Taking advantage of things that happen

0:07Hello everyone and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Football Podcast. I'm Phil Kitromilides. I'm joined as ever by Sid Lowe. Hello Sydney.

0:15Phil Kitromilides:Good morning Philip. How are you? Good morning my friend. I'm okay. I'm slightly less stressed than you are on a Monday. You're always writing and travelling and getting a train and a plane and going all over the shop, which is what you're going to be doing in about an hour and 20 minutes. You've got a train to catch. I have, yeah. Yeah, we should try and squeeze out a little podcast before you do that, right? Let's do it. Have you finished writing, by the way? Not quite, no. No, hence the sense of urgency to try and get everything done. I'm afraid so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, all right.

0:46Well, you bring it on yourself, Sid. You bring it on yourself as well.

0:50Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, maybe I do, yeah. A little bit. This is what happened on match day two in La Liga EA Sports. Obviously, certain teams were playing their first games of the season, despite it being match day two. It started on Thursday night at the Estadio Municipal de Butarquia, where Rio were forced to play a home game against Alaveste. It finished 1-1. We spoke about it on our Patreon last week. It was absolutely appalling experience for everyone who went to see it. And we talked more about that, yeah, on the bonus podcast last week. Then on Friday night, Real Betis beat Real Sociedad 1-0 a la cartouja.

1:25Nicely taken goal by Rodrigo Raquel, made the only goal of the game. Saturday saw a bit of a shock result in Bilbao. Sevilla going up to San Mames and beating Athletic Club 3-1. Athletic really shooting themselves in the foot in this game. Juli Berchice was sent off after 11 minutes. And a couple of minutes later, Unai Simon with a howler to gift Sevilla the opening goal. There was defensive problems, which gifted Sevilla a second goal and a defensive calamity which gifted Sevilla a third goal. So a big, big win for Sevilla who start the season with back-to-back wins for the first time since 2022 when they went on to finish fourth.

2:01Valencia and Celsovigo drew 0-0 and Real Madrid left it very, very late before Carlos Hespy came off the bench to score a winner at the RCDE Stadium against Espanyol who finished 2-1. Then on Sunday, Atletico Madrid and Villarreal played out a 2-2 draw, a very eventful game, a very eventful second half as well. All four goals coming in the second half and plenty of off the field and on the field drama with Julian Alvarez. More on that in a minute. Sydney was at both the Real Madrid and the Atletico Madrid games. So we'll kick off with that. Getafe beat Racing Santander 1-0. Nicely taken goal from Enes Unal after David Soria had saved the penalty up the other end of the pitch a couple of minutes before.

2:41It's his 13th penalty save in La Liga, without doubt one of La Liga's penalty saving specialists. And Barcelona, the champions, they don't have a centre forward and they don't have any problem scoring goals. They thrashed Elche 5-0 in their opening game. A brace for Fermín, a brace for Rafinha. Adeyemi scoring on his debut as well. A really, really top performance from Barca. Monday night football, two games, Osasuna Levante, Malaga against Depo. So you love La Liga. well at the very least you have a mild interest in it and you're listening to tfp which is a good decision but if you want more coverage of the best league in the world come and join us at patreon.com forward slash tfp it's just four euro 75 a month patrons get the monday and friday pods with no adverts there's a q a pod on tuesdays there's a bonus pod on thursdays and there's the new tfp daily rounding up all the headlines five days a week stories not involving the big two as well to give you a more in-depth understanding of what's going on in Spanish football.

3:41So come and join us, patreon.com forward slash TSFP. And for those of you who like watching us on YouTube, which is an increasing number of you prefer watching the podcast rather than listening to it, we're going to be launching a YouTube membership as well with some exclusive content, well, with some content available on YouTube as well. So check that out too. Right, Sydney, let's start with the games that you are at. You are at the RCBE Stadium, in the first game of Jose Mourinho in his second tenure of Real Madrid. They won 2-1. What were your first impressions of Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid part two?

4:15Phil Kitromilides:I think the first impression was that actually we saw some of the things that we'd seen before and that the shift wasn't enormous. And I guess, you know... That we'd seen before, sorry, when? Last season or in his first game? Last season and in previous seasons, more than his first spell. Obviously, all of this should be prefaced by the fact that it's only the first game and all of it should be prefaced by the fact that it's the first game off the back of a World Cup, players still not fully fit, one or two players not starting that you might have expected to start and an evolution that still needs to come.

