Skip to main content

Media flay Real after worst start

Real Madrid's first ever trip to Wembley to face Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League on Wednesday will come as a welcome distraction to the European and Liga holders in the midst of their worst domestic run of results in five years.

Sunday's shock 2-1 defeat to Liga newcomers Girona saw them fall eight points behind arch rivals Barcelona in the standings, the biggest gap they have faced with a league leader since their final turbulent campaign under Jose Mourinho in 2012-13.

Madrid were also defending champions in the Portuguese's final campaign but came unstuck at the start of the season, dropping eight points in their first four games while Barcelona raced ahead, eventually finishing 15 clear of Madrid while Mourinho had an acrimonious split with the dressing room.

The feeling in the Spanish sports press after Zinedine Zidane's side threw away a 1-0 lead at halftime was one of resignation about Madrid's faltering campaign, as the 32-times Liga champions have never managed to win the title after falling eight points behind the leaders.

"Madrid vote no to La Liga", ran a headline on the website of daily newspaper Marca, alluding to the political undertones of Sunday's game at Girona, Real's first trip to the troubled region of Catalonia since a banned referendum on independence on 1 October sparked Spain's worst political crisis in 39 years.

Only Madrid's goalscorer Isco and forward Karim Benzema were exempt from criticism in Marca, which criticised the team's usual talisman Cristiano Ronaldo for only scoring once this campaign and called out Marcelo, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric and captain Sergio Ramos for unconvincing displays.

"Isco is out on his own", ran the cover of newspaper AS, while daily ABC described Madrid as "apathetic", calling the defeat the team's worst performance since Zidane took over at the club in January 2016 and began a winning cycle that has yielded seven trophies.

The French coach said Real had lost the game due to two lapses of concentration in the space of four minutes which lead to Cristhian Stuani's equaliser and Portu's winner, but denied there was a problem with the team's attitude.

"What I'm most annoyed about is not killing the game off when we had the chance to do it," the coach said in a news conference after Girona snapped Real's record run of 13 consecutive away wins over the course of two seasons.

"I'm not worried about a lack of intensity nor enthusiasm, these results can happen in the league but we'll keep on working hard. I'm not worried. We didn't expect this after winning four games in a row but we still want to win the league."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kenyan Law Court dismisses case of man seeking compensation after his wife eloped with another man from hospital

  A lawsuit filed by a man seeking to be compensated by St Mary's Mission Hospital in Kenya for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth, has been struck out by a law court.    The appellant had sued the St. Mary's Mission hospital at Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife and allowed her to leave with another man. After delivering and at the time of discharge, the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby's father.   The court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, empathized with the man, but disagreed that he (the appellant) be compensated by the hospital for not detaining his wife.  They upheld the lower court's judgement which added that there's no remedy that lies in the law for such grievances.   Kiage said;   "I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hurricane Hits Texas, One Person Reported Dead

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 storm on Friday, battering the coast with 130-mph winds and torrential rain. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade leaving a massive destruction, loss of electricity, wrecked buildings and has so far killed at least one person. Scroll down to see more pictures of the incident:
Post a Comment
Read more

Togo prime Minister Komi Klassou resigns

Togo’s prime minister and his government have resigned, the West African nation’s presidency said late Friday. President Faure Gnassingbe congratulated prime minister Komi Selom Klassou and his team for their “economic, political and social efforts and the encouraging results despite the health crisis around the world”, a statement on the presidency’s official website said. Togo has been due for a political reshuffle since Gnassingbe was reelected in February for a fourth term in office, but changes were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s election win, which came after a constitutional change allowing him to run, extended more than a half-century of dynastic rule over the former French colony by the Gnassingbe family. The victory was disputed by the main opposition challenger, who has faced official harassment in the wake of the vote. The president has led the country of eight million people since taking over in 2005 following the death of his father Gnass...
Post a Comment
Read more