A chaotic goal, in the rain

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1:49Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Football Podcast. I'm Phil Kittramilidis here with Sid Lowe, ready to talk about what happened in Match Day 11 in La Liga EA Sports. Hello, Sidney. Good morning, Philip. In fact, it's not morning, is it? Sorry. Good afternoon, Philip. Should have been morning, but somebody was very busy writing to record in the morning, so we're recording in the afternoon. You just finished writing, which is good. Literally just been sending it as we logged on, yeah. Yes. Okay, this is what happened on Match Day 11 Friday night. So Getafe continue their extraordinarily impressive start to the season, beating Girona 2-1.

2:22Girona remain bottom of the table and their very, very poor start to the season continues. Their manager, Michel, is really hanging on to his job by a thread, I would suggest. Then on Saturday, we saw Villarreal beat... Oh, no. Atletico Madrid beat... I enjoyed that. I think we should do that every week that Raya lose. Villarreal beat Raya by a kind of 4-0 at the Estadio de la Cerámica. Atletico Madrid beat Sevilla by three goals to nil at the Metropolitano. Real Sociedad won a frantic Basque derby 3-2 against the Athletic Club. And Real Madrid thrashed a sorry Valencia side 4-0 at the Bernabeu.

3:05Sunday, Sol Celta Vigo score in injury time. They were very close to an eighth 1-1 draw of the season. but they scored in injury time to win 2-1 at Levante. Alaves be Espanyol by the same scoreline. Barca beat Elche 3-1. Wasn't necessarily as comfortable as the scoreline might suggest. And Betis overcame Mallorca 3-0. Two brilliant goals from Antony, who also assisted in the game and really, really, really should have had a hat-trick. Monday Night Football comes to you from the Estadio. Carlos Tartiere at Soviedo against Osasuna. Sydney is hoping to be there. So we better get this podcast on the road, Sid, because you certainly need to get on the road.

3:43There is so much content over at patreon.com forward slash TSFP. TSF patrons get the Monday and the preview pods on Friday absolutely free of adverts. They get a Q &A pod and a bonus pod every week. There's the newsletter, the TSFP diary and the Discord. You can join us from just€4.75 a month. It's a terrific value if you like Spanish football. Let's start then by talking about the Basque Derby, Sid, which you literally just finished writing about. a couple of minutes ago. It finished 3-2 to Real Sociedad, a 92nd minute from a winner from John Gorrochategui. La Real were 1-0 up in this game, and then they were 2-1 up in this game.

4:24They thought they'd gone 3-1 up in this game, but it was ruled out for offside. Then Athletic pulled it back to 2-2, and then that injury-time goal all played out in the peeing rain of the Basque Country, which is how all Basque derbies should be played. But yeah, tell us about the game and what you've been writing about. I've been writing essentially about what you've just said. The idea that this was a Bass derby the way it's supposed to be. And it was a Bass derby that was won the way it should be. Like a kind of chaotic goal in the rain where there's a million bodies in the area and it drops to someone who's six yards out.

4:55And he cracks it as if his life depends on it. A real kind of, real have that of a finish. You know, real take that you bastards. Partly because the ball drops to Goro and his first shot is awful. That is a really awful shot that he strikes really badly. Somehow he's lucky that it bounces through all the bodies in the area to Mikel Oya Thamel, who turns it back in. And he suddenly sees this thing sit before him, and he kind of runs steaming onto it like a stampede and absolutely levers it into the top of the net, which is a way that you should do it. He used that lovely Spanish phrase after he said, I hit it with all of my soul.

5:29The truth is he actually hit it with his shin, but that doesn't really matter. And that kind of made it almost more perfect. And obviously the significance of this is the fact that it's the Bass Derby. I didn't know this at first, but I've seen the statistic now. You know, it's the first time anyone's ever won a Bass Derby and it added time at the end of the game. No, really? Which just feels completely counterintuitive, doesn't it? It feels like the kind of thing that should be happening all the time. So it makes that even more special, that this feels like the way a Bass Derby should end, and yet it's never actually happened.

