Chapter 1: What led to Albacete's upset victory over Real Madrid?
Hello and welcome into the latest edition of ESPN FC. Kay Murray, Alejandro Moreno and Stevie Nicol here in the studio, kicking things off tonight with Real Madrid and their first game under Alvaro Arbeloa. It was the last 16 of the Copa del Rey. It was against Albacete and they lost. They had to twice come from behind as well.
Late stages, 2-2 after Gonzalo Garcia had the second of the replies, but... Albacete would strike again through the man of the match on the night, Kefte Bentancur, for a dramatic ending and that knocks Real Madrid out of the Copa del Rey at the round of 16. Albacete closed as an 8-1 underdog to win.
They advanced to the quarter-finals of the competition for the second time and the first since the mid-90s. It means Real Madrid is eliminated by lower league opposition for the first time since the 2021 season. As for Albacete, they are 17th in the second division, just one point above the relegation zone. Alex Kirkland, our Madrid correspondent here. This is a disaster for Real Madrid, Alex.
Yeah, it's the worst possible start for Abeloa. This defeat isn't on him.
Chapter 2: How is Alvaro Arbeloa managing the pressure after his first match?
It's not entirely his fault. He literally took over yesterday, took his first training session yesterday, had his first press conference yesterday. But he was saying in his press conference just now, he tried to take responsibility. He said, this is on me. I'm the coach. I pick the squad. I pick the team. I make the decisions. But watching the team tonight, they still look like the same.
Real Madrid team, of course, it's been no time at all for Arbeloa to kind of get his ideas across or really make any changes. And so there were sort of familiar flaws for this Real Madrid team tonight in terms of no real clear idea of how they want to play, difficulty creating chances, dodgy at the back as well.
The one thing I think you can lay on Arbeloa, and again, he took responsibility for this in his press conference just now, is the team selection. They left out a number of players, a number of big names for one reason or another, some minor knocks and injuries. This was a team without MbappƩ and Bellingham and Rodrigo and Courtois and No Carreras.
Other players were injured like Militao, Antonio Rudiger. Arbeloa brought in some youngsters from the reserve team, Castilla, who he's been coaching and he knows well. Some of them did okay. Others not so much. So I think, yeah, you can blame Arbeloa in terms of, like I say, the selection of the squad, the selection of the team.
But we know that Real Madrid's problems go much deeper and go much further back than a coach who literally took over 24 hours ago.
Yeah, as Alex said, Arbeloa did say that afterwards for his team selection. But even that team should have been beaten Albacete, Ale.
Yeah, but Arbeloa himself, also in the same press conference and in the same answer, he said, well, you know, the issues of us playing against lower opposition teams, as we saw against Talavera, how difficult that was. So he knew. He knew this was going to be difficult.
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Chapter 3: What factors contributed to Real Madrid's elimination from the Copa del Rey?
And I'm not suggesting that this team that we just showed there shouldn't be better than Albacete and they shouldn't beat Albacete. Of course they should. Of course they should. That goes without saying. But if it is your first game, With this team, you are taking over the team. It's not only about the results, but also about the messages that you're sending to your now players.
These players now are yours. And so while you may think, okay, we're gonna rest some players. Yeah, rest them, but take them on the trip. Put him on the bench, because this is the bench that was available to Real Madrid today. So when the game was getting out of control and you need some help, you're not turning to Manuel, Angel, Sergio Mestre, Joan Martinez, who? Cesar Palacio. What? Right?
Chapter 4: What does this loss mean for Real Madrid's season moving forward?
So that you have options. But most of all is the message that you're sending to the players. You just lost a final in the Supercopa de EspaƱa. And I understand that you want to give a rest to certain players. Give them the rest, but have them there.
Chapter 5: Why is Chelsea's loss to Arsenal considered flattering?
You need unity. You need this team to be together, not some guys in Madrid and other guys over here. If you're looking for unity, that doesn't happen if those guys are over there and these guys are over here trying to get a result at Albacete.
You want to bring the group together, and you want to have options on the bench just in case, just in case things get complicated, which they have had a tendency to be so for Real Madrid this whole season, including the last round against Talavera, which he referenced.
