Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
From 30 for 30 podcasts. Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami, gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody. This might be a hit. You want the truth. They just want a conviction. Being placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now. Welcome into the latest edition of ESPN FC.
I'm Dan Thomas joined by Ali Mourana. We'll kick things off in La Liga and a shock at the Santiago Bernabeu. Real Madrid losing to Getafe by one goal to nil. A brilliant goal in the first half and the visitors proves to be decisive as Getafe take all three points from their city rivals and what a gift it is for Barcelona who remain four clear. at the top of the table. Well, some more of this.
Welcome in, Shari. Mario Malkiel was watching this for us, as was Luis Garcia. Ali, I want to start with you. You look at those stats and people might think, oh, Madrid were just a bit unlucky today, up against a great goalkeeper, a solid defence. And no, they were not. There was something in the game that was repeated time and time again. Patterns of play.
It was brought up by our commentary team and Stewie kept mentioning it. And it sounds like a nebulous concept. Like, what does that even mean? Well, in the case of Real Madrid, it means, hey, how about you see some semblance of a game plan as to what they want to do in the attack, as they build an attack.
And what is obvious to me, and it was obvious if you're watching the game, is that if there's no Kylian Mbappe, they're going to say, well, Vini is going to be really the player that is going to do something for us offensively. And rightfully so. But you have to have variety to your attack.
If you're going to break through a team like Getafe that are so well suited to defend, organized behind the ball, there has to be variety. It can't just be the ball being played to Vinny and then touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, which we mentioned at halftime. Nothing really comes of it.
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Chapter 2: What were the key moments in Real Madrid's loss to Getafe?
Turnover and now Getafe goes in the attack. And this happened regularly. Again, As it pertains to patterns of play, there just isn't for Real Madrid. That's why it's brought up all the time. There isn't, hey, we complete a couple of passes here. We find the center forward. He drops the ball off. We find the switch to the point of attack to turn around on the other right-hand side.
We've changed the attention from Getafe just from the left-hand side to then they have to go over to the right-hand side. And then we're serving the ball into the box. And you have attacking players joining from the midfield. None of that is happening organically for Real Madrid.
There isn't a game plan per se as to how is it that we're going to break this team that is so organized behind the ball. And that in itself, it's troubling. It's troubling not because it's just this game, it's because it happens regularly with Real Madrid. That there isn't a real idea, plan, identity. How are we going to go about breaking teams down?
It has been, up until now, individual brilliance. Today, that wasn't enough. Luis, this is Getafe, let's not forget. 16 times in a row they've gone to the Santiago Bernabeu and lost. This is a game that Real Madrid traditionally win and win easily, but yet again, as we've seen throughout this season, Ali sums up perfectly, there's just no cohesion in this side whatsoever. Yeah, exactly.
And it's something that is not from today or from the last week. We've seen the whole season when Xavi Alonso was in charge, even when Ancelotti was in charge. But some of the results, they were in their side, so they won a couple of leagues at the moment. You could see that there is not creativity in the middle of the park, so those problems to bring the ball
in good condition to the players up front. Today was all about Vini Juniors. How can we bring that ball to Vini Juniors as quick as possible? Because he's the only one who can be a threat. We can beat that line of five players that Bordalas, the manager of Getafe, has put in front of you. And nothing else. And we saw and we talked about it.
Ale mentioned in the last game that Gonzalo played in the 11th starter because Kylian Mbappe wasn't ready. He's a player who is good, very good in his movement, in his awareness inside the box, in his finishing, going in the air, but also with his feet. Alexander-Arnold was today in charge of trying to bring that ball to Vinicius Jr.
or to the players running from the midfield into the second line. Nothing happened in that occasion. No one chance. Alessandro put a good ball for Gonzalo or a good ball for Vinicius Jr. in the run or someone from the middle of the park. Three midfielders, no one making any run into the second line. So in the end, for Getafe's line of defense, it was fantastic.
We just have to double up in the Vinicius Jr. side and that's about it. And that's what they did in the second half and it worked and it worked perfectly. So in the end, Getafe deserved this win because they had a plan. They executed it perfectly and knew that at some point they would have that opportunity to score that first goal. Mario, what would you like to say about this, sir?
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Chapter 3: How did Kylian Mbappé's absence impact Real Madrid's performance?
What's Arpelova doing in training, Ali? What are they doing? Well, this is a very good question, Dan. Some people may think that it's a joke of a question, but it's not. It is a fair question. What are they doing in training? Because it doesn't show up on the field. Now, this is what we do for a living. We watch games time and time and time again, and we analyze the games.
And part of what we analyze and look for is, okay, what is the game plan? What is it that this team is going to depend on in order to win matches consistently? And, oh, I'm so surprised that Getafe sat behind the ball today. Everybody coming into this match would have known that that was gonna be the game plan of Pepe Bordalas and Getafe.
So it should not be a surprise to Garbeloa, nor should it be a surprise for Real Madrid. And yet, what's obvious to me is that because there doesn't seem to be a game plan, and things are not going their way, and it's not as smooth as they thought it was going to be, instead of problem solving, they start pointing the finger. They start pointing the finger at the referee.
They start pointing the finger at the other team. People are getting frustrated with themselves, with others. Now they're getting caught up with the booze of the crowd. And they lose sight of what's going to make them a successful team. And that is playing at a high level consistently, regardless of the opposition.
And so there is, to answer your question, because I've taken the scenic route to get there. To answer your question, I don't see what the work has been in training. And he hasn't been with the team just for a week now. It's been a while. You need to see what has been the impact and what is the difference of this group from what it was as to what you want it to become.
