An affirmation

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1:08Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Football Podcast. I'm Phil Kittromelidis, joined as ever by Sid Lowe. Hello, Sidney. Good morning, Philip. A weary, bleary-eyed Sid Lowe, who had a very, very, very, very, very late night. Not because he was celebrating in Oviedo after their return to the Primera at home when they played Real Madrid last night. There wasn't too much to celebrate because they lost 3-0. But still, there would have been a good atmosphere in Oviedo because it was working till 7 o 'clock in the morning. Yeah. Yeah.

1:38Phil Kitromilides:And then tried to have a couple of hours sleep before we did this. Yes. Last week, we recorded at 6 in the morning because of all sorts of issues. This week, Sid's gone one better, stayed up till 7 a.m. working and then done the pod a few hours later. Anyway, hopefully we'll be coherent enough for you guys to understand what we're on about when we talk about what happened on match day two. Here are the match day results then on Friday night. Beshi's got their first win of the season. They're playing for the next couple of seasons at the Estadio de la Cartuja in Seville by the Benito Villamarine.

2:09Gets done up. They beat Alaves by a goal to nil. Giovanni Lo Celso scoring the only goal of the game. He's going to be important for them while Isco is out injured. Then on Saturday, Mallorca and Celta drew 1-1. Atleti and Elche also drew 1-1 at di Metropolitano. More on that in just a second. And Barcelona came from 2-0 down at home to Levante, sorry, away to Levante, to win by three goals to two. The winner coming in injury time, a known goal from a Laminia mal cross. And then on Sunday, Osasuna beat Valencia by a goal to nil ante Budimir, scoring again with his head. First goal of the season for him last season.

2:49He scored 11 headed goals. Absolutely incredible. Osasuna, more headed goals than any other team. And Tebudemir with more headed goals than any other player. La Real were 2-0 down at home to Espanyol at halftime, but they came back with two goals in the second half. Finished 2-2. Villarreal absolutely spanked a very sorry-looking Girona side. 5-0. They were 4-0 up at halftime. And then Real Madrid beat Oviedo 3-0 at the Estadio. Carlos Tartiere yesterday. Two games on Monday, Athletic Club against Rio and Sevilla against Getafe. Now that the season's well underway, don't forget to join us over at patreon.com forward slash TSFP.

3:29There's more content than ever. Patrons get the Monday and Friday podcast without any adverts. Plus, there's the Q &A pod and the bonus pod every week. There's the newsletter for every patron, the Discord access, the WhatsApp community. You can join us from just €4.75 a month. We started our new TSFP diary as well last week, so make sure you listen to the latest entry in that. Sydney, let's talk about last night then. Oviedo 0 Real Madrid 3. We'll talk about the game in just a moment, but tell us about the experience of being back at the Estadio Carlos Tartiere for the first La Liga game there since 2001.

4:07Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, and the last time they played a La Liga game there, it was also Real Madrid. As an example of how far, how long it's been, how far they've fallen. When they played Real Madrid in 2001, Real Madrid had Raul, Santi Salari, Steve McManum and Roberto Carlos playing for them. Actually, those are the names that don't sound that long ago to me, but then that's because I'm an old man to most of our listeners. That will help to illustrate how long ago it was. And they have actually played Real Madrid since then, but it's been Real Madrid's C team. The last Real Madrid team to go to the Carlos Tatiana was Real Madrid.

