Sid's weekend off

0:07Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Football Podcast. I'm Phil Kitromilides. I'm not joined by Sid Lowe, I am joined by Alex Kirkland. Hello Al. Hello Kitro, how's it going? I'm good. Sidney has been off enjoying a magical festive weekend, celebrating life and not watching any Spanish Football. ball we didn't hear from him much did we it was an uncharacteristically silent weekend from sid which hopefully means he had a great time yeah it was pretty quiet i mean he was still watching he sort of last night he got he got active on the whatsapp with a bit of football chat yeah so he lasted a good sort of day and a half yeah i think there was sort of maybe 30 hours where he didn't watch any spanish football which is um potentially a new record for sid during the season uh but there we go.

0:55Al and I were watching Matchday 34 in La Liga EA Sports and we're here to talk all about it. Remember, if you'd like more Spanish football coverage and if you'd like coverage from the World Cup over the summer, not just about Spain, but generally the experience, come and join us at patreon.com forward slash TSFP. It's only€4.75 a month. You get a bonus podcast every week, a Q &A podcast every week, access to the TSFP newsletter, the TSFP Discord, And like I said, over the summer, that's the only place we will be podding. So we're looking forward to that. So what happened on Matchday 34? Friday was a big game at the bottom of the table and it saw Mallorca beat Girona by a goal to nil at Montelivi.

1:39Saturday saw Villarreal thrash Levante 5-1 at the Estadio de la Ceramica. Villarreal securing qualification for the Champions League in back-to-back seasons for the first time ever. Really weird season for Villarreal because they've qualified for the Champions League. They're going to finish probably third. And yet the manager's probably going at the end of the season. Very, very strange indeed. Atletico Madrid had a big win at Mestalla. They played their reserves. They made 11 changes from the side that played against Arsenal midweek. And they won 2-0 with two goals from two young players making their debuts.

2:15Really good goals as well. Really nice goals. And Valencia are in all sorts of trouble. and the fans are a little bit unhappy as they tend to be at Mistyre over the last six or seven years. Alaves looked like they might get a big win in a Barthes derby at home to Athletic. They were 2-1 up in the second half. They ended up losing 4-2. Nico Williams scoring a couple of goals provided an assist as well and a much needed reappearance for Athletic for Nico Williams. I mean, he's been playing recently but not necessarily playing like that. Then El Senar on Saturday night, Barcelona beat Osasuna 2-1.

2:53Late goals in that game. But Barcelona almost mathematically wrapping up the title. They would have been champions had Real Madrid not won at Espanyol last night. But Real Madrid did manage to win at Espanyol at the game that Al was at. Vini Junior scoring two brilliant goals. Before that, on Sunday, we saw Celta Vigo beat Elche 3-1. The mighty, the mighty Rayo Vallecano going to Getafe and scoring two goals. Unreal golazos from Sergio Cameo and Randy Nteca. A phrase that I never thought I'd say on this podcast. I was listening to him on the radio kitchen and the shock and surprise when Nteca scored that goal.

3:31I've never heard anything like it. They could not believe what they're trying to find out, like an explanation, answers for what they just witnessed. Yeah, I mean, the explanation, I guess, on second glance was that there was a relatively big deflection. Yes, still vamos, Randy. And Real Betis beating Oviedo 3-0. Oviedo are all but mathematically relegated. Eight points from safety with 12 to go. So, yeah, they are down. Monday night, it's one of the biggest games in the 21st century for Sevilla. That's how it's being built. They're at home to Real Sociedad. They need to win to move out of the relegation zone.

