Flipping in colours

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1:42Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of TSFP. I'm Phil Kittram-Aledes doing the Spanish Football Podcast with Sid Lowe. Hello Sidney. Hi Philip, how are you? I'm OK. Now tell me, have you been travelling hundreds of miles all around Spain in the last 48 hours watching different Spanish football matches? Yes. I was in Barcelona on Saturday and Elche last night. Good. Barcelona against Atletic and Elche against Real Madrid. Do you fancy telling us all about it? Good idea. Yes. All right, let's do that then. This is what happened on Matchday 13. It all kicked off on Friday night with a Valencian derby at Mestaia.

2:17Valencia beating Levante 1-0. Brilliant bicycle kick from Hugo Duro. Hard Hugo with the only goal of the game. Big win for Valencia. Levante are in trouble. Then on Saturday, Celta won 1-0 at Alaves. Barcelona beat Athletic Club 4-0. Big win for them on their return to the camp now. That was primarily why Sydney was there. Real Sociedad came from behind to beat Osasuna 3-1 at El Cedar. Osasuna in problems, I think. and Real Sociedad are certainly on an upward trajectory. And Villarreal, it's their best ever start to a league campaign. They beat Mallorca 2-1 at the Estadio de la Ceramica. They're having problems in the Champions League, but domestically they're going very well indeed.

3:03Villarreal currently sitting in third spot. Then on Sunday, the TSFP derby between Oviedo and Raya Vallecano inevitably finish 0-0 between two sides who cannot bloody score. but we'll potentially talk about that in just a second. Betis drew 1-1 with Girona. Isco making his comeback from injury after three and a half months out and immediately providing an assist. Betis coming from behind, they were trailing, to Girona. Anthony getting a late red card in that game, which means he will miss next weekend's derby against Seville. Atletico Madrid beat Getafe 1-0 at the Coliseum. I'm going to stick my neck out and say this was a bloody awful game.

3:45I was commentating it, didn't enjoy it, but I knew it. I knew it was going to be like this. It was always ever going to be like this. And it was won by an own goal with seven minutes to go. Atletico Madrid getting a little bit of fortune, but Diego Simeone says you need to have luck as well if you're going to win things. And Elche 2, Real Madrid 2, an absolutely thrilling game at the Marti V, the Estadio Martinez. The Marti V. Yes. Monday Night Football is Espanol against Sevilla now have you joined us over at patreon.com forward slash TSFP yet you really should have, I've been telling you to do so for years, patrons get the Monday and preview pod absolutely free of adverts, plus you get a Q &A pod and a bonus pod every week, there's the newsletter, the discord and the TSFP diary it starts from just€4.75 a month there are annual memberships too which are a little bit cheaper and they are the perfect Christmas gift for the La Liga lover in your life.

4:41So why not get involved in that? Listen, Sid, you were at the two big games this weekend and Barcelona against Athletic Club, it was a big deal because Barcelona were back at the Camp Nou 909 days later. We kind of dealt with your feelings of being at the new stadium in the TSFP diary, which is a brilliant edition of the diary. Even if I say so myself, Sid has excelled himself once again with some some brilliant work there so go and listen to that at patreon.com forward slash tsp because it's worth it but I think we'll start with Elche against Real Madrid because I think there are more things to break down from this game and then we'll move on and talk about the actual game of Barcelona against Athletic Club so Elche 2 Real Madrid 2 Elche I mean we've been going on about them for quite a while now that they're you know brilliant to watch Real Madrid are not brilliant to watch at all, Sid.

5:39No. No, they're really not. I'm very conscious of trying to... Or at least I'm conscious of not allowing Elche to be forgotten in the crisis talk with Real Madrid, in the analysis of Real Madrid, because Elche were genuinely brilliant. Before we get on to Real Madrid, just a very quick put this up at the very top. Elche were fantastic and completely deserved more. Should have beaten Real Madrid. It finishes 2-2. Elche scored two. Lovely goal. Real Madrid scored two goals from set plays, which isn't to say they're not valid. They are valid. They scored two goals from set plays, both of them very scrappy.