4:38Phil Kitromilides:would see in the midst of the share issue in 2012 when it looked like Raul Oviedo were going to go out of business. So yesterday was a huge occasion and a really special one and it was a huge occasion that in a way didn't require them to win. It didn't matter that they lost 3-0. I mean it did obviously but it didn't matter and everybody around the game, the ground before the game, talking to friends, talking to colleagues in the media as well, everyone's talking about this is something to be enjoyed and with the hope being that Real Oviedo can go and compete and I suppose you could argue that they competed in both halves in two very different ways without ever looking like they're as good as Real Madrid and which is inevitable um but the the atmosphere was fantastic it was completely packed the city was packed it was blue everywhere there was a real sense of this as being a an affirmation and an affirmation of the fact that Oviedo are here it's not just about Oviedo being in the first division it's about Oviedo being around at all and and in that sense it was it was brilliant all right tell us a bit about the game then you said Oviedo competed in different ways in both halves uh Kylian Mbappe scoring a really nicely taken goal to give Real Madrid a one nil half-time lead then he scored again then Benicius who came off the bench to score as well we'll get into some of the um issues of Real Madrid's starting 11 because there were some pretty big talking points there but tell us how you thought Oviedo competed well Well, so what we did in the first half was to go to five at the back, which we all thought was a possibility.

6:04Phil Kitromilides:So there was three central defenders and two wide. And I thought that they managed to more or less keep Real Madrid at bay. It was a little bit like what we saw in the Osasuna game in midweek. It was. But I felt that Oviedo really, really struggled to find a way out. So you're watching them occasionally having to go long, but not really having the strength or more than having the speed for someone to kind of really challenge Real Madrid or to make Real Madrid feel under any pressure. um Solomon Rondon was bringing the ball down I actually thought did a really good job in that particular role but unless you've got people going beyond you it's it's not going to happen they had a chance after seven seconds oh yeah though yeah uh and it was a deliberate set play from the from the kickoff I actually thought Ilya Schaida had um didn't dare to put his foot in when perhaps he should have done um Madrid I thought were pretty good with the ball I thought they moved it quite well I thought they were they were creating a couple they created a couple of semi-good chances, but Oviedo more or less kept on my arms blimp.

6:57Phil Kitromilides:But there was a sense to me of Oviedo being too deep, too under pressure, too much in a position where there just isn't a way out. And inevitably, this can only end one way. When it ended, they actually gave the ball away with a challenging midfield. And it was the first time really that Oviedo got turned and Madrid scored. And I guess this is a bit like last week. And, you know, it's a truism, but it's also a reality. that that idea that in the first division, the mistakes you made before in the second division that you sometimes got away with, you don't get away with, especially not against a team like Real Madrid.

7:29Phil Kitromilides:And so Oviedo, they were 1-0 down. And then the second half, they went to four at the back. They took the game to Real Madrid. They went for Real Madrid a little bit more. I wouldn't say it was all out attack by any means, but they went for Real Madrid a lot more. Paunovic, the coach, said that that would always be the plan to resist up to a point and then to expand and to add a winger in to take one of the central defenders out and to go for them. I suspect it probably happened a bit sooner than he was planning because they were trailing and they did create chances. At halftime, just before the second half was about to start, we had one of these pitch side interviews with David Costas, the centre-back for Ray Loviedo.

8:05And he sounded like, and he looked like, they'd just got an absolute bollocking from the manager because he felt a little bit like, oh yeah, we haven't really been in it. We haven't really done what we wanted to. We haven't really had the ball. Let's see. We're going to go to four at the back now. Let's see if we can do something a bit more in this second half. But it was interesting to see. It felt like someone who's, you know, you guys have been told off by the manager because that wasn't necessarily the plan. Obviously, you could play with five at the back. Obviously, you sit deep. But I think the plan was to try and have the ball a little bit more, which didn't necessarily work.

8:36Let's talk about this Real Madrid starting XI then because it was very, very eye-catching when the team news dropped to me just after eight o 'clock. You see Rodrigo is starting. Vinicius is on the bench. Mastuantono is starting. And Dani Carvajal starts ahead of Trent as well. Rudiger coming in back from suspension ahead of Vermilitao as well. Loads of interesting points in that starting XI. The headline being, obviously, that Rodrigo starts ahead of Vinicius. What did you make of that?

