probably the two penalty decisions are right, and I think the red card probably isn't right. But I'm going to follow Simeone on this. Simeone was asked about this, pushed on this a little bit post-game, and he said, I'm not going to talk about this because this isn't the reason we lost. And I think he's right.

7:47Phil Kitromilides:It's not the reason they lost. Yeah, good on him. All right. Let's talk about some of the individual performances. You mentioned Vinicius played well. He scored twice. He's had a very good week last week, obviously scoring twice in Manchester as well. Kylian Mbappé was on the bench for this game. He came on in the second half. As you said, Brahim started. And that was a bit of a surprise because we actually thought Kylian Mbappé was going to start Alvaro Arbeloas, leading us to believe that Kylian Mbappé was 100 % fit. He trained normally, played some minutes in Manchester. We thought we were going to see him, but we didn't.

8:18Was this Arbeloa just giving continuity to a system that had worked pretty well with Vinicius and Brian Diaz up front? Or is he just trying to ease Mbappé back gradually or a bit of both?

8:31Phil Kitromilides:I think exactly. I think both of those things are sort of true. I think it's more true that he's easing Mbappé back than he's giving continuity. Because I think however much continuity he might have liked to give back, if Mbappé had genuinely been 100%. And if he had a couple of games with 20 minutes to get himself to 100%, then I think he would have started. I think as well, there is a degree, at the very least of this being in the back of their minds. I don't think it's the forefront of their decisions. A degree of saying to France, he's not completely ready. Don't go giving him two 90 minutes here.

9:01Phil Kitromilides:Don't go doing that. And I also think it's because with Mbappé coming off the back of injury, they could make this decision. They could make this decision. I think it's going to be very interesting to see how he manages the return of Mbappé and the return of Bellingham when they are fully, fully fit. because I think he's had really good performances out of Brahim for the last couple of games. Now, Brahim's a player who actually, I think, hasn't done very much this year, hasn't had the chance to do very much this year, but the last couple of performances have been very good. And Abolo talked about him in quite an interesting way.

9:30Phil Kitromilides:I think there were two things he said that I thought were interesting. One was that he described his position as false nine, which I must admit I wouldn't have described it as, but I thought, actually, you know what? There's an element of truth in that. And he was there and then he was vacating that place. This is the thing that was really interesting to me. He was vacating that place for Feddy Valverde to take it. and then taking Fedde's place on the right. And those two were swapping over. And Fedde was much, much higher up the pitch, which is something that Xavi Alonso had tried to do in the Club World Cup.

9:54Phil Kitromilides:And we hadn't seen very much of until the last three or four weeks with Fedde being much higher up. The other thing that Abelhoa said about Brahim that I thought was interesting was he said, I'd had a conversation with him and he couldn't, I couldn't allow him to be satisfied with not making mistakes, with just playing a decent game. You know, a decent, good game, no mistakes, nothing wrong. this is a good performance. Because he's saying that he's a player that if you forgot him on the pitch, you want him on the pitch because he takes risks. And you want him to have the willingness to take the risks because that's when he can have a genuine impact.

10:27Phil Kitromilides:And I think actually what we've seen, because of him being higher up the pitch, because of him being closer to goal, because his close touch and control in the round, the error is good because his final pass is good. That's where he can actually be genuinely useful. Trent Alexander-Arnold wasn't in the starting 11, Sid. He was left on the bench. Danny Carvajal started at right-back. And Trent was on the bench, reportedly, because he was late to training earlier on in the week, and this was a repercussion and a punishment for that. Alvaro Arbeloa failing to 100 % confirm it, but sort of at the same time confirming it as well with his responses.

11:02Sid, I've been watching this game. I get the feeling that this was actually like, it's quite a big triumph, this for Arbeloa. You know, his idea, his sort of system, bringing in Thiago Pitac starting with Brahim I know he came off and leaving Trent on the bench all these things it feels like this is a really really big win for Abelhoa

11:25Phil Kitromilides:I also think it's a really big win and I think one of the reasons this is a big win is that it also feels like a pretty big shift here's the time here's the time to be honest and hold up our hands and say that a month ago we were looking at Abelhoa and thinking he's out of his depth we were looking at Abelhoa and thinking that his decisions felt like decisions that were done to put out fires rather than because of a true commitment to what he was trying to do. So you had Mabahal Hazamon gets a game, doesn't play very well, they lose. You have the situation with Mbappé where it felt like he didn't really know what was going on, that France and Real Madrid were in different places and that it felt a little bit like Mbappé.

12:04Phil Kitromilides:And Madrid might have been in slightly different places, actually. You felt like the discussion of Vinicius, I want everyone to give the ball to Vinicius. And then a couple of games later, why do we keep giving the ball to Vinicius? We saw the poor performances of Hausson. We saw, I think, a sense that it wasn't really convincing, that we thought he'd found a formation to protect the back four, which was the three muscular athletic midfielders, Charmeni, Valverde, Kamavinga. And then he broke that up. And with Thiago, I thought at least, and I was definitely wrong on this, it felt a little bit like he was trying to make a point.

12:39Phil Kitromilides:Here's a youth team, a Cat's player, trying to make a point. And I wasn't convinced that he was truly behind it. But, you know, he's truly going to force this through. And I think what we've seen in the last few weeks, beating Guardiola's team, beating Simeone's team, beating, who else has he beaten? Mourinho's team. Now, admittedly, the second leg against Mourinho's team wasn't very good. But beating Mourinho's team, I think has, and in all of those, there being elements of what he did, which surprised the opposition manager. Elements of what he did that suggested a manager who's thought things through, planned things, executed things well, in a way that, in truth, a month ago we wouldn't have said.