4:04It is massive, massive, massive. All right, let's talk about, are we going to start off with Espanol or Real Madrid? Well, listen, I was there, Kittre, that's all I would say. I was there, I was pitch sides, I was getting wet. It rained, it wasn't torrential rain, but it was sort of a steady drizzle. I didn't have a roof over my head. I discovered that an A4 piece of paper is not an effective sort of cushion to protect you from a wet bench. No, don't try that, no good at all. but it was despite all that it was it was quite fun it was quite fun what was fun about it I quite enjoyed the game actually of course you know it's a massive game for for Espanyol who are in one of many teams in that relegation battle the atmosphere felt like it it felt like a huge game for them that that was the sort of the attitude I saw from their players as well and from the coach Manolo on the touchline who was incredibly animated for Real Madrid of course Not as big, but big in a different way.

5:03This felt like a kind of a no-win situation for Real Madrid. None of the options for them were particularly good. It was either lose the league title and go into the Clasico with Barca as champions, or hang on and potentially see Barca crowned champions in the Clasico. You mentioned Vinicius Junior. It was kind of all about Vinicius Junior right from the start. It was one of those games where either he was going to get sent off or his marker was going to get sent off, as briefly happened to El Halali in the first half before that call was overturned, or he was going to go on and do what he did, which was score two unbelievable goals, not just for his personal involvement, but sort of the collective involvement as well.

5:40The first one set up by Gonzalo Garcia, the second one by Jude Bellingham. Brilliant from Vinicius Jr. Another night where he was, because of that kind of running battle he had with El Halali, he was getting whistled and getting a lot of stick from the crowd. He did again when he was subbed off towards the end. And apart from, I say from the crowd, apart from the quite large number of Real Madrid fans in the crowd, because there were a lot of Real Madrid shirts dotted around the stadium as well as the Espanyol fans. So, yeah, it was all about Vinny, except really for the post-match chat from Alvaro Arbeloa, which was really all about a player who wasn't there at all, which is Mbappe.

6:19There were five questions in the presser for Arbeloa. four of them were about Mbappe, who wasn't there, who is injured, who has been pictured in the media having fun on holiday in the last couple of days. He flew back to Madrid last night, landing around about the time the game kicked off. And that has generated quite a lot of discussion, I have to say, in Madrid. Yes, people are not particularly happy with the way that Kylian Mbappe has been behaving while he's been on holiday. He's been injured, but he's also on holiday um yeah it's i don't i'm confused kitcher i'm surprised because he's always seemed to me like a really quite smart guy who manages and controls his image really quite carefully so it just seems to me like a a massive own goal to put yourself out there in a way that you're gonna get you know paparazzi photos of yourself out there in the media and given the situation of the team it doesn't look good you know i'll blow a set off the game look you know the players are injured are supervised by the medical staff um when they've got to be at the training grounds, they're at the training grounds in their free time, they can do what they like.

7:19Well, yes, of course they can. But from like a PR perspective, don't do this. I don't know. I don't get it. I don't get it. There are ways of, if you want to get away, there are ways of doing it. I think, I think, and completely avoiding the spotlight, I think it's very strange. It is a little bit strange, yes. And it's not gone down well with an enormous section of the Real Madrid supporters. By the way, viewers on YouTube and listeners, don't start that with this. We're going with sort of Real Madrid bias that we're starting off talking about Real Madrid and dedicating the first part of the podcast to them because we're doing it because I was at the game.

7:57Yeah, that's what boys do, Kitcha, really. We tend to lead with the games that Sid is at. We've done that pretty much throughout the pod's history. So, yeah, Sid was at no games this weekend. I was in the rain at Espanyol. I'm not sure if I'd been to the RCD stadium before. It might have been my first visit, I think. Oh, really? i've been there before yeah yeah next to a uh next to a nice shopping center yeah the the environs of the stadium aren't aren't the most attractive but the state itself is is decent like i say yeah yeah like last night the atmosphere was really good um there's a sort of debate now which i'm not sure i i'm not sure i agree with but i can understand why it's happening Real Madrid played better without Mbappé?