6:14Both of them, in my opinion, a little bit ropey in terms of the decision as well. And in that sense, I think Real Madrid got away with it. So, having said that, let's get on to Real Madrid. I sort of don't know where to start, except to say that what we talked about a month ago, maybe a little bit more when we were talking about the beginning of what we thought was a structure when we were talking about a round of the team pressing a little bit higher a round of the team not allowing the other teams to have opportunities not allowing the other team to really get into the game having more possession that possession not necessarily being used to really go and attack teams but being used to control games with and actually even that part of it is gone so earlier in the season when we were saying that we were saying you know they're not that exciting they're not creating very much, but they feel like they're just superior to their opponents through control.

7:08And they don't have that now. I thought they had very, very little last night. It was a very strange line-up where they played two left ball backs, albeit it's true in the end that it wasn't actually a five-man defence, which we thought it might be. It was Fran Garcia literally playing a left wing. A position where you have Mbappé and Vinicius and Rodrigo and even Bellingham. Got Fran Garcia playing there. The absence of Fede Valverde, obviously he'd been on international break. Vinicius had been on international break as well. I think you can make a case for that. They're going to Olympiakos in midweek, although that in theory shouldn't be the big game for them.

7:45They probably felt that they could get a result anyway against Dolce. Maybe they could have done with those players. This isn't a case of them losing because of this team. It feels like something a bit deeper than that. What is it then? Well, it's lots of things. it's difficult to put your finger on one particular thing. I think it is players not necessarily fulfilling the roles that are being given to them. I think you saw moments yesterday, and I know this is a bit tongue-in-cheek and it's a little bit silly, but I just got sent a video about 10 minutes ago of an Elche attack, and Real Madrid's players are turning and running back to goal.

8:20And so is the referee. And the referee is going faster than the Real Madrid players. Now, I know, obviously, it's a bit silly, but actually, as a portrait, it's relatively useful. And I think that we're seeing a team that isn't getting to the ball quicker than the opponents. We're seeing a team that doesn't seem to have a structure the way it did, that isn't, to use that great word, that we always come back to, Contindente. You know, it's not decisive in its actions. It doesn't win the challenges and get rid of the ball. I feel like it hasn't quite worked, the attempt to bring Goula slightly deeper to allow Bellingham to be a bit further up.

8:57that's broken, if you like, that connection between Goula and Kylian Mbappé. Mbappé, who had two really good chances in this game. And we shouldn't overlook that. Two really good chances, both of them saved by Iñaki Pena. One of them, I think, Mbappé overhits his touch and therefore runs out of space. The second one is an all right side-footed volley, but he still should score. And it's a very good save. But those are his two shots. He actually had another one, I think, earlier on. Having not had any shots in the previous two games, I think they're not finding him as much. They don't have presence in the penalty area.

9:25They don't really seem to have control across the middle of the pitch, although they just about won the possession battle in this. I think it was 51-49 or maybe 52-48. But they just don't look alive. They don't look inspired. They don't look quick. They don't look like they're enjoying it, but nor do they look like they're prepared to suffer, if you see what I mean. Well, I mean, when it's like this, when this is the overall picture, it's hard not to let your mind drift towards blaming the manager right of course yes of course absolutely um and or blaming if you like a broader question which is about the culture of the club the the mentality of some of the players but of course it's the manager's job to help build that culture now obviously within some very significant difficulties at club and things like for example uh shall we also wanting what we talked about in the summer lots and lots of times wanting the number five that he didn't get wanting subi mendy we've talked about a million times it's such a no-brainer that it still seems quite bizarre.

10:23Things like, for example, after the Clásico, when you've beaten Barcelona, where players have put in a performance like that. Admittedly, a performance that I think with hindsight, maybe we overrated at the time. I think there's a possibility of that. But it was intense. It was quick. They were getting to the ball first. They beat a team that we thought were really good. And then you get the substitution with Vinicius. Now, I am reluctant to elevate that to this enormous status that it was elevated to. For this to be the thing that completely occupied everything but it is true that there was a moment in which I felt that Xavi Lançois's authority wasn't reinforced in fact I think the opposite and so that because if we're going to talk about kind of internal cultures if we're going to talk about breakdowns if we're going to talk about relationships if we're going to talk about managers getting the best out of their players all of those things even if they're only small ingredients play a part in that I was going to say nobody played well for Real Madrid yesterday.