4:45Phil Kitromilides:I think for 15 or 20 minutes, there was a kind of a sense that this was a bit more front-footed. They were pressing a little bit higher. They were trying to be a little bit more aggressive. But I don't think that is an entirely new thing in itself. I think there were games last year when we saw that. And I'm very, very conscious of the fact that for the first five or six weeks of last year, we thought structurally we were seeing changes with Xabi Alonso. And actually we were seeing changes with him. I remember at one point saying that I think they were going to be boringly good because they seem to control games.

5:13Phil Kitromilides:They seem to be totally in charge. And obviously that started to unravel and it started to unravel off the back. And we should not forget this either of them winning a Clasico against Barcelona. So that sort of 20 minute spell of Real Madrid kind of pressing a bit higher, dominating in the game, Espanyol finding it very, very hard to find a way out, which kind of impressed and which felt like it was a shift kind of culturally or mentally. That didn't last very long. Real Madrid scored the first goal, Juve Bellingham with a really good header from a very nice cross from Aldegula, who I thought played very well.

5:48Phil Kitromilides:He played nominally, at least, on the right-hand side where you would expect Yandere Mande to play, but was allowed to drift inside and get into more central positions and get on the ball a little bit more, which did mean that at times he was coming into Bellingham's kind of zone of influence, but I don't think it was very problematic. But then they didn't kind of keep that going after the goal, maybe in part because it's an actual tendency to drop off, maybe in part because the physicality is not there yet, maybe in part because those lessons haven't been learned yet, maybe in part as well because of an awareness of what they are, which is if you're 1-0 up and you're Real Madrid and you have the extraordinary speed they have up front, even without Diamandi playing, you've still got Vinicius and you've still got Mbappe, then it's natural up to a point that you invite a team onto you and you go a little bit longer.

6:27Phil Kitromilides:and I don't know how much that was a plan and how much it was just a kind of a losing of control, but I thought they did lose control of the game a little bit. Now, I think we should not overstate that. I think losing control would suggest that Espanyol were all over them. They weren't, but Espanyol had a flurry of very good chances. Well, quite good chances. And in the end, I think I probably would just about see this using the phrase that Mourinho used, which was he said, I think we deserve to win, but I don't think that Espanyol deserve to lose. Yeah, that seems fair enough. Let's pick up on a couple of individual performers.

7:04Obviously, there were six players who made their debut for Real Madrid between starters and substitutes. It is a transitional period for Real Madrid. New manager, lots of new players as well. And as you said, all of this within the context of it being the first game of the season, new players coming off the back of a World Cup, etc. etc etc um I thought you know Denzel Dumfries did pretty well at right back on that day looked pretty solid at centre back as well Jude Bellingham Sid Jude Bellingham had 10 days of pre-season he came back on the 12th of August this game was played on the 22nd of August and I thought he was really really impressive in this game you were there you were sort of pitch side and maybe you got if not a different view but maybe a more nuanced view of how he was physically he looked he looked tremendous obviously scored the goal for uh for real madrid and i think he went off after 70 minutes or so didn't he because um yeah i think he'd given given absolutely everything but he does feel like quite a jose mourinho kind of player doesn't he i agree with you and and i think i

8:02Phil Kitromilides:mean mourinho himself said that he didn't expect bellingham to play for so long uh he said he doubted whether or not to start him um and then thought that having started him he might get an hour out of him as you say i think he got about 70 73 74 minutes something like that um i think pitch side what you get actually to be honest you say is it more nuanced view in a way it's a less nuanced view because obviously the the thing that stands out about Bellingham and I hate to reduce it to this is that he's big he's big and he gets around the pitch and he makes challenges and he carries the ball and he goes at people now I think there is a slight risk with Bellingham which is that sometimes what you see with Bellingham is these runs and he's really impressive because he's got a great stride he's quite elegant despite being really big he goes into challenges he carries the ball to the edge of the area.

8:46Phil Kitromilides:I think it is true that sometimes he carries the ball to the barrier and then finding a way past the barrier is not that easy. That's natural. And so I think sometimes to kind of analyse what he does in those runs, you sort of need to see it with the pieces around it and whether it works, whether he can get to the edge of the area and then play it to someone and then get it back off them and then get into the area. And as Mourinho said, he wants him close to the forwards because he scores a lot of goals, because he gets into the area, because he makes things happen. I would probably argue that I'm not sure if makes things happen is quite the right description of Bellingham.