8:42Well, what happens is, I mean, look, overall last night, they didn't play particularly well. So it's not the best game to sort of make that argument. However, the two goals they scored featured quite kind of intricate build-up play in attack. I mentioned Gonzalo, who came off the bench and pretty much with his first touch, set up Vinny brilliantly as his strike partner. The second goal with Bellingham, of course, Bellingham in Mbappé's absence can get into more advanced positions kind of positions he likes to get into so with those two goals can maybe help you make that that argument um listening to the you know the radio after the game driving back home um all the talk was about mbappe like i say his off fields antics and also exactly that you know the fact that the team have not performed in the two years that he's been in it yes he scored loads of goals and the questions are has he scored enough decisive goals in the big games or has he been sort of padding those stats by scoring goals in in all the other games like i say it wasn't a particularly good all-round performance from um from Real Madrid again um so it's not you can say oh yeah this is the answer without Mbappe but the goals like I say uh you know can point you in that direction yeah maybe it's not the team plays better without Mbappe maybe certain individual players play better I think that's that is almost indisputably true now that Vinny plays better without Mbappe or at least with more freedom or can take up exactly the positions that that he wants to take up and you see the you know when he scores goals like last night you can't help but ask yourself, would you have got into that position if Mbappe was there on the pitch?

10:10Yeah, just looking at the games that Mbappe has missed this season. One, two, three, four, five, six. Real Madrid have won five of them and scored quite a few goals as well. The only game that he was missing was that absolute horror show, the 1-0 home defeat to Getafe. They won all the other games. Yes, it is a strange conundrum with Mbappe. How can your best player make the team play worse. It's strange, but there we go. Real Madrid avoiding Barcelona being crowned champions, and it means that it'll all go down to the Classico. I say all go down to the Classico. Real Madrid win. It'll all go down to the next game.

10:52Yeah, that is possible. It means we also avoid all of the tedious passio, guard of honour talk this week. Speculation of will they or won't they. They wouldn't have. I'm pretty convinced of that, but they won't have to anyway, because it's not done yet. yeah let's not go down that route because it is a tedious and unnecessary and very very boring espanol on one of the most incredible run of sort of free fall disaster events that have results rather that i've seen uh in recent in recent years how many games is it now without without a win i think it's 16 yeah yeah that's the stat that i heard yeah i think it's 16 uh 16 or 17 It might have been 16 going into last night's game.

11:32Yeah, might be 17 now. They were fifth at Christmas. They were fifth. We've seen examples of this kind of drop-off before. Not quite as bad. Not quite as bad as this, but that pattern of a team really over-performing in the first half of the season, like almost or certainly feeling like we're good, you know, the season's great, we're kind of done, and then dropping off and suddenly having to look over their shoulders. But you're right, this might be the single most extreme example. But look, I mean, watching them last night, like I say, they've got quite a few players that I quite like and they seemed they were up for it.

12:07I don't know. I didn't see last night at least. And part of this might be the fact that Railway Street didn't play particularly well. But last night at least they didn't really play to me like a team in free fall and could easily have scored one or two goals. There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 teams, including Espanyol, really looking at tonight's game with Sevilla. And apps against Real Sociedad and desperately wanting Real Sociedad to win. Because if Sevilla win tonight, my word, that really puts a lot of teams in trouble. Because Valencia and Espanyol are 12th and 13th with 39 points. If Sevilla, who are in 18th, win tonight, they move up to 37.

12:50It means Valencia and Espanyol in 12th and 13th are just three points above the relegation zone now. Espanyol at one point this season were 18 points above the relegation zone. It is, like I said, an almost historic collapse from Los Pericos. And like I said, eight different sets of teams, or maybe seven or eight, are hoping that Real Sociedad win tonight. Huge, huge game. At the Ramon Sanchez-Bijuan.

13:20All right, let's talk about Barcelona beating Osasuna 2-1 at El Cedar. I was commentating this game. It was yet another not brilliant performance from Barcelona. It feels like in recent weeks they've kind of just been getting the job done, getting over the line, missing Rafinha, missing Lamin-Yamal, of course. Rafinha was on the bench for this game and we thought we might see him in the second half at some point, but we did not. He did not come off the bench for this game. But there were other players that came off the bench and made an impact. Robert Lewandowski scored in the 81st minute after a really, really nice cross from Marcus Rashford, who had come off the bench.

