Arbeloa's First Big Test
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What challenges does Alvaro Arbeloa face as Real Madrid's interim coach?
Welcome to the show. I'm Dan Thomas, joined by Stevie Nicoll. It is very intimate today, but that doesn't mean it won't be very special. Special, of course, for Alvaro Albaloa at the moment. Terrible link. Let's do that again. He has had a mixed bag, I think it's fair to say, since over at Real Madrid. Of course, the latest, the 6-1 victory over Monaco. But it all started with that defeat in the Copa del Rey that saw them eliminated from the Spanish Cup and that rather poor performance against Levante, which, of course, the Bernabeu booed. both Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham. Big test this weekend as they take on high-flying Villarreal. Here is the Real Madrid manager.
In the 10 days I've been coach, with what I've seen, I want the Monaco game to be a turning point. Obviously, we have a lot to improve and work on, but from day one, the players wanted to work and that's what gives me confidence. In the games and training, Jude Bellingham has shown me his abilities as a player, his technical ability, his leadership, his personality, his character.
I believe the effort he made the other day, along with the teammates against Monaco, was tremendous, marvellous. A player with a winning mentality does everything a Real Madrid player needs. Yep, Alvaro Arbeloa saying everything expected of him as the Real Madrid interim. Sid Lowe is here, as is Sjoerd Robson.
How did Real Madrid perform against Monaco and what does it mean for their future?
Sid, you'll be at the game tomorrow. We're talking about the Monaco match being a turning point. It's only a turning point, obviously, if you get a good result against Villarreal.
Yeah, exactly. And obviously, you look at the first games in charge for Alvaro Abaloa, you expect to win at Albacete. They didn't. You expect to win against Levante. They did. And you expect to win against Monaco, which they did. But they scored six goals, which I think does change, if you like, the emotional sense around Real Madrid at the moment. But you're absolutely right that away at Villarreal is a proper test. And if they were to come through this, then I think there would be a kind of a feeling of optimism that would come back. Now, we shouldn't overlook something here which is that Xabi Alonso won five out of five before they went to the Super Cup and so this isn't a team that was necessarily struggling to get results it was a team where the dynamics didn't feel good a team where they weren't getting the results against the biggest sides and they weren't playing particularly well now obviously what Monaco does is not just register as a victory but register as a game in which they performed and in which in particular Vinicius who was a big part of course of the problem with Xabi Alonso performed so well.
So is it fair to say, and it's interesting the point that Alex brought up, the Champions League crowd is a bit different to the Santiago Bernal crowd normally for a La Liga game. So the fact there were no whistles wasn't a great indicator that he suddenly won the crowd over. That's going to take a lot of time, isn't it?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think there's a couple of things here. And I think that first point is an important one, that they are slightly different crowds. Not entirely, but slightly. And you do get a sense of people coming for the Champions League games as an occasion, rather than turning up for a routine league match. I also think that one of the ways to judge this is to look at the first few minutes of the game against Monaco, or indeed look at the warm-up in the game against Monaco. When the teams came out to first come out onto the pitch and look around an hour or so before the game, there was a kind of a sense of, well... We had our protest at the weekend. And I think there was indifference more than anything else.
Then, of course, as the game went on, there were moments in which Real Madrid started to play well. And that increased the enthusiasm and took away some of the whistles. And for me, there was a couple of really key moments towards the end of the first half. One of them was when a pass fell behind Jude Bellingham and he fell on the floor.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What challenges does Alvaro Arbeloa face as Real Madrid's interim coach?
0:04–1:40
2
How did Real Madrid perform against Monaco and what does it mean for their future?
1:40–21:34
3
How do fans perceive the current dynamics at Real Madrid?
21:34–42:45
4
What makes Villarreal a formidable opponent for Real Madrid?
42:45–45:03
Speakers
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