9:19Phil Kitromilides:Now he does make things happen. I don't want to say that he doesn't, but what I mean is I feel like he's someone who takes advantage of the things that are happening. And he's very, very good at taking advantage of the things that happens. And he provokes situations by carrying the ball to them, but that it's not often about the final touch from him. It's more that he's almost, if you like the penultimate touch and then the final touch, or he's the ball, the guy that carries the ball into certain areas. and then someone else will find the touch and he arrives in the air. And I think his timing's really, really good.

9:48Phil Kitromilides:And what Mourinho said is that he can't play at six and eight. And then he corrected himself. He said, well, he can play at six and eight, but you lose some of those things that makes him really good. And so what we very, very clearly saw from how Bellingham played and what Mourinho says is that he wants him closer to the area, which is like he was in the first season. I thought Bellingham said something quite interesting post-game. And I actually think he's partly right. I mean obviously you'd expect him to be 100 % right so I sound like a bit of a dickhead trying to challenge him on this but he was asked about this great performance he said something along the lines of I don't think it was that different to previous seasons it's just that I scored and then people look at it differently and I think he's probably got a point there that in a way we're judging him on the goals not always on the performances and I think that works both ways by the way I think it means we say well we were a bit unfair on him before because he wasn't scoring.

10:41Phil Kitromilides:I also think sometimes we're a bit over-enthusiastic about him because he gets the goal, if you so mean. And I actually think his performance level is relatively stable. That was in a post-match interview with Real Madrid TV. Obviously, Real Madrid players don't speak to anyone apart from Real Madrid TV. And it was in Spanish as well. He does post-match interviews in Spanish. Very good, actually. Yeah, very good, yeah. We should also talk about the match winner, Carlos Espí, who came off the bench. This was his debut for Real Madrid. regular listeners to the podcast will probably have an idea who he is some people though will not really have a clue who is this guy carlos sb and you wouldn't be well it would be understandable for you to not necessarily know too much about carlos sb because carlos sb was a substitute for levante for the majority of last season i went back and had a look the first time he started two consecutive games was in march yeah he was a substitute for levante and then he exploded he He scored 10 goals in the final 13 games of the season.

11:38Kept Levante up. Real Madrid sold Gonzalo Garcia, brought in Carlos Espí to replace Garcia as the backup plan B striker. On he comes. He was bought for exactly this kind of game, exactly this kind of game, and he delivers, and he delivered with a goal that wasn't just stick the ball in the mixer and let the big lump throw himself at it and let's see what he can do. It was actually quite a tidy and calm and calculated finish. This looks like a good signing, Sid. I think he's a brilliant player

12:06Phil Kitromilides:I really do and I think regular listeners from last season at least will know that we were saying this last year the back end of the season I think that he was the single most important player for his club in the whole of La Liga last season in terms of one player's impact on one club and you know obviously should we use the boxing phrase here the pound for pound thing obviously Mbappe's a bigger player than him obviously Lemine's a bigger player for him but taking him if you like as a proportion of the level he's at and a proportion of what his team is and his significance to them. I think he is.

12:37Phil Kitromilides:I'm really glad you gave us the March stat. I didn't know that, but absolutely it was that. This was a guy who, when it really mattered, rescued them. And I think, as you say as well, more than just a big lump. You know, big and strong, but uses his body very well. I think reads the game really well. His positioning is good. I thought the way that he took the goal was really cool. Very, very calm in front of goal. And, you know, I'm not going to claim this is an amazing bit of skill, but in that mix he takes a couple of touches with his right foot to get it away from Dmitrovic and then puts it in reminded me a little bit and I realize this is going to sound so overblown so apologies for it but it's the goal that came to mind of the goal that Miatovic scores in the European Cup fine in 97 is it 97 or 98 97 I think um and and I think he's a very good player I wonder is there an argument for him to play more often because of what it does to the positioning of the players around him as well.