14:01And Ferran Torres had come off the bench as well. And he scored the second goal in the 86th minute. So the substitutes proving effective for Barcelona. Raúl Garcia de Arro coming off the bench and scoring for Osasuna to set up a slightly nervy finish. Somehow there were eight minutes of stoppage time. I don't know where the eight minutes came from, to be honest. It was a bit of a surprise. And Barcelona ending the game on the back foot, but getting it done. And as we said, if we looked at recent results, they've not been necessarily sparkling, but they got a really solid and decent 2-0 win at Getafe the week before.

14:38They just about beat Celta Vigo 1-0 at home. They beat Atletico Madrid, of course, 2-1 at the Metropolitano. um they had a really unconvincing one nil win against raya vallecano at home i'm not just saying that but you know these haven't been sparkling performances but they've been getting uh they've been getting the job done so yeah it's like you said they've had to grind it out and i think it's it's understandable when you mention the players who aren't available at this stage of the season the kind of football they play as well it's high energy they are you know they are tired and yes they are kind of creeping over the line but they've done enough previously so that they put themselves in a position where they can do this and they are going to do it.

15:15It's just a matter of time. So I think it's just, like I say, a combination of circumstances, the way that they play, the stage of the season. I don't think they'll mind at all. I was talking to someone yesterday about, someone close to the club who knows a few things, about Robert Lewandowski and his future. Obviously, contract is up in the summer. Will he stay or will he go? I was told that the club actually do they want him to stay there they want to give him a new contract um this person was somewhat incredulous at that because it was not necessarily yeah we talked about this last week didn't we i wouldn't be pro personally i i think it's a good time to to wrap it up but i guess if you can get him to accept you know whatever reduced terms they've offered him and he can be your coming off the bench to score goals which you would do if you would do certainly then i guess it's i guess that would be fine yeah i mean he's not gonna he's not gonna accept I think the kind of reduced terms that had maybe been leaked to the press around 6 million euros a year he's not gonna he's not gonna accept that but I think Barcelona would be potentially willing to pay a little bit more from what I'm told it's just that that figure was maybe leaked out to see how it went down which it probably didn't go down particularly well but it doesn't feel like footballistically makes a huge amount of sense but um i guess what i guess i guess you can justify it financially right because if you do let him go and then you have to replace those goals that would almost certainly cost you more in terms of the all-round package of whether you're bringing in one forward player or two forward players or whatever how things shake out cost you more than it would just keep levendofsky who will like i say definitely score you know even at this day in his career, you can guarantee the next season, even if he's playing as a, like I say, an impact, Saab, he's going to be scoring, you know, 10, 15 goals, isn't he?

17:08Yeah. It was also sort of intimated that it might be some sort of behind the scenes, maybe kind of like political goings on here. Robert Lewandowski's agent, same agent as Hansi Flick, as Szczesny as well. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe something going on there as well. But listen, Barcelona are to be champions, whether it's this weekend against Real Madrid or the following one. It is going to happen. And we've spoken about them being the best team in Spain this season by some distance. The distance at the moment is 11 points. We'll see if they can make it to 100 points. I was having a look at, well, I was having a look.

17:49I was looking at a tweet from a football statistician who was having a proper look and said after match day 34 in La Liga, 88 points is the most that a team has ever had after 34 rounds of fixtures. I mean, level with, I think it's four or five other teams. And we're talking about sort of Guardiola's Barcelona. I think Luis Enrique's Barcelona and Mourinho's team of the records. Yeah. Yeah. But this is on course for a historically good season for Barcelona. They might wrap up the title and then start thinking about the World Cup and not necessarily get to 100 points, but that doesn't matter at all.