6:00And then obviously on top of that, the other element to it, the really important dimension for Real Sociedad is that they had a terrible start to the season. They'd only won one of their first nine games. This now means that they've won two in a row, three in a row if you want to count the Copa Rey game. And a feeling, I think, for Real Sociedad that something shifted. In fact, Gorov said at the end of the game, the weekend, he described it as being a click. We have clicked. Something has fallen into place now. And he said, I quite like this line. And obviously it's partly because it's appropriate post-derby.

6:34He said, we've still got some things we need to get right in footballing terms, but now we go to war in every match. Oh, that's a nice line, isn't it? I guess that made it into your piece today. It certainly did. Yes. You know what was funny, actually? I sort of enjoyed it and I included a bit more of these than I normally would. But I was going through the local papers, you know, the Saint-Sébastien-based newspapers and the Bass-based newspapers. And there's so many kind of really excitable lines. And I thought, ah, too many of these are too good. And there's one where someone uses the old Eduardo Galliano comment that, you know, the only orgasm allowed in modern life is football goals.

7:15And this is that moment. And, you know, someone else describing it as being like, if you could measure it on the Richter scale, this was an earthquake. And just this kind of very, very, very excitable stuff because it was fantastic. and if you're not allowed to get excited about a Basque derby, what are you allowed to get excited about? Yeah, I mean, a slightly questionable comment there from Eduardo Galeano. Anyway, it's a really terrible start to the season for Athletic Club or certainly they started very well and then they've just fallen away completely. Four wins from 11. They're 11th in the table.

7:52They're trying to balance the Champions League as well. Obviously, they've had players missing. They've had injuries in Nyacki Williams, Nico Williams, but they're just not clicking at all in this season, at all. No, and at the risk of labouring a point that we've made before, they knew this was potentially coming. They knew that they were a team based, not entirely, but to a very great extent based on their physical intensity, based on always pressing high, based on not allowing you to breathe. And they aren't finding a way of doing that with the two competitions, with the big injuries, and particularly the injuries.

8:27You've had the two Williams brothers injured. You've had moments in Sunsetters either not being on form or not being available. You're right. They just don't look like a good team at all this season. There was a real relief when they beat Karabakh and a feeling that they'd given themselves a chance to continue in the Champions League because there's that kind of sense of building towards it for 10 years, then almost immediately it going away from you because they played two teams that, in truth, were just too good for them, going away to Dortmund and playing Arsenal at home. So they go away to Newcastle this week.

8:56And I think there is a feeling that, you know, you could do with a point or something there. But the way they're playing, it's very, very difficult to imagine them getting a point. And then you're in a position where you basically have to beat everyone that you could beat. Now, PSG are coming. They probably won't beat them, but they would have to win the other three games. And Newcastle lost to West Ham. So, I mean, you know, at the weekend, that could give Athletic Club a little bit of hope there because, you know, nobody loses to West Ham at the moment. alright that was the Barça derby for more on that go and read Sid's column which should be up by the time you're listening to this to this podcast we should talk about Real Madrid beating Valencia 4-0 Real Madrid of course are now top of the table still top of the table five points clear of Barcelona looking pretty good I mean the context of this is that they're up against the Valencia side who look genuinely shambolic and they're going down and they were probably going to change their manager because that's what they do It's just the cycle.

9:52The new guy comes in. They bounce back. They move up the table. Relegation is no longer on the cards. And then they fall apart. We'll get to Valencia in just a second. But Real Madrid, comfortably, comfortably better than Valencia. All eyes were on Vinicius Juniors. He started. And he got a pretty good reception from the Bernabeu, right? Sid, you were there. I was asking you to listen out to see if you got any whistles or anything. I thought he might get whistled a little bit because the Bernabeu crowd are very demanding. They've got certain standards. and gesticulating like he did in the Classico wouldn't have gone down well with a lot of them.

