The team that won't go away

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1:32Sid Lowe:Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of the Spanish Football Podcast. I'm Phil Kitram, and ladies, I'm joined as ever by Dr Sidlow to go through what's happened on Matchday 24 in La Liga EA Sports. Good morning, Sydney. Good morning, Philip.

1:45Phil Kitromilides:You've got that Monday morning feeling. I know, I have, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all the more so because it's Champions League on Tuesday, which makes Monday doubly busy. So Sydney is tired, frustrated, stressed. Here's a question for you. Why does the Champions League do this thing of having long and short ties? So the team that plays on Tuesday then plays on Wednesday, and the team that plays on Wednesday then plays on Tuesday. Why do they do that? I do not know, Steve. It seems like a little bit of an unfair advantage for the teams that get the long tie, doesn't it? Yeah.

2:20Sid Lowe:Yeah, it does. Anyway, more on that later on in the week, I guess, over at patreon.com forward slash TSFP where we muse on all things related to Spanish football and not. This is what happened in La Liga this weekend. Friday night, so Elche and Osasuna play out a nil-nil draw. It's actually a really entertaining game. Elche should have won. They didn't. And a point apiece. Then on Saturday, Espanol and Celta playing out another entertaining 2-2 draw. Plenty of drama in this one with late goals, a late equaliser. Goals ruled out as well. It all happened at the RCDE Stadium. Sydney and I were on commentary for Getafe 2, Villarreal 1.

2:59Sid Lowe:Getafe are the team that will not go away. They're never going away. They're another fantastic result for them as they move away from the relegation zone. Villarreal continue to fluctuate a little bit. Sevilla 1, Alaves 1. Sevilla playing the majority of this game with 10 men. and Alaves really should have probably got something more out of this game. Sevilla are in all sorts of trouble on and off the pitch. And Real Madrid producing a pretty strong performance against a much-changed Real Sociedad side at the Bernabeu. It finished 4-1 to Real Madrid. Vinicius Jr. getting a couple of goals. Then on Sunday, Sid, which has sort of contributed to his tired and frustrated state this morning, went up to Oviedo and back in the day to see Oviedo take the lead against the Athletic Club, but end up losing by two goals to one.

3:54Sid Lowe:And in the words of Sid on our private chat yesterday on WhatsApp, we are down. We're definitely down now. Rayo beat Atleti 3-0, unbelievably, in a game held at Leganesi's Butarque Stadium, because Rayo's stadium is still in absolute shambles in terms of the pitch and other things as well. More on that in just a moment. Valencia won the Valencia derby away to Levante by two goals to nil. Massive, massive result for them. It saved the manager Carlos Corbaran's job, even though they desperately don't want to sack him. If they'd lost that, they wouldn't have had any other choice. But they won and Levante are just fractionally better off than Oviedo at the bottom of the table and looking like they could well be heading back to the second division.

4:40Sid Lowe:And the Sunday night game, Sorrel Betis beat Mallorca by two goals to one. A big performance from Anthony, who helped out in both of the Betis goals. A magnificent header from Vedat Morici. What a header it is to pull a goal back for Mallorca. But not enough for the Islanders. They drop into the relegation zone. Monday night football is a big one. Catalan Derby, Girona against Barcelona from Montelevi. Now, if you haven't joined us at patreon.com forward slash gsfp yet, why? Patrons get the Monday and Friday podcast without any adverts. There's a Q &A podcast, a bonus podcast every week. and there's the newsletter every week, the TSFP Diary, the Discord.

5:17Sid Lowe:You can join us from just€4.75 a month. It's even cheaper if you get annual membership. Now, Sydney, let's start off by talking about what happened at the Bernabeu because you were there to see Real Madrid go top of the table. They're top of the table at the time of recording, beating Real Sociedad by four goals to one. There's various different things we can talk about in this performance from Real Madrid and from Real Sociedad as well. I think we should start off by talking about Trent, who started this game and looked really good. He's really good at passing.