11:21I would say that Kylian Mbappe, he did at least look as if he was trying. He was giving it a go. Had two really good chances, which he should have scored, but didn't. He hasn't scored for three consecutive games. He scored 50 % of Real Madrid's goals this season. And I know, OK, to be dependent on arguably maybe the world's best player or certainly one of the best players in the world, one of the best goal scorers in the world, is not in itself too problematic. But, I don't know, Vinicius hasn't scored for seven games. Jude Bellingham is not as comfortable as we thought he was going to be. Rodrigo is just a shadow of a player that he once was.

11:5829 games without a goal. I mean, you know, it's ridiculous. I mean, everybody seems to be falling apart. I bet you mentioned about Ardegula. He's fallen by the wayside and his position shifted a little bit. Even Dean Howson, who started so promisingly, he's... Yeah, it's... I was a little bit sort of dismissive, and I think we both were a little bit laughing at the fact that after the 0-0 game with Raya Vallecano, there were literally headlines saying, are Real Madrid in crisis? And obviously, they're not in crisis. They're one point clear at the top of the league and the highest-rated Spanish team in the Champions League.

12:35But there are now serious questions being asked about how this team wants to play, because at the moment, and in Spanish there's this great phrase, este equipo no juega a nada. They don't play anything. I mean, and they're not. They haven't really played anything all season. And at the beginning, we were giving them benefit of the doubt. You said they were boringly good. They're just boring now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And it is quite difficult to try and come up with either a solution for that or even a proper explanation as to why it's happening. um Chameau Alonso was asked yesterday why has the team fallen yeah and fallen has a has a slightly different nuance in Spanish but basically the same thing you know why have they fallen off why have they fallen away he says they haven't fallen he says they haven't fallen we're still competing we're still okay and um you know what's the explanation he said well football and of course that's part of the problem yeah the explanation is football the lack of yeah yeah Trent by the way I thought Trent yesterday was like quite actually shockingly bad in his overall performance like and, you know, a couple of decent balls in, that's what he does.

13:42Overall, I was, you know, this was his chances, back from injury starting, few chances for other players as well in this game. But I was looking at Trent and thinking, mate, this is, you're not going to succeed if you play like this. No, and the day before, Xavi Lonzo had said something that I thought was quite striking. He'd been asked about Trent's position and, you know, whether he's ready now and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, obviously with Carver Hall out and with Fede Valverde having, in theory, to fill in the midfield, but then he didn't start. So that ruins that theory. But, you know, that was the theory because Chouameni was not fit.

14:16But Trent definitely starts his time. And Alonso said, but there are other options. He said, you know, Asensio can play there and who's the other one he mentioned? And Militao can play there. And I just thought to myself, wow, in terms of the management of a player who already feels a little bit like, hang on, this manager is choosing people ahead of me, like Ferdy Valverde, who shouldn't be ahead of me because he's not a fullback, even when Carvajal's not available. And now he's throwing two more men into the mix. And kind of emotionally, I wonder how that is with Trent, who I think is quite a quiet presence in the dressing room.

14:50I don't think he's someone who's going to kind of, you know, enforce himself upon everyone and take control. And I think you're right. I think there were a few moments yesterday where we saw some of what he can do. There's a really nice sort of flighted diagonal quite early on. the ball into the box for the Mbappé volley is his. I looked at the figures last night for him and his figures in terms of what he did with the ball were actually quite good. But it felt vulnerable every time Elche attacked him. Jermaine Ballera had the beating of him every single time. Every time. I think the stat on...

15:25I don't know what you call it. I think it was called ground jewels in the stats that I read. He only won one of seven. That's not enough. a fullback. A fullback, you know. Praise to Elche, but it's a way to Elche, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Yeah, I mean, and as I say, the proviso at the start for me was Elche are really good and I really do not want to just dismiss them, but we're talking about Real Madrid. I mean, yeah, Elche are, yes, yes. Elche are a breath of fresh air and they are an exciting team and they are a newly promoted side who Real Madrid should be able to find a way past.