10:25But actually, it was fine. Yeah, it was fine. Nothing whatsoever. Not even that run-run that you like to talk about. There was none of that. I think it was a game, you're right, they were in a difficult position, I think, both Vinicius and Xavi Alonso, because this was a game where everything they did was going to be read as a message. Even the things that weren't a message, which of course means that the things they did were messages, because they were having to be really careful about how they did them. I don't think it was chance. Again, this is maybe me reading into it. This is maybe me being guilty of exactly what I'm talking about.

10:58I don't think it was chance that Alonso took the opportunity to take off Kylian Mbappé and Vinicius together. I don't think it was chance that Vinicius gave Alonso a hand slap as he went off the pitch. I don't think it was chance that Vinicius was given a lot of minutes but was also taken off. Because I think everybody knows that whatever you do is going to be interpreted, and therefore you need to be very careful about how it's interpreted. I thought he did play pretty well, Vinicius, but I thought he was actually probably the least impressive of their attacking players. I thought both Bellingham and Mbappe had better games than him.

11:33Arda Goula, I don't know if you'd call him attacker, but he provided another assist for Mbappe, that sixth this season. And you were saying this in the context of Valencia being poor, and I absolutely agree with that, but this was the best I'd seen Real Madrid play. And I thought what they did, I thought what they did that was interesting for me I don't know, is it interesting the right word? Yeah, I suppose so. At least the thing that caught my attention was that they play really quite good football. I wouldn't necessarily say they were sparkling or massively exciting, if you sort of mean. But what they were was they just didn't give Valencia even the slightest hint of ever having a chance.

12:10At no point did they allow Valencia out. At no point did they allow Valencia basically to get out their own third, let alone their own half. They created plenty of chances. They won it 4-0. they could have scored more. But it wasn't like a huge avalanche of chances. It was more just that sense of total domination, of complete superiority all the way through the game. They missed a penalty, obviously. Vinicius missed that and more of that in a minute, if you want, because I thought Alonso's reaction was very interesting. And I think the way that Madrid played suggests a team that is clear now about what it wants to do.

12:44I think it's very clear. I think the starting 11 is pretty clear as well, apart from the one position on the right-hand side. That's up for grabs and that might be changed a little bit in terms of the opponent. But generally speaking, I think we've found the starting XI now for Real Madrid and Xavi Lonzo has as well. I don't think there's going to be too many more experiments or surprises when we see the starting XI. Two goals for Kylian Mbappé, one for Jude Bellingham. Absolutely brilliant hit from Jude Bellingham and one for Álvaro Carreras. Stunning way to score your first goal for Real Madrid from Carreras.

13:18Go on then, talk a little bit about the penalty, which came when Real Madrid were 2-0 up. Mbappé had already scored a penalty, he was on a hat-trick, and he let Vinicius take it. Yeah, and the reason I want to bring this up, and again, at the risk, and I fully hold up my hands here, I'm literally doing it on screen now, at the risk of going into that trap of interpreting and reinterpreting things, but I actually thought that what Xavi Alonso said post-game was quite clear-cut. So Mbappé takes a penalty and scores it. he's on the hatch, as you say, he gives the penalty to Vinicius, which on the face of it is a good gesture, and it's a gesture of solidarity, and it's a gesture of teammates, and so on.