5:51Phil Kitromilides:He's very good at passing. I think let's start with, and I actually, I'm not going to claim to have thought of this myself, although it was kind of an idea that was there, but Diario As did something I thought which was really, really effective, which was to show us a photograph of the pitch just before the first goal. And the most amazing thing about it, I think, is if you look at that photograph of the pitch just before the first goal with the ball at the foot of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who's in a deep right-sided position, there's nothing on. It's not like he provides the pass that is there, the cross that's there, the opportunities opening for him.

6:34Phil Kitromilides:He's the one that makes the opportunity even happen. The quality of the pass is so good. It's not that it's really on at all. The delivery is absolutely perfect. Gonzalo, after the game, used that lovely Spanish word. He called it a caramello, a sweetie. But all he had to do as a striker was gobble it up. It was that easy. Actually, for what it's worth, I don't think it was that easy. It wasn't quite that easy, yeah. It's a slightly unusual finish, actually. He kind of brushes it. Maybe a tad fortunate. I don't know if I'm being unfair to say that, with the underside of his foot and it goes in the corner.

7:08Phil Kitromilides:But it's a brilliant delivery from Trent. And I thought what we saw from Real Madrid and from Trent Alexander-Arnold is how he can provide really seemingly simple solutions from almost nowhere. And it's something that was picked up on a lot. And I like the way that it was framed by a handful of the papers in Spain, actually, this idea that it just comes. It's not even part of the pattern of play, really. It's one delivery breaks everything. It breaks down everything. So again, to go back to that photograph, you look at it and everyone seems to be in the right place. It's not like there's a gap that's there.

7:46Phil Kitromilides:It's not like there's anyone out of position. It's just that the quality of the pass is so good that it's a bit like it was with Beckham, which is that you can deliver a ball from a very deep position. You don't need to have necessarily advanced up the pitch to be able to put the ball in a place that means you basically take out the entire game and you take out the whole of the opposition. And I think that's where, and you know, there'll be a lot of our listeners who watched plenty of Trent playing for Liverpool, watched plenty of Premier League. And we say, well, yes, of course, because we've been waiting for this at Real Madrid because he's had injuries.

8:16Phil Kitromilides:It was the first time he'd started since Sam Ames, which I think is 73 days ago. He'd had two muscular injuries this season. He played only just over 15 % of the minutes for Real Madrid this year, and he hadn't been able to impose himself. Now, there's some caveats in this, and I actually think there's some caveats for the whole of the analysis of this round of performance. And one of them actually comes with something that Arbeloa said. He said, after the game, Arbeloa said, we talked to him about this with someone like Gonzalo in the area. We talked about the importance of those long deliveries.

8:47Phil Kitromilides:We talked about the importance of crossing into the box and having someone to reach there. And, of course, the caveat here is most of the time, Gonzalo won't be there. And Gonzalo makes the kind of movements that are really useful for a player like Trent, in a way that, in truth, Mbappé doesn't. Gonzalo hasn't scored with Mbappé in the team. Yeah, what is it? No goals in something like 540 minutes, roughly. And I think it's 11 goals in the 800 minutes without Mbappé. Now, there's a couple of things to say about that. Number one is, well, yeah, obviously, because when he comes on and Mbappé is on the pitch, he's been intended to be shunted out wide right, which doesn't make any sense anyway, by the way.

9:27Phil Kitromilides:although he has played some of his career there. And actually it was the Spanish national team at under 17 level, I think, or maybe under 18 that decided to put him in the middle, having previously watched him play on the right-hand side a lot. But I think that is significant. Not so much in this game in terms of undermining this performance from Gonzalo or this performance from Trent, but in terms of the usefulness of what Trent does when there's a different type of striker in front of him. And it is kind of mad, this. but allow me to say it and allow me to be the kind of the the Grinch in this scenario you go wow Real Madrid scored four despite Mbappe not being there yeah the last time he wasn't there he scored five and and there is that question about how all these pieces fit together and and how you construct it and it seems absolutely not Bellingham wasn't there as well Drew Bellingham wasn't there as well and it seems absolutely absolutely nuts in a way for me to be seemingly questioning a player who scored 38 goals this season and saying that they're better without him.

