Real Madrid manager Álvaro Arbeloa has confirmed that the race for the La Liga title has become tougher. This comes following Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Mallorca which left Los Blancos four points behind leaders Barcelona, and fans have been reacting.
According to him, Real Madrid must perform at a higher level to win La Liga this season because the number of matches left keeps dwindling as the weeks roll by.
Arbeloa added that the players lacked the required patience needed to nullify Mallorca’s defence, especially in the second half.
His words, “Well, it’s clear that things have become more difficult than they were before the match began. We have eight rounds left, and essentially this is what I told the players: regardless of the league situation, or the gap that may separate us from Barcelona, our next goal is to win the remaining matches.
To do that, we have to play better than we did today and perform at a much higher level. We are fully aware of that, and of course everything has become more difficult, because the number of remaining matches is dwindling, and the gap may widen tonight, but our goal must remain the same: to win all our upcoming matches.
Yes, certainly… Perhaps it was down to the context of the match: the anxiety of seeing the team trailing, and the patience we had to show… We knew it would be more difficult, and that we would face Mallorca in a comfortable position for them, where they would close down the spaces more and have more energy thanks to their lead.
Perhaps we lacked that patience; we didn’t put into practice what we’d trained for during the week, and we weren’t able to move the ball around or create one-on-one situations on the wings… We were lacking in a lot of areas in the second half… As I said, I think we played a much better first half than the second, although we needed more energy and clarity of thought in the second half.
As I always tell you, for me it’s very easy to see the difficulty of the match, the difficulty of the opponent, and the difficulty of the context we came from… For me, seeing that is simple… but the tricky bit is getting the players to understand, in this situation, that without giving 200% today, we wouldn’t have won.”
WOW.
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, the top tier of Spanish football.
Real Madrid has maintained the white shirt for its home kit throughout the history of the club. There was, however, one season that the shirt and shorts were not both white. It was an initiative undertaken by Juan Padrós in honor of an English team Corinthian F.C., which he had met on one of his trips, one of the most famous teams at the time known for its elegance and sportsmanship.
It was under Florentino Pérez’s first presidency (2000–2006) that Real Madrid started its ambition of becoming the world’s richest professional football club. The club ceded part of its training grounds to the city of Madrid in 2001, and sold the rest to four corporations: Repsol YPF, Mutua Automovilística de Madrid, Sacyr Vallehermoso and OHL.
Hala Madrid is a magazine published quarterly for the Real Madrid club members and the Madridistas Fan Club card holders. The phrase Hala Madrid, meaning “Forward Madrid” or “Go Madrid”, is also the title of the club’s official anthem, which is often sung by the Madridistas (the club’s fans).
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