13:51But bear in mind that the issue here is more about Alonso and Vinicius, not Mbappé and Vinicius. Vinicius misses the penalty. Post-game, Alonso is asked about this, and Alonso says, well, the penalty taker is Mbappé. The number one penalty taker. The number one penalty taker is Mbappé, and he put on the board, and he said, and then on the pitch, things happen. Decisions are made. and he doesn't look entirely impressed by that but if that had been it that might have been sort of, you know, it kind of gets forgotten. But then he's re-asked Alonso and Alonso is asked do you like the fact that players kind of take decisions sometimes there's this auto gestion, what would you call that in English, kind of self-management of the players and Alonso says I'd have liked it if we'd scored the penalty Yes yeah Mbappé scored the first I would have liked us to have scored the second yes Mbappé is the first penalty taker now I don't know about you maybe I'm reading between the lines too much I thought that was very very pointed yeah but I thought it was quite well handled as well yeah I thought it was well handled but it was very pointed I thought the point he made was made very very clearly I thought yeah I agree briefly let's talk about Jude Bellingham because he was really good in this game he scored in three consecutive matches it was a brilliant goal that he scored in this one as well but it's not just that he scored a fantastic goal it's everything that he's doing he's physically looking like an absolute monster he you know what he looks like someone who was playing with his shoulder strap and in pain for 18 months and now he's had surgery and he feels great and he's charging all over the pitch um looking unstoppable physically I don't want to be a smart ass but we kept saying didn't we why isn't this operation happening you know because he's playing and that strapping yeah I think most of our listeners will have seen that or at some point seen it, it was a big, heavy strapping, really quite a limited strapping.

15:42And that's before we even get into the question of how much it might be hurting and all the rest of it. But I think you're right. I think he looks like someone who's finally thrown off those physical problems and looks really strong. I'm going to take slight issue with one thing you said. You said charging all over the pitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, one of the interesting things for me, and actually I asked Xavi Alonso this after the game. I heard you asked. It was a very good question and a very interesting answer. Because I'm very taken by this. is that Xabi Alonso has repeatedly used the word efficient to refer to Bellingham.

16:12And, you know, as they say in Spanish, part information, part, what's the word? Interpretation. Opinion. Oh, yeah, that's right. Sorry, yeah, informatio no opinion. Yeah, sorry, not interpretation. What am I talking about? Anyway, I feel very clearly that that is partly because Alonso, what he actually doesn't want is Bellingham to be everywhere. You know, he doesn't want Bellingham to be trying to do too much, try and be all over the pitch. And essentially I asked him, I said, look, I wondered if you could explain to us what efficient means to you. Is it a case of trying to get Bellingham to not necessarily be all over the pitch, but be in those parts of the pitch where there's a productivity to what he does?

16:52And his answer was sort of yes. Actually, what I thought was interesting was he talked about, it's about the position in which we can give him the ball. and it suggested a structure that was about feeding Bellingham and very much seeing him as someone who can provide the final pass because we get the ball to him. In other words, effectively saying to Bellingham, don't come looking for it. Don't come and get it. We'll take it to you. And of course, what that requires is structure. Now, here comes my interpretive part of it. I think essentially what it is, is Bellingham should be running less but running better.

17:29And I think we're seeing that. I'd like to know the kilometre stats to be able to back it up. It would possibly turn out to be complete nonsense. But that's the eye test I've got anyway. OK, I'll try and have a look for some of those and let you know on the next podcast. But yeah, Jude Bellingham, very impressive in Real Madrid. Very impressive 4-0 win over Valencia. Valencia, as we said, Sid, are in all sorts of trouble. I was listening, you guys were there, you and I were there. I was listening to Carlos Corbaran's post-match press on the radio. there were some very tense moments in that press conference and there was some really sort of aggressive questioning to him.

18:08Just extraordinary. And I was sitting next to Al kind of digging in the ribs going, are you listening to this? One of them was the kind of question that you ask, you know, that you ask a politician who's been caught with his pants down, you know. I mean, it was, or, you know, a politician who's completely crashed the economy or something. It was, the question basic was, are you not ashamed? and it was are you not ashamed that your team is terrible that your team is this that and the other and there was two people in a row who both used their questions to not really offer questions but to tell him how shit he was yeah and how shit his team is and it was you're right it was incredibly aggressive um and one of them by the way i thought was very interesting because one of them the question was essentially you know aren't you embarrassed by how bad you are when you go away and play against big teams because of course they conceded six at barcelona and they had just conceded four at the Bernabeu.