9:03Phil Kitromilides:Well, I made of it at the risk of sounding conspiratorial. And I do try and avoid the conspiratorial side of things. The risk of seeing this in political terms, in terms of the market, in terms of the pressure on both the manager and the players. I did see this as more than just about changing the structure of the team and more than just changing the personnel. I did see it as a message to Vinicius that still hasn't renewed a new contract with Real Madrid and those contract negotiations not in a great place, to Rodrigo who hasn't played until now. And although everyone is trying to say he's not on the market, absolutely is on the market.

9:35Phil Kitromilides:I think it was about trying to reinforce Xavi Alonso's authority, but also, and here's the big contradiction in that, this felt a little bit like a club decision as much as a managerial one. And I think if we, I think so. And I think if we rewind, but here's where I back away from what I've just said. It felt like that. We rewind 20, a bit more than 24 hours. And Shabu Ilhan said I've made a real point in that pre-match press conference of saying the decisions are mine. And because he was asked specifically about what happens with Rodrigo, what happens with the departures, what happens with the future.

10:08Phil Kitromilides:And I thought this was about decisions more than about just this game. it was about messaging. I think it was about shot windowing. I think it was about all of those kind of things. And I think for Vinicius, it's also about performance. Vinicius scored at the Tati the other day last night. It's the first away goal since October in the league. I saw a nice stat from Okta. They started doing stats in 2006-2007. Vinicius is only the second player ever during that time to come off the bench and get booked, score and assist in a game. Actually, no, he's the first player to do it twice. There we go.

10:47He's done it twice. Coming off the bench, scoring, assisting and getting booked. He did all of that when he came on in the second half to replace Rodrigo. Did Rodrigo do enough to convince Xavi Alonso? Because what we're hearing is that Xavi Alonso says that if Rodrigo is going to stay, then he's going to play on the left. He's not going to play on the right. The right's not his spot. There's other people to play. There's got Brahim, there's got Mastantano there. Ardo Gula could even play there. That's not where he wants Rodrigo. Rodrigo's spot is on the left, and he has to compete with Vinicius for that place.

11:18Yeah, absolutely.

11:19Phil Kitromilides:I mean, you could even argue that you've got Trent for the right-hand side if you need it as well, given that we don't know what's happening with him. More on that in a second. Yeah, more on that in a second. Exactly. Right, OK, so let's go back to what I was saying about Real Oviedo and the way they approach this. So both Rodrigo and Vinicius played in the same position, but in very, very different contexts. So Rodrigo's playing with this defence sitting incredibly deep and no space. and having to go at the defence and sort of having to find a way to find a little bit of space where there is none, where I felt Real Loviello were under too much pressure, did feel like they weren't in the game, but also were largely denying Real Madrid the space to run into.

11:57Phil Kitromilides:Vinicius comes on when Real Madrid have gone from five to four, where Real Madrid have gone from, sorry, where Real Loviello have gone from five to four, where Real Loviello have gone from sort of being very deep, curled up in a ball, hoping you don't get hurt, and they're stepping out. So Vinicius is now running at a backpedalling defence into space. So when you judge these two performances, it's really easy, I think, to say, well, Rodrigo didn't do very much. Vinicius scored a goal in the assist. Yeah, but the context is totally different. And I actually think within that context of a pretty tight defence, I thought Rodrigo did OK.

12:25Phil Kitromilides:I didn't think his performance was bad at all. No, it wasn't a bad performance. Things didn't necessarily come off for him. Although there were a couple of times where he did cause some danger and there was a cross into the box, which caused all sorts of problems, chaos in the shot from Adagula. And Ardegula, I think it was, cleared off the line from Luengo. Yeah, there was that kind of scramble and it was him that had made that happen. The few little bits of openings tended to have him involved. Yes. OK, I said we'd talk about Trent being on the bench because Danny Carvajal, you and I were discussing, do we think Danny Carvajal comes straight back into the starting XI?

13:01And we both thought, and Al as well, we were all saying, yeah, probably not, but not far off. Well, no, he came straight back into the starting XI, played almost the entire game. Trent got a couple of minutes at the end and it does feel like Danny Carvajal is first choice and Trent can maybe play some games if Carvajal needs a rest, if there's three games in a week or if Carvajal gets injured, which does often happen with Danny Carvajal. But still, that seemed like quite a big statement.