13:30Phil Kitromilides:The problem is you can't fit all these people in. And so you say, you know, that he came for exactly these moments and that's sort of true. But I do think it's worth posing the question as to whether he should come for more moments. It was the 1998 Champions League. 98, sorry, 97, 98 season. You should know that. He was on the pitch. He was on the pitch with Mbappé and Vinicius and Diomande as well. Yes, and obviously he takes advantage of what Mbappé, because he scores a goal basically because Mbappe is trying to muddle his way through a bit of a gap and the ball runs to him. And obviously, if he's not on the pitch, the ball doesn't run to anyone.

14:02Phil Kitromilides:Goalkeeper picks it up. I still think actually Espanyol don't defend it particularly well and maybe someone could have got a foot in. So I do think that it changes the dynamics of the other players. It might free some of them up. Use that Spanish phrase that we've used lots of times, which doesn't really have a great English translation, which is someone to fix the centre-backs. Someone to essentially occupy them. And then that opens up a little bit of freedom for the movement of someone like Mbappé. Obviously, in this case, it kind of worked the other way, but it sort of comes together because Mbappé is there because SP is in the area, so he drops out a little bit and goes at people.

14:34Phil Kitromilides:I think he can be very, very useful. I like him a lot. I think he's a really good footballer. What about Espanyol? They look pretty good for large numbers of this game. Yeah, and I thought they were prepared to go for Madrid a little bit. I thought they were very conscious. And I wonder if this is an issue, by the way. At some point, will we wonder about Madrid's structure when Madrid play 4-2-3-1? Now, obviously, 4-2-3-1, on the face of it, you draw it, and there's a very obvious gap on either side of the two, particularly if the two at the top of the pitch, the wide men, which will normally be Diamande and Vinicius, don't come and fill that gap, or particularly if the two full-backs don't step into that gap.

15:20Phil Kitromilides:and I actually thought that Espanol went for those spaces and they often had players going at the two fullbacks without really the support of the two ahead of them. Obviously, Arda Gula in this case, not Diamande and Vinicius on the other wing. I just wonder if Real Madrid might need to make a slight adjustment to that. Now, a lot of the time, I personally think that 4-2-3-1 ends up really looking like a 4-4-2 in which one of the forwards is a number 10 but it sort of depends on the attitude of the wide men and I think Mourinho will be conscious of just trying to fill those spaces a little bit better.

15:52I was talking about Espanyol, Sid.

15:54Phil Kitromilides:You were talking about Espanyol, but what? Sorry, but Espanyol had identified that. And the two wide men, and Dolan in particular, was very, very active with going into that space. I liked Calatrava, who had a bit of a running battle with Vinicius. Actually, he was pretty out of order in the early minutes when he kicked Vinicius in the back. But I thought Espanyol were prepared to go for them. I thought Roberto had chances that he should have taken. There were opportunities that they could have won this. And I thought throughout, after they got through that first 20 minutes, when they really were struggling, and then again, maybe in the last 10 minutes when they were holding on, I thought they were really good and they took the game to Real Madrid.

16:32Phil Kitromilides:I actually didn't think they were terrible in the period when they were holding on. Because really and truly, the only chance Madrid got that I can think of, I must be thinking, I must be missing something, in the last 15 minutes was the goal. I think the one against the post was a bit earlier than that, wasn't it? from Feli Valverde. And actually, Valverde, I thought, slightly scuffed it as well. Yes, he did. Sid, I've got a question for you. Who is this episode of TSFP brought to you by? This episode of TSFP, Philip, is brought to you by our friends at NordVPN. Of course it is. Obviously, we're at the start of a new season.

17:04But one thing hasn't changed, and that is we do a lot of travelling covering Spanish football.

17:09Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, so it was Seville, Santander, Acaruna last week. then for me and it was a trip from Valencia to Barcelona from Barcelona to Madrid back to Valencia today so you kind of need it yeah um when you're traveling the best way to make sure you've got access to all your content from back home is using drumroll NordVPN guys for football for tv shows let's face it for football I'm going to tell you tv shows and movies but let's face it for me is for football it lets you access your subscriptions back home wherever you are uh it's really easy to use which is very handy because you know people like us we're not tech savvy but if it's this simple even we can use it yeah and it improves your internet security which is pretty important if you're spending a lot of time traveling and using pub you know public wi-fi at places like train stations airports hotel lobbies so don't go robbing my accounts you connect with just one click it's one of the fastest vpns around and you can use up to 10 devices with one account for more information you need to head to nordvpn.com forward slash tsfp and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee you also get four extra months completely for free so if you could give us a link again phil we're right on it nordvpn.com forward slash tsfp