And that just hasn't appeared. To the point that Luis was making, and it's something that I wrote about halftime. Given the player personnel that you have on the field, If you have Alexander-Arnold out there, it's because he's gonna give you service. And there was no service coming because all the play was going down the left-hand side. And so it's not just us picking on Vinny.
It's not just us picking on Alexander-Arnold. It's not just us saying that Gonzalo Garcia wasn't effective. It's looking at the totality of the game and saying,
If you have that guy over there and you're not using him, and you have this guy inside the 18-yard box and you're not using him because there is no service, because this guy is not providing service, and all the ball is over there, and you're being ineffective in what you do over there, why is there not a change? And nothing really changed at halftime either.
So it's not only why it's not happening in the training facility, it's also what's not happening during halftime. You asked me when we went after halftime, what is he saying right now? I don't know that it really matters, because these players did not take that on board when Xavi Alonso was sitting on the bench, and they're not taking it on board now with Alvaro Arreola either.
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Chapter 4: How did the FC crew analyze the match statistics?
And if you were going to tackle the ball, first you would have had to have gone through the Hetafe player that's laying on the ground, right? Let's assume that he's going to go and challenge the ball with his knee because apparently that's what he thought was the correct decision. Then why do you miss the ball entirely? Yeah, the ball is not even close to the face of the head. Yes, yes, yes.
It's his fault. It's his fault. Why is your jaw there? It is clearly something that was intentional. He knows exactly what he's doing. It's surprising that the VAR doesn't get involved, but then it comes down to the interpretation of, well, Man, he was going for the ball, and he was slipping with his right leg. No chance. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Bad news all around, really, for Real Madrid. Rubbish performance on the pitch, which, of course, didn't include Kylian Mbappe. Real Madrid released a statement before kickoff addressing his injury, and we've been talking about the fact, oh, it's only a little knock. That's what Arbeloa described it as. Well, it's a strained knee, which has been confirmed.
It's something he's been carrying for a while. Suggestions, of course, that it happened back in the Copa del Rey in that nonsense game that he started. chasing that record for the amount of goals in a calendar year. Luis, all round this seems to be badly handled and now Real Madrid are very much facing the repercussions of it.
Yeah, definitely, because we don't have all the information from the dressing room, but it looks like everything started from those moments. When Kylian Mbappé started this season, he started on fire, he was sharp, he looked fast, he was clinical, he's been the top scorer of the league, of Real Madrid, and the leader up front that was helping to get the results.
I think that at some point he didn't realise that that's going to have a bad ending because you cannot play 70 games or 60 games a season at the highest level. There is no way that you can do it on these days because you've got international games, Champions League games, La Liga and Copa del Rey.
And at some point, you have to decide where I'm going to be able to give 100% and when I have to rest. And I think that was handled pretty well. At that stage, you could see that it was Kylian Mbappe not at his best, that he was having some little problems on the knee. And now we realized that it was not just a little problem.
It was actually something very serious that now he has to be taken care of. Now that is the most important moment of the season. Everybody knows, February, March, Champions League is back, the league is getting down to the end of the season, and those are the most important moments. So, yeah, I don't think that they have it very well.
Not Kylian Mbappe and his situation, not the way that they have been using him during the rest of the season. Can I... Can I just say that it's not a good look for Real Madrid when Kylian Mbappe decides that he is better off going to check with specialists that he's more comfortable in France. That all along this has been sold as pequeñas molestias, niggly injuries.
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Chapter 5: What strategies did Getafe use to secure their victory?
They look like...
every single game they give away a few options to the opponent to score and Atletico Madrid is not a random team, they know what they are doing, they know how to exploit those spaces as we saw in the first leg when not about this mistake of Joan Garcia but how Atletico Madrid was killing Barcelona from that right side, Juliano Simeone, Nahuel, everybody getting space and time in that option and that's
Barcelona all around. It's not against Atletico Madrid that we've seen it, but we saw against Sevilla, we saw against Elche, we saw against Girona, when the opposition, they got so many options to score goals. So, yeah, they can score goals, but also they can concede, and that's the most worrying part when you want to go through. This could be like 7-4, Canali, tomorrow.
It's just going to be silly. Well, yeah, see, the people that are making the argument for La Remontada, the comeback for Barcelona, are forgetting one very basic thing. This Barcelona team did lose for nothing to Atletico Madrid. They did give up four goals and it could have been more. While I have no doubt that Barcelona has an opportunity to win the match.
What I also have no doubt is that they will leave all sorts of spaces for Atletico Madrid as they desperately push forward to somehow make this happen. And yes, to your point, Dan, 5-3 seems very likely. And actually, I would be surprised if it wasn't like that. I would be surprised if it was just, you know, kind of no drama, 2-0 Barcelona wins in Atletico Madrid advance.
I don't think that's the sort of game that we're going to see. Yes, 5-3, 7-4, whatever you want to call it, it's going to get out of control. Mario Sanovicu's football being a bit boring these days. Tomorrow will be anything but that, won't it? Oh, yeah, man, but this is what you like to watch, right?
Because, you know, even with these guys, you know, look, guys, if I had the opportunity to sit with all four of you and watch this game, I'd be more than happy, guys. You know why? Because this is football. This is football. This is football. I will get him even over. If he's in Spain, I'll say, hey, brother, come over, man. Let's watch some football. Because this is the game, guys.
If you don't look. And what I always ask myself, why everybody, when they turn up at Barcelona, it looks like everybody's a little bit tired. Because they are too much in the, you know, when they look around the stadium, the beauty and everything. I hope it doesn't happen to Atletico. Because sometimes I see, and they had it too, but I hope it doesn't happen in this game.
I want to see a real football game where two teams go at it, regardless if Barcelona is at home. Yeah, what about Atletico Madrid's approach? Very interesting press conference, very interesting, brave, stupid question from a Barcelona media member. Here it is.
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