13:28Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, and as you said, in terms of the discussion we had before the game, in a way, what that tells you is that Carvajal's return to the team is not a surprise at all. The The surprise was only that it happened quickly, that it happened this early. I think we all think that if you're looking for a right-back, and you're talking as well about what you always refer to as jerarquía, that ascendancy over your teammates, that impact on the game, that competitiveness, that sort of nasty bastardry that Dani Carvajal has, which I think is really important for Real Madrid. There's no doubt that he is a better choice than Trent Alexander-Arnold, if that's what you're looking for.

14:05Phil Kitromilides:and then this opens up that question to us what exactly is Trent's role going to be? Now in a way when we've talked so much haven't we about the absence of a playmaker deep and we sort of wondered if that might mean that Trent ends up sort of tucking inside from an anomaly right back position enables them to have that passing range from a sort of semi-central midfield role and that's looking now like it probably won't happen because Arda Goula is playing that deeper role because the right side of the midfield because you've now got Mastantuono, because you've got Brahim, although he's not actually been able to have a huge impact in these two games, although he does provide the assist, I suppose, for Vinicius in this.

14:44Phil Kitromilides:It now looks like there's even less of an obvious place in the team for Trent than we thought because we thought there might be an evolution that puts him in. And I think this suggests to us that actually, shall we, honestly, thinks, no, I want my right-back to be the right-back and the right-back that it's always been. And, well, here's the thing for you, right? This sort of isn't an issue, is it, at the moment? Like, it's just assumed that, yeah, well, Carvajal's better than Trent. Certainly in Spain it is. Carvajal's just better than Trent is. And that's kind of it. It's not a particularly big deal.

15:16Yeah. And he's the captain and he's a Real Madrid legend. Exactly. Everyone loves Carvajal. So, yeah, obviously he's going to start.

15:22Phil Kitromilides:Yeah. This episode of TSFP is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN. Now, you guys know we travel a lot covering Spanish football, whether it's heading to the States for the Club World Cup. if it's another free game weekend, whatever it is, a Monday night maybe, somewhere in Elche or somewhere random like that. And the best way to make sure you've got access to all your content from back home is using NordVPN. Yeah, I know that Al used it when he was away this summer and so did I, in fact. He did and he said it was very easy. You can keep up with the football. Let's just say, for example, Ray Loviedo, Sid, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

15:57For example. You can use it for TV shows, movies. NordVPN lets you access your subscriptions back home wherever you are.

16:05Phil Kitromilides:And it's really easy to use, which is really quite important. If like us, you're not particularly tech savvy. We are not tech savvy. And basically, even we could use this. So yeah, that just shows you. It also improves your internet security, which is important if you spend a lot of time using public Wi-Fi like Sid does at train stations, airports, hotel lobbies all the time. You know, those places where I am basically 95 % of my time, yeah. 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, which is useful. For more information, and this is really important, you need to head to nordvpn.com forward slash TSFP.

16:50Phil Kitromilides:Hang on, Phil. I'm just making note of this. That was nordvpn.com forward slash TSFP. That's right, Sydney. nordvpn.com forward slash t sfp sierra has all the best active and outdoor brands you need from athletic stuff like a full court pickup game swish to athletic stuff like a half mile stroll get those steps in and for morning hikes up the mountain trail good pace to nighttime ghost stories from the camping chair What a twist. Whatever level of active, Sierra loves it all. Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it.

17:32Phil Kitromilides:When you're 7-Eleven's hottest fire chicken sandwich, people think you're intense. Well, yeah, I'm hot! Oh, yeah, intense. Want to see if you can handle the heat? Then try me. With pickles or spicy mayo and jalapenos. Oh, and it's all just$4.99. That's a deal almost as hot as I am. Almost? Sweet? No. Spicy? See for yourself. $4.99 and only at 7-11. Valid through 825.26. Participating stores only while supplies last. Visit store for full terms. Okay, let's move on and discuss what happened at the Ciutat de Valencia Stadium on Saturday night as Barcelona came from two goals down. They've done that quite a few times under a handsy flick.