18:32I also enjoyed the discussion of where various members of the squad were planning to keep an eye on the Real Madrid game in case they had to celebrate. You had Joan Laporta and a few of his closest directors around at his place watching the game. You had Hansi Flick wasn't fussed about watching Espanyol Real Madrid. He was off to see El Mago Pop instead with his missus, he said. I mean, almost everybody listening will have any idea what El Mago Pop is. he is a popular spanish um yeah a stage magician i've been to see him you've been seeing him he's very good i recommend it i think i have yeah a few years ago yeah yeah yeah um i wonder if hansi flick went we didn't we didn't actually get confirmation on hopefully he gets a question in a presser maybe pre-classico or just a quick kind of review of you know did he get up on stage was he sawn in half um all right so uh let's talk about um uh briefly uh atletico madrid and that two nil win against uh against valencia credit you know huge credit to uh atletico madrid yeah not a result we expected actually kittrow but should we say quick mia culpa quick apology to sid low i was we have i say we have i have mostly made a lot of fun of sid's over the course of this season, both privately and publicly for his predictions and his track record in his predictions, comparing him unfavourably, among other things, with a rabbit.

19:55Me and you did the predictions on Friday and right now we are standing on three out of nine correct, including incorrectly predicting this game. We did not expect Atleti's kids to get a result at Mestaya. So, yes, I'm sorry. Maybe we should have because in previous matches that they had lost playing weakened teams, but they had certainly competed. They lost 2-1 at Sevilla and they lost 3-2 at Elche, but they actually played relatively well in those games. And in this game, it was two players that came off the bench, Iker Luque and Miguel Llorente, scoring the goals on their debuts, which is pretty fantastic to see.

20:30I don't know if you heard the discussion after the game on the radio about this, about Diego Simeone's use or not use of the Cantero, of the Atletico Madrid Youth Academy, everybody calling you know we should be giving the kids more of a chance this is he never does and blah blah blah and it just felt a little bit like um ventajista uh yeah opportunistic opportunity you always get this of course he's not going to he's got like the the most ample squad in spanish football he's got like two good players for every position and where are the opportunities to to do this they don't well this is the opportunity and he's doing it he is taking the opportunity he has and it's worked out great so um the likes of uh javi bonyard started julio diaz started uh as well we had uh all the uh rayan playing up front and morcillo as well um i'm really impressed with obed vargas actually i had yes yes broadly speaking no idea who he was uh before he joined uh in uh in in january he hasn't had a lot of minutes it has to be said old Obed but when he has played I think he's looked he's looked really good really comfortable really confident as well we've got an assist in this game and I think statistically a lot of the statistical websites had him as the the highest rated player in this in this game your foot mobs your sofa scores your who scores how they all liked Obed Vargas and yeah I think you know he's a player to potentially watch out for in the future.

22:04I like him a lot. Massively under the radar, like you say. No real fuss when he came in. He hasn't done a lot, but I think he's been really tidy. From what I've seen of him off the pitch as well, you mentioned how confident he looks on the pitch. Of course, he's quite young, softly spoken, quite shy. Speaks very good English, by the way. His English is better than his Spanish, actually, I think. But yeah, just seemed like a really nice lad. and I think a really impressive player. So yeah, quite a steal actually for Atleti. Let's see if he gets some more minutes in the future. But yeah, you could tell, I think, you know, Diego Simeone was very, very happy with this result and very, very happy with the overall performance.

22:44And, you know, Mestalla was just, they just want everybody sacked. They were calling for everyone to go, you know, the manager, the sporting director, obviously the owner. This is the first time that they've had a CEO, by the way, a footballing CEO with Ron Gourley being brought in for some time. And it's not really worked. This is another catastrophic season for Valencia. They probably won't go down, but they might. So, yeah, I felt that this was a real chance and everybody felt that this was a real chance for them to pull away from the relegation zone. And they were pretty comfortably beaten by Atletico Madrid's B-C team.