16:02And almost did, by the way, even playing badly, you know, because they still have, you know, players where things drop. You take a couple of dead balls and they're well delivered. And even if both goals are a little bit fortunate, and as I said, I also think a little bit ropey, both goals. But, you know, it happens. Listen, I don't want to be too sort of dramatic, but I actually thought that was a pretty worrying performance from a Real Madrid perspective. Yes, I agree. It was outplayed by Elche. by Elche. Both of the Elche goals coming from former Real Madrid canteranos, Aleix Febas and Alvaro Rodriguez with an unbelievably good finish.

16:36Aleix Febas, low-key. He's a good player, isn't he? I mean, we mentioned him as the one to watch in the TSFP newsletter a few weeks ago. He is a really, really good player. Really good. He's actually the player that's run the most in La Liga this season. He literally covered the most metres in La Liga. So it's Aleish Febos, and you can believe that. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you look at him and you look at Affengruber at the back. And we were doing this team in midweek early last week. We were talking about the team of the season so far. They're both really strong candidates for that. Affengruber, by the way, is the player with the highest number of recoveries in the opponent's half in the whole division, Sid.

17:16That's amazing for a centre-back. I mean, Affengruber, centre-back of Elche. Yes. Yeah, brilliant. Anyway, really well done from Elche and not great from Real Madrid at all. The good news for them is that they're still top of the league. There is still plenty of time for them to get it together. But the last three games, the defeat at Liverpool, the 0-0 draw with Rayo and the 2-2 draw with Elche, a little bit worrying. Yes. Imagine buying your kid a toy only to find the batteries aren't included or buying furniture but missing the tools to build it. Frustrating, right? Now imagine the exact same feeling, but you're paying way more.

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19:05New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60 % off brands like Rag & Bone, Levi's, Adidas, and Free People. Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favourite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. All right, let's talk about the game at the camp now. And like I said, I don't necessarily want to dwell too much on returning to the stadium because that is what you talked about in the TSFP diary. Barcelona beating Athletic 4-0. This game, it was marked a little bit, I feel, by Unai Simon being really not very good in the Athletic goal.

19:55And we've spoken about that in today's newsletter because the first two goals he really has to be saving. But he didn't. And Robert Lewandowski, Bobby Lu, scored his 109th goal for Barcelona. And then Ferran Torres scored just before halftime. and then they scored just after halftime to make it 3-0. Ojan Sanse gets a ridiculous red card and ridiculous meaning stupid, ridiculously stupid challenge from him and it was game over. Athletic shot themselves in the foot here because they contributed to their downfall massively. But what did you make of Barcelona's performance, Sid? I thought there were some standout performers, not least.

20:32Shall we talk about him? Eric Garcia, mate. Eric Garcia. I thought it was a midfield masterclass from him. He started in the heart of midfield. Yeah. Well, we talked about this on Friday, didn't we? We were saying we didn't know what the line-up would be in midfield. We weren't sure what the solution would be. I don't know. I promise you I'm not lying. I promise you I'm not lying. I don't know if we said Eric Garcia, but as we were talking on Friday, I was thinking, I wonder if Eric Garcia will play there. I can't remember if we actually said it or not. We might not have done. No, we didn't say.

21:00We said Marc Casado would play and Fermin and Dani Olbo would be. Did we? Right. Okay. Well, there you go. I promise you I was thinking of Eric Garcia. But anyway, his performance there was brilliant. Really brilliant. His timing, his positioning, his understanding of the game. He, you know, you were talking a minute ago about low-key players of the season or low-key players that get in the 11. He's 100 % in it. The only problem is you don't know which positions put him in. He's made three positions this season really well. This was his best, I think, honestly. Better even than his performances at full-back and at central defence.

21:30I thought he was absolutely fantastic. I thought Fermin alongside him was brilliant. I thought Olmo wasn't, to be honest with you. obviously Laminya Ma was brilliant as well but I think you're right I think we need to I don't really know what to say about Eric Garcia because the reason the thing about Eric Garcia is he's been so good all season and yet you sort of still feel like he's still a player that Flick wants in the team but kind of really wants him in the team where he needs him rather than where Eric needs to be if you see what I mean I don't know I think he's first choice centre-back OK I do I think he probably is.