18:14Coming from two goals down to win matches. They left it very, very late. that injury time goal, an own goal after a ball in from La Minha Mal. It took a while to get going in this game in terms of scoring. I thought Levante were very well set up in this first half. And are there worrying signs for Barcelona that the offside trap isn't quite working as well as it did last season? Or it might take a little bit of more work this campaign because Levante managed to break it a few times.

18:49Phil Kitromilides:Look, the short answer to that is yes. But I'm a bit reluctant to fall into the trap of saying yes and then discovering that in a couple of weeks' time, they've fine-tuned it a little bit and everything's working fine. I think one of the things that should be said in this is that Barcelona caught Levante offside quite a few times in this game. I haven't got the stats in front of me, but it was relatively high. I think it might have been seven, but it was relatively high. Of course, you only need to be caught. You only need to get it wrong once, and then everything is damaged. And I think this is part of the issue here.

19:18Phil Kitromilides:The high line, in a way, there's a tendency for us to focus on that because it's so obvious, because it's so clearly in our face. And there is maybe a risk of overplaying it. But when you watch a game like this, you think to yourself, you can't overplay it. Because this is the key, single most significant element of this game, certainly in terms of Barcelona's defensive vulnerability. Again, it might be oversimplistic, but I think both of us look at Barcelona and think the departure of Inigo Martínez has a big part to play in this. He's the one that timed that line. He's the one that pulled other players through it.

19:46Phil Kitromilides:He's the one that got it stepping up at just the right time. I think that Flick, well, we saw this actually after the Inter Milan game last year when they got knocked out. Now, they didn't really get knocked out because of the high line, but they did concede goals that they felt like they shouldn't. And he talked about improving that defensive side of the game. Now, you can't just take a team apart and talk about it in individual atoms as if they're not connected, as if they're not part of the same context, that, you know, this is the defence, this is a midfield, this is a forward line. And particularly with Barcelona, that high line implies the forward line pressing.

20:15Phil Kitromilides:It implies the midfield stepping in. It implies the other team not being able to release the pass. And so it's a collective hole. It's not just where is your back line. It's where is everything. How quickly do you put the pressure on it? All those kind of things. But at the moment, that's not quite right. And the thing is, by nature, it's a risky approach. By nature, it only needs to be slightly wrong, to be very wrong. And it actually only needs to be slightly wrong perhaps once or twice in a game for you to pay for it. Now, Barca have so much quality going forward. And part of that quality is about the structure.

20:45Phil Kitromilides:And part of the things that they do very well are about the structure. And the risk they take, if you do that risk assessment, it's worthwhile. But of course, if you can come back and say, oh, it's fine. You scored three goals. You can't be in a position where you always need to. We were speaking quite extensively about the perceived defensive issues that Real Madrid had last season. And the goals that they conceded. Barcelona conceded more goals than Real Madrid last season. It's just that they scored 102. So that kind of... It's partly a choice. Exactly. It's partly a choice. And the choice was absolutely vindicated last season.

21:21Phil Kitromilides:And actually, that particular element of it, the defensive line, I think they do it brilliantly. Or they did do it brilliantly. But you're right that the early signs this season are it's not quite so good. Listen, I think Barcelona deserve to win this game. I agree with you. That's true. It's worth not forgetting that. Yes. They had 82 % possession. They had 26 goals in this game. But let me just flip it and give you the stats from the other side. Because with 18 % possession, and stats can tell whatever story you want them to tell. But 18 % possession, Levante had a higher expected goals than Barcelona and created more big chances, opt to define big chances than Barca.

21:58Six big chances created with 18 % possession. Listen, they're not the first team to have played defensively, broken really well and caused another team problems. But I would look at those numbers and be, broadly speaking, a little bit concerned from a Barcelona perspective. And I'm sure the manager is.