10:29Phil Kitromilides:Now, I'm not saying they're better without him. They absolutely are not better without Mbappé. But there are some questions about how this all fits together. And in particular, in the light of the performance of Trent and having the right kind of people in front of him. I also thought it was very interesting what Fede Valverde said about how much happier he was with Trent in the side, how he liked. He said something really, really striking to me. And I think it's important. He said, I can't remember the exact words, but essentially what he said was, I like having the game in front of me with the space to run into.

10:57Phil Kitromilides:And we know that's true. And I think what we saw there in truth was Feddy kind of admitting that he's not a central midfielder.

11:06Sid Lowe:He also kind of admitted that the whistles sort of worked. We kind of needed that. He said the phrase he used was,

11:17Phil Kitromilides:we've swallowed a lot of shit over the last few weeks and we deserved it and it and it and it was good for us and it made us realize we had to get our heads down and we had to mature and we had to work and I actually think there is a couple of elements in which he's probably right now again all of this I have to caveat by saying I think there's a risk of getting overexcited about this performance and overexcited about Madrid's current position although I understand it because of where they've come from because of how few good performances have been this year eight consecutive league wins exactly right well here's the point You know what?

11:48Phil Kitromilides:In a way, that eight consecutive league wins is a reason to question this. Because we've had eight consecutive league wins. That's eight. So that goes back a long way. That includes Xabi Alonso. And yet we were saying how rubbish it was. So this run isn't just now. This isn't a sudden improvement. This was happening anyway. And there is that doubt about the level of La Liga and that doubt about what the eight consecutive wins in the league really mean. And so I think that's part of it. But the thing about the whistling, I actually think that the whistling probably was useful. And I do think that Feli Valverde has got a point.

12:23Phil Kitromilides:And I think there's a couple of things that happened. I think the first one is that it exposed the players. And it was a wake-up call. And it said, right, these guys, the fans, are not impressed with you, not impressed with how you've played, but also they're not impressed because they see you as responsible for having got rid of your manager. So don't think you can get rid of another one. And in particular, obviously, the other one has come in and tried to do the things that they want to do and has tried to relate to the dressing room before all the other things. It's not to say that's the only thing Ardobolo has done, but the fundamental first thing was, I get this dressing room happy again, in particular Vinicius, but one or two others as well.

12:58Phil Kitromilides:I get them happy, I get them liberated, I get them feeling okay. But I also think that the responsibility laid upon them by the fans was significant. He said, you've got nowhere to hide anymore. There's another thing that I think it did, just very briefly, sorry, is to say that I think that those whistles and that game against Levante when we talked about the whistles and we talked about how the players have kind of made it up to them and all the rest of it and and you know those celebrations with the fans and when Vinicius was kind of when Vinicius scored and he said this is I don't think that had fixed anything what I think it had done is it actually created a togetherness amongst the players and I think there's an element and they will never ever say this so not publicly I think there was an element of the players coming together and saying it's us against these bastards I really do think there's an element of that as well.

13:43Phil Kitromilides:The fans? Yes. Right, okay. It bounds them. It binds them together, if you sort of mean, as being looked upon by the fans badly.

13:55Sid Lowe:Let's briefly just be remiss of us not to mention that two of the goals that Real Madrid scored were penalties. Regularly listen to the podcast will know that we don't like to talk about the referee too much. This is actually the first season that we're sticking all the podcasts on YouTube and it's opened us up to a whole new avenue of comments and abuse from people who think that we are insanely biased in one way or another. But that's fine. This is what I think we should mention about the penalties. I will caveat anything that we further say by saying that the manager of Real Sociedad, Rino Matarazzo, after the game, said for both penalties, there's contact for both penalties, and that's no reason for the VAR to intervene.

14:38Sid Lowe:I think he's wrong. I think the first one is a penalty that can be given I don't think it is a penalty but I think it's something that can be given and usually is and if you think it's a penalty then I don't think the VAR will ever overturn that the second one is a very obvious dive which should not have been given but there we go I don't want to draw too much on this but I don't but I also I also do

15:03Phil Kitromilides:very briefly and I also do very briefly because I you want to talk about more generally in the

15:06Sid Lowe:concept of what is being given as a penalty.