22:08The first choice set. Yeah. I think you're right. He probably is. He played in midfield today, well, on Saturday, because there was no Pedri and there was no Frankie de Jong. Yeah, because there was no Pedri and no de Jong. It was the first time since the 30th of March, 2023, that they'd been without Pedri and Frankie de Jong for a league game. I didn't know that. That's pretty striking, is it? So neither of them there. And as I say, the thing for me was that ability to always... So one of the things that, obviously, I mean, look, this is going to sound really, really obvious, but bear with me because I think actually sometimes when you watch a game from higher up, it kind of, when it keeps happening, you start thinking there's something here.

22:46So every time that a Barcelona player got in trouble and there wasn't a way out, suddenly Eric would be standing there. Like there's your little pass, give it to me. Every time that Eric looked like he didn't have a way out, he would either pause and allow a defender to move out of the way or turn and find a way out. And I think for me, the thing that really struck me about him was that when it looked like they were crowded, he was the one, there's a lovely Spanish phrase for this, he was the one that oxygenated the football. He was the one that gave them, oxygenated, anyway, you know, oxygenated, gave it air, gave it breathing room all the time.

23:23Obviously, oxidised tends to mean rusted, doesn't it, in Spanish, which is a different player. But it was, I thought it was brilliant, And it was brilliant in an understanding way. I don't think we saw a single outrageous pass from him or a single outrageous run from him or a single thing that he did brilliantly. He just did everything so well. He just always found the solution to every time they were either crowded or every time they needed a pass or every time they needed to open the pitch out a little bit, give people that breathing room. I thought he was fantastic. fantastic absolutely fantastic good completely agree um can we uh just delve into the area of polemic a little bit we don't like to do this usually it's because of the reaction of constantly being bombarded by um hyperbolic debates on spanish media anyway but did you listen to uh just a very brief one sorry the the there was one of the spanish radios did this thing about lumina marlin is and his hip issue or is this where you're going um no potentially no okay Oh, OK.

24:32Just to say that Laminya Mahler has a brilliant game. And rather than talking about that, the radio, one of the radio shows I listen to literally spent 45 minutes shouting at each other about his pubis issue again. I don't care. We've heard it. Stop it. Is that where you were going? Let's move on. So.

24:52No, I mean, yes and no. He did play well. He provided two, I mean, he did play well, yes. And he provided two absolutely extraordinarily good assists. The second assist is amazing. The second assist is a joke. It's an absolute joke. He's a genius when he does that. He played 90 minutes, Sid. Oh, he shouldn't have done. I do agree with that. Well, maybe he should have done. I don't know. I'm not the doctor with his, I haven't got his groin in my hands, you know. Pardon the mental image. but I'm not the one tending to his groin. So I don't know the management of it but yeah, there is a bit of me, I sort of agree with it.

25:34There's a bit of me that it does, you do sort of think a little bit, you didn't go with Spain but you just played 90 minutes when you're 4-0 up. You didn't really need to. Against 10 men. Against 10 men. At home. Yeah. When you're going to play Chelsea in the Champions League in two, three days. Well, I assume by the way, but I mean, bear in mind that this is an important point actually. Barcelona are going to play Chelsea in the Champions League. Not the Spanish national team. So if Barcelona have played him for 90 minutes, it's because Barcelona believe he can play Chelsea for 90 minutes. So this isn't the same as flogging him for 90 minutes and then thinking, ah, it doesn't matter if he doesn't play for the national team.

26:10Sod them, is it? No, no, no. Exactly. But I mean, this is the context. You know, you play all these minutes and then you've got a really big game coming up. I suppose the counter-argument might be that maybe this shows that the, what was it called? Radio frequency treatment really works. Invasive radio frequency treatment really works. Anyway, I'm asking it honestly. I was flipando as they say in Spanish. Flipping. Flipping in colours. Flipping. Quick word on athletic and not very good. What about Nico Williams? I mean, he scored a lovely goal against Oviedo, but he did hasn't been his season at all, has it?