23:23So there we go. I commentated Betis against Oviedo, Al, and the mighty Rail Oviedo started the game pretty well. They went to La Cartuja and they seemed to be playing with freedom and they were playing some expansive football and they had a couple of shots. They had two shots on target after three minutes and Thiago Fernandes was busy and big Fede Vines was doing what he does. But then Betis just have the gulf in quality in the final third between these two teams was absolutely vast. You know, Betis, who had Cucho Hernandez up front, Anthony on one wing, Ez Abde on the other. You've got Fornals and Gio Lo Celso joining the attack as well.

24:03It was really, really stark to see the difference. Oviedo tried, you know, they kept going and they might have had a penalty. Probably shouldn't have had a penalty, but it wasn't given a real lunge from old Sofian Amrabat on Thiago Fernandes. caught him, but the ball was judged to have been already out of play, so a penalty wasn't given. Anyway, I'm not going to go off on that. If Sid was here, he would speak about it, but he isn't. I thought it was nice to see Isco back coming off the bench. Always great to see. And I like how the Tannoy announcer at La Cartuja, he called him La Magia, Isco, La Magia Alarcón, the magic man coming on.

24:50He also called Anthony when he went off, Antonio de Triana, his nickname, Triana being a neighbourhood in Seville. Anthony from Triana. But yeah, it was a pretty solid performance from Betis, who were just comfortably better than Oviedo. Gio Lo Celso starting for the first time since mid-January and looking good as well, and I guess trying to play his way into a World Cup place with Argentina. And we forget that we've been critical of perhaps Betis. it's a bit like the VAR conundrum, isn't it? You know, they're going to finish fifth, probably. They may well get into the Champions League. Quarters of the Europa League, quarters of the Copa del Rey.

25:28I mean, it's a pretty decent season for Betis. And yet there is a feeling that maybe they should have done better. I guess the way they exited the Europa League hurt, you know. Yeah, you end up taking something granted, don't you? But look, we have seen Betis in a proper shambles in the last sort of 20 years or so. This is a good place for them to be. and yeah thank you for them this is one of the few predictions we got right so nice one i missed this game entirely because espanol as i said on the way there i was listening to getafe rayo on the radio kid show which i mean the way they were talking about it this game sounded like the you know the shithousery olympics basically it sounded quite quite remarkable some of the and of course we know what they do we know what the likes of agosto batalla is capable of in goal for rio it sounded like quite a spectacle i mean it was just a really quite sort of terrible game of professional football i mean it was not one for the uh not one for the purist not one for the neutral at all you know i was watching it because i you know i have to but you know you really shouldn't have been watching it because it was obviously absolutely bloody terrible and you know these are the two sides with the most yellow cards in the division and um yeah you can you could understand you could understand why yeah on the radio they were so disinterested in the game itself that they were naming a 11 of um uh footballers who share names with painters and sculptors so you know sort of velasquez and so on so that's how that's that gives you an idea of the level of the game itself yeah i um i like it when they go off on ridiculous tangents like that when a game is so bad they start you know discussing uh things like that it's it's quite funny and And if ever a game merited a discussion, it was Getafe against the Raya.

27:14Before we go, this is what happened in the Segunda. Racing are four points clear at the top after they beat West 4-2. Depo a second. They beat Leganes 2-1. Then it's Almeria a point behind them. They play Mirandes tonight. And Las Palmas a point behind them after a 2-1 win over Valladolid. Castellona fifth after they lost 2-1 at home to Córdoba. With apologies to the rest. If Racing and Depo come up, brilliant. and cannot wait to get to both of those next season. Agreed, agreed. We'll leave it there, guys. Thanks very much for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow on patreon.com forward slash TSFP, taking your questions.

27:50So make sure you join us for the Q &A podcast. And if you don't want to join us for that, then we'll do a preview pod on Friday, looking ahead to, amongst other things, El Clasico. Adios. Bye.

28:07Thank you.