If he knew this was gonna be tricky, if he knew this was gonna be difficult, then you need whatever squad you had available, you need that full squad ready for you just in case things got, as he thought they would, complicated and tricky. Do you agree with Ali?
I do agree, 100%. I understand... I understand you rest in BAPE. After that... I think you get your first team on the field. The only way you get better is by playing through it, and then you also have to get everybody together. As Ali said, even if you're not playing everybody, you have to get the group playing as one.
Regardless of the star names, whatever it is, a group of players, when they step on the field, regardless of the opposition, have to play together and for each other. And that didn't happen tonight, that's for sure. And that kind of tells you that the whole dressing room isn't playing together or for each other.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of Chelsea's performance against Arsenal?
But you have to win the game. And to win the game, play your players, accept Mbappe, win the game, and then you take them off. Then you can make five changes. But don't do it the other way around. and then not bring them. And then when you need help, you don't have any help either. So, yeah, Abalos got it wrong.
But at the end of the day, any Real Madrid team that steps on the field against Albacete, who are struggling in the second division, should be winning.
So what are they going to do now, Alex? There's got to be some damage limitation.
Chapter 7: How did Senegal and Morocco perform in the AFCON semi-finals?
Obviously, there's still two cups to play for in the Champions League in La Liga, where they are trailing to Barcelona. What happens next?
Well, the big question, I think, is how the Bernabeu crowd responds to the team on Saturday. You know, they're back in action in La Liga on Saturday against Levante. In theory, a very winnable game at home. But we've heard whistles from the crowd at the Bernabeu in the last few weeks for Xabi Alonso's team.
That was part of the sort of deteriorating kind of situation around him that ended in him losing his job. How will the crowd react to this team now, having just lost the Supercopa final, knocked out of the Copa del Rey? There was some sort of disagreement and debate about those previous whistles. Were they aimed at the players? Were they aimed at the manager?
It's really the players in the spotlight now because the manager's gone. He's out. Alvaro Albaloa has come in. The players are in the spotlight now.
Chapter 8: What can we expect from the AFCON final between Senegal and Morocco?
And, of course, the boss, the president, Florentino Perez, as well, who's made the decision. to sack Xabi Alonso, despite the sort of presentation of that as being by mutual agreement, and bring in Arbeloa. And this first game has been a disaster. So I think it's going to be really interesting how the crowd reacts on Saturday and how the team play.
And yeah, Arbeloa, again, just has a couple of training sessions before that game. Not much time. Let's see how many of those players who've been rested tonight are rested sufficiently to come back in for that game. Quite a few of them, I think, will be. And what will we see? Will we see radical changes in terms of the team's shape, the team's selection, the style? Will we see improvements?
Will it be more of the same? Because I think part of the thinking in terms of getting rid of Alonso was that we've still got all these trophies up for grabs. We've still got La Liga, Champions League, Copa del Rey. Well, one of those is gone now. And so now it's only two left.
And yet in the league title race, they can't afford to drop many more points because Barcelona could be before too long out of reach.
You only have, as we all know, one chance to make the first impression. And this was the first impression. It's Arbeloa standing by himself in the silence, watching his team lose to Albacete. That lingers forever. This job for Real Madrid is difficult in the best of circumstances. You make it harder for yourself by the decisions that you made in keeping some of these players out.
And now you are going into this first match against Levante, a Santiago BernabƩu, a match that you should win, but you are already playing with essentially a handicap. You are already trailing in the perception of the fans. You haven't even shown up to the stadium and you're already trailing. And that's That's no way to start your cycle with Real Madrid.
Again, I thought that the most important game of the season for Ćlvaro Arbeloa would be tonight. Tonight, never mind the trophies that were available or not available or what they're competing for or not competing for. Tonight was the most important game. And tonight, they failed. So the first impression that we get from Arueloa is a failure. And it's a massive failure.
Real Madrid fans and supporters may say, well, it's only Copa del Rey. Well, I can tell you the same thing and say, it's only Albacete. And you lost to Albacete. It's a failure for Arbeloa. It's a failure for this club. How you manufacture momentum, positive momentum going forward, is by winning. He said that failure, the road to victory, or something like failures lead to victories. No, no.
How about victories lead to victories? How about you win? Don't get philosophical on me. Don't get philosophical. Win matches, and then we can build momentum going forward.
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