19:01Now, if Corboran had wanted to, I mean, he could have turned around and said, listen, you bellend, literally the last time we came here to the Bernabeu, we won. But he didn't. He was very restrained. He didn't, no. He was a lot more polite than I am. Definitely didn't use the word bellend at any point during that press conference. But yeah, Valencia are in trouble. He might have wanted to. They're in the relegation zone next up for them. They're at home to Betis this weekend. And then after that, they've got the Valencia Derby against Levante after the international break. So there we go. Trouble in Valencia.

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21:25Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18+. All right, let's talk about Barcelona beating Elche by three goals to one. And first things first, let's talk about your monumental and magnificent and extraordinary prediction on the preview pod. You said that Elche would have more possession than Barcelona in this game. And they had 51 % possession, Sid. They did. They literally had more. I just crept under the bar. Yes, yes. But I mean, we kind of knew it because we've seen Elche play.

22:07You know Eder Sarabia very well. You know how the manager wants his side to play. He's consistently said that, I'm not going to change how I play. It doesn't matter where we go. He said it pre-match. She said it right before kick-off as well. And indeed, Elche came with a very brave way of trying to play. And they found themselves 2-0 down after 11 minutes because they made two really clear individual mistakes, which were punished ruthlessly by Barcelona. Laminya Mal with the opener, Ferran Torres scoring the second. But Elche kept going and they were rewarded with a goal just before half-time from Raf Amir.

22:44They had a chance to make it 2-2. Rafa Mir hits the bar. And then Barcelona score. Marcus Rashford makes it 3-1 in Barcelona. Barcelona win with less possession. And I mean, I don't want to be too down on Barcelona. I don't want to be too negative on them. But I was commentating this game. And I was just thinking, you know, this is another not very good performance from Barcelona. And I went through. And apologies if you're listening to the commentary we did yesterday with Terry Gibson on the world feed. But I went through Barcelona's results during the game, trying to find the last time that they played a game and they were convincing and it was a good performance.

23:23And you could say this has been a really good show from Barcelona. And I think the conclusion was just before that, there was a 3-0 win against Getafe. That was it. That was it. And that was at the end of September because this Elche game. I mean, you know, they won 3-1, but there were lots of questions that we can get into. the Clásico against a difficult opponent, but they weren't brilliant in that. They beat Olimpiakos 6-1 and even then it's a very deceiving scoreline because there were lots of question marks in that. They needed a 92nd minute call against Girona from Ronald Araujo to win that.

23:55They lost to Sevilla, they lost to PSG, they had to come from behind against Real Sociedad, they had to come from behind against Oviedo and then we get to that 3-0 win against Getafe that they played at the Johan Cruyff on the 21st of September and they were really quite good in that and they were really quite good in the 6-0 against Valencia, which preceded in the league. But it's been a while, Sid, since we've seen Barcelona put in a really strong performance, the caveat being that they've had up to seven very important players missing. And again, in this game, there was no Pedri, there's no Rafinha, first two choice goalkeepers are out, obviously.

24:29But still, there were some really sort of glaring things that were wrong with this Barcelona side. Do you know what's one of the most interesting parts of this? that post-game Ferran Tadez said, I think we saw the Barcelona of last year. Yes. I had to live translate that. And I was, as he was saying this, I was like, what? No, it didn't make a lot of sense, did it? And yeah, this is a game where, as you say, that Elche hit the post twice. There's two really big mistakes which help Barcelona out. One, I think, is a mistake that you can possibly put down to the way they want to play, bringing it out.

25:02The other is just a slip, isn't it, really? The other is someone really unlucky just slips. I think Barcelona are scoring more goals than their football suggests at the moment I think there is a lack of clarity I think they're not getting the press right I think that even though Elche are a team that want the ball you look at how often they went through Barcelona into the space behind them it's not that they were keeping possession and Barcelona were bit by bit dropping off they were going through them when they wanted to as well which of course is what everyone's done for a lot this season those stats that you gave me just before the Glasgow was it a six, two fives and a four in terms of big chances created against them, I think in the previous four games before the Glasgow, or the previous five games before the Glasgow.