15:08Phil Kitromilides:This is what I always talk about, the conceptualisation of it. And I think Matarazzo is wrong, but I also think he's right. And the reason I say that is because he's right that when there is contact, the VAR just doesn't intervene. And I think that's wrong. As a protocol premise, I think it's wrong. That what? We don't intervene because there's contact. That is total bullshit. The idea that contact means that's it. We can't intervene. Why can't you? Or why can't you at least say to the referee, have a look if you want. because, you know, because we think it might not be. Because I think that there's a...

15:40Phil Kitromilides:A mate of mine sent me a message which actually defines it really well. It's what I've been saying for a long time. But I'd kind of... I quite liked the simplicity with which he put it. And he said, there's contact, question mark. In my day, they used to have to be a foul.

15:56Sid Lowe:Hmm.

15:57Phil Kitromilides:Yes.

15:58Sid Lowe:Let's talk about Real Sociedad here, who are coming off the back of a big win in the Copa del Rey against Athletic Club midweek. They made a number of changes. I mean, they didn't actually play that badly in this game.

16:07Phil Kitromilides:No, no. And look, a minute ago, I said I didn't want to be the Grinch. But this is where I want to caveat the good performance from Real Madrid and the optimism from Real Madrid. And Real Madrid beating Real Sofie down 4-1 obviously is significant. But 4-1 comes with a series of caveats. One of them is the one you've just mentioned. Two of the four are penalties. And two of the four, I think, are ropey penalties. And I agree with you, the first one can be given. But the second one absolutely shouldn't. I also think that Madrid actually didn't create very much more than what they scored. I think the context of this is a Raul Soterdad side who, as you say, came off the back of the Copa de Ré game, was absolutely exhausted, made a lot of changes, had injuries as well and suspensions, the Bryce Mendes suspension.

16:46Phil Kitromilides:And let's talk about the conceptual thing again, shall we? It's ludicrous that he was suspended for two games, but it meant that he missed this. Kubo is out injured. I did a little list on Saturday of five players who, certainly since Matadazzo has been there, would be starters, didn't start. players who had 75 starts between them this season. So we're not talking about, you know, nobody's, we're talking about a big chunk of their team taken out. I think we're talking about a team that has that penalty given against them to make it 2-1, is a bit weak, in fact, I think very weak in the Valverde goal at 3-1.

17:23Phil Kitromilides:And then any chance of a comeback is taken away by the fourth penalty. It's an unusual performance for Madrid in that it was comfortable all the way through and there was consistency. And I think that's what's positive. But I think Real Sociedad, it was kind of a game too far for them, a game too soon after Copa del Rey. I don't think it undermines too badly what they've done so far. And the manager said, you know, there are things we will learn from this. And he talked in really, again, and I really admire this, really good depth about some of the things they did, some of the mechanics of what they did wrong and what they have to learn.

17:55Sid Lowe:First defeat for Inamatharadso in his 10th game in charge of Real Sociedad. Now, Philip, this episode is brought to you by Saley. Sydney, you travel a lot for work, don't you? And I think you might use your phone more than anyone else I know. Yeah, that's probably true. What if I told you, Sid, there's an app that means almost wherever you are in the world, you'll never be without internet connection and never have to worry about roaming fees. I am listening, Phil. It's called Saley, Sydney, and it takes all the hassle out of using your phone when you're abroad. Saley offer affordable eSIM data plans and over 200 destinations.

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18:35Phil Kitromilides:Okay, but imagine that I'm not very good with technology. I mean, just imagine it's not unusual. Can I actually deal with this? Is it difficult to use?

18:44Sid Lowe:I mean, even for you, Sid, even for you and your limited technological capabilities, it's pretty simple. You basically just download the app before you go. You choose your data plan. And here's the important bit. You use your TSFP code to get 15 % off. And after that, you follow the quick and simple instructions to install the eSIM on your phone. And when you land, you're good to go. So there's no more needing to worry about sorting data after you land, which is the last thing you want after a flight. Now, let me guess, did Producer Al use this at the Club World Cup last summer? He literally did.