Zinedine Zidane hailed his heavily rotated team’s “patience” after two late penalties brought a 2-0 Copa del Rey last-32 first leg at third-tier Fuenlabrada on Thursday evening.
“I’m very happy with the performance, it is a positive result,” the Los Blancos coach told the postgame news conference. “We showed seriousness and intensity from the start. It is a 2-0, clean sheet, and by being patient in the second half we found the gaps.”
“This is an important competition for me,” the former galactico said. “It’s true those who played had less time before, but they showed intensity and physically lasted out the game. It means they are all ready to show in any minute. We know the difficulty of the calendar and we are ready for that. We have La Liga [Girona] next, and then the Champions League [Tottenham].”
Spain U21 centre-back Jesus Vallejo, making his debut for Madrid’s senior side, was shown a straight red card late on for a foul on Fuenlabrada captain Luis Milla.
“[Vallejo] played a very serious game,” Zidane said. “These things can happen. It was a red card, but he played a good game.”
Asensio said his teammates had been aware their lower-division opponents would find it hard to maintain their early intensity through the 90 minutes.
“We knew it was not going to be easy,” Asensio said. “The first half they were very strong, but we knew they would drop off a bit after the break. We took advantage and got a very good result.”
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