18:23now barcelona fans don't get angry we will talk about the champions starting with a five mil victory very very impressive in just a second but because sid was at the real madrid game and then he was at Atletico against Villarreal and a lot happened in Atletico Villarreal we're talking about that one first Sid we'll talk about the football in just a second we'll talk about the match because it was a very interesting game lots of things happened 2-2 a red card for Robin Lenormand as well Atleti were 1-0 up then there were 2-1 down and a man down then they got it back to 2-2 but the main story is Julian Alvarez who was whistled wildly before the game.

19:01He was whistled and jeered and chants against him when he went to warm up and he was whistled when he came on and any time he got near the ball or touched the ball he was whistled by a big, big, big section of the crowd. Is there any way of resolving this, Sid? How does this get resolved? It feels very, very difficult. Obviously the backstory is and you all will know but for the 1 % of listeners who don't know he came out in the summer and said he wants to leave Atletico Madrid. He wants to follow his dream, to have his dream come true, which is to join Barcelona. Atletico Madrid are not going to sell him to Barcelona.

19:35And so we're stuck. Yeah, we are stuck.

19:38Phil Kitromilides:And I actually think that this isn't resolved. I think Sunday really underlined that it's not resolved. Any doubts we had that this has left scars, that this has left maybe insurmountable wounds. I said rooms then, didn't I? Wounds. I think it was clear. I think that, you know, you say we'll talk about the football in a minute. I think this is the story, and this is the thing that eclipsed absolutely everything at the weekend, and it was extraordinary. I've not heard noise quite like it. I don't think I've ever seen a player at his own club get this level of abuse at the end of the game. Yeah, I don't think I've seen a player at his own club get this level of abuse ever.

20:22I mean, we had it at Bernabal back in February, that game at home to Levante, where Vinicius got whistled a lot. This was worse, right?

20:28Phil Kitromilides:Yeah, much worse. Because Whistle got whistles for Vinicius, and it felt like a punishment, but a punishment that was about attitude and that could be fixed. This was about, like, we've had enough of you, off you go. Now, the weird thing, of course, is they're saying, off you go, and that's what Alvarez is like, yeah, well, if I could, you know, I very much would, but they're not letting me. And that, of course, is part of the issue here. We're in a situation of pride. When you go to one specific club. Ah, I think that's really important to remember this. I think, although they're not saying so, well, I know that although they're not saying so, Atletico Madrid would absolutely welcome a move somewhere else out of Spain.

21:03Phil Kitromilides:But Julian, on the face of it, doesn't want to do that. Now, we've got eight days left and we're at a little bit of a standstill. And so does that happen? Anyway, just briefly on the going, on the atmosphere, I've never seen anything like it. At the end of the game, the players went to the south stand. Now, I've got a bit of a problem with this. and I wonder what our listeners think. The players went to the South Stand to applaud the fans who had been abusing their teammate. The French Atletico. The French Atletico. But I mean, they're not the only ones who've been abusing them, but that's where the most vociferous abuse had come from.

21:33Phil Kitromilides:Now, I think we should probably say here at this point that the abuse was... Julian Alvarez wasn't called an hijo de puta or a son of a bitch or any of that sort of stuff. It was focused abuse. so it was um atletico yes mercenaries no tell him to go once and for effing all um you know whistling him and and basically repudiating him you know repudiating this this guy who has become the bad guy in the film right and you you sort of look at that and you think all right within context that is something that maybe can be fixed but i think what happens in these situations i've said this lots of times is that everybody wants to win not just the deal but the narrative around the deal that it has to be a bad guy at someone else.

22:14Phil Kitromilides:Now, one of the things that Atletico Madrid did was to make the decision that Julien Alvarez wouldn't go with the players to the south stand. And he didn't. And he went down the tunnel on his own. And I thought this was the perfect portrait of his isolation. He goes down a dark tunnel on his own, whistled all the way. The players who'd gone to the south stand, I think, now I want to see this again, but I haven't seen a video that proves it. But from where I was, they had a slight pause, I think, and didn't go take the final step to take the applause until Juliano ducked out of sight. I suppose that's sort of the right thing.