13:16Phil Kitromilides:A month ago, I felt, quite honestly, and I have to be honest about this, I felt that he was a reactive coach trying to deal with problems rather than having an overall vision that looked a bit weak, that looked a bit, as I say, reactive, it looked a little bit like he was saying, oh, that guy's annoyed, tell you what, I'll give him a game. That's how it felt. And I think with the vantage point of three or four games on and the kind of games they've been, And the success that he's had, and I think it was actually a relatively simple, for example, the approach he took to Manchester City, but it worked.

13:46Phil Kitromilides:And tactically, he got the better of Guardiola. That's a reality. And I think we're looking at now and thinking, I think what this does is it doesn't just win these games. It doesn't just reinforce him in our eyes, because our eyes are irrelevant, really. I think it reinforces him in the eyes of the players. And I think actually trying to be nice to the players isn't always the best way to get their respect. Being shown to be right is a better way of getting their respect. And I think he's in a far, far better position than he was as recently as two or three weeks ago. Atletico Madrid, obviously this game was far more important to Real Madrid than it was to Atleti.

14:20Real Madrid still just four points behind Barcelona. We still have a title race on Atletico Madrid out of the title race, but they're still in with a chance of claiming silverware. They've got the Copa del Rey coming up on the 18th of April. They're in the quarterfinals of the Champions League as well. Is this a damaging defeat for them at all?

14:39Phil Kitromilides:No, I don't think so. I think it will hurt a little bit. And I think the way that they failed to really carry the game to Madrid until the last 10 minutes will have hurt a little bit. I think the performance from Jimenez will be a little bit of a concern. I think they will have been made aware again of something they already knew was a problem, which is that defensively on the left-hand side, they're vulnerable. I think the return of Mark Poubile will be important to that But I don't think this really does many damage I think this shows that they can make things happen I think it was another illustration of the improvement of Julian Alvarez as well Which I think is really important I thought he was involved in a lot of the game He did a lot of the good things There were some very nice moments from Llorente And from Simeone, whose assist for the first goal is brilliant You had the dynamism of Lukman.

15:31Phil Kitromilides:I thought you had patches from the middle of midfield, which were okay from Koke and Cardoso. So, no, I don't think this does do them a huge amount of damage. And I think you're right. They absolutely didn't need to win this game. Which isn't to say they didn't want to, by the way. I'm not making this very clear. But they didn't need to. No, no. I totally agree. And also, the starting 11... By the way, Phil, another thing. Yeah? Sorry, just briefly. Is it possible that in terms of Atletico's genuine interests, losing this game was the best result for them. Because if they had won this, Barcelona are seven points clear.

16:04Phil Kitromilides:Barcelona can then maybe take the risk of resting some players to be ready for the Champions League games against Atletico Madrid. As they now have Real Madrid only four points behind them, they can't take the risk of resting any players for the Champions League game against Atletico Madrid. One of which, by the way, one of the league games is actually also Atletico Madrid. So I wonder if this is actually, in a weird and slightly perverse sort of way, a good result for Atletico Madrid. Brilliant, Sid. That's why you're the best. That's why you're the goat, Sid. Come up with these brilliant theories.

16:37Yeah, interesting. Very interesting. Anyway, with that, Philip, maybe I should tell you that today's episode of TSFP is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN. Now, you guys know we travel a lot covering Spanish football, following Spanish teams around Europe, in the Champions League.

16:51Phil Kitromilides:Or going to three league games in a weekend. Maybe going from Obie the other way down to Staville. Maybe. The best way to make sure you've got access to all your content from back home is using NordVPN. And we'll be using it this summer when we head to the US and to Mexico for the World Cup. Whether it's keeping up with the football, TV shows or movies, NordVPN lets you access your subscriptions back home wherever you are. And it's very easy to use, which is really important if you're incredibly tech savvy like some of us are. Yes. It also improves your internet security, which is important if you spend a lot of time using public Wi-Fi, like at train stations and airports and hotel lobbies.

17:27you know, those places where I spend pretty much 90 % of my time. You connect with just one click. It's one of the fastest VPNs around, and you can use up to 10 devices with one account. For more information, you need to head to nordvpn.com forward slash TSFP.

17:42Phil Kitromilides:And there's a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you get four extra months for free. So what's the link again, please, Phil? You can find it in the show notes. It's nordvpn.com forward slash TSFP. Get in the game with the college-branded Venmo Debit Card. Wreck your team with every tap and earn up to 5 % cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance. Just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo Debit Card at venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA. Select schools available.

18:20Phil Kitromilides:Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max$100 cash back per month. Two teams, one cup. The primetime stage is set for the TGL presented by SoFi Finals, Los Angeles Golf Club versus Tigers Jupiter Lynx. Keep up, it's playoffs. Tune in Monday, March 23rd, 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2, and Tuesday, March 24th, 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN and on the ESPN app. My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink, then straight to the gym. Pre-K pickup, back home to meal prep. Time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius, got to keep the lights on. When the three alarm hits, I'm ready.

18:58Phil Kitromilides:Celsius. Live. Fit. Go. Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com.

19:09All right, let's move on and talk about Barcelona beating Rai Vallecano by a goal to nil, the only goal of the game scored, a header from Ronald Araujo in the first half. They had a few other chances, and Rafinha, but mainly in the first half, Rafinha hitting the woodwork and he was also through on goal and missed. But Rayo had a higher XG in this game. They had more opto-defined big chances created in this game and sweet Lord, they should have scored. I do not understand how they have not found the back of the net in this game, although I do understand because they can't bloody score. Anyway, we'll talk about Rayo in just a second.