# Real Madrid vs Valencia Preview

An episode of [The Real Deal: A Real Madrid Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1807821669), 31 Oct 2025, 1 h 22 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/103607aa8/podcast/play/110494251/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-9-31%2F410339606-44100-2-4dc610624a19e.mp3

Loconte and Cerebrone preview Real Madrid v Valencia: what to expect from Valencia, Mbappe, Xabi Alonso's tactics and more.

## Transcript

[0:00] Music is quite a good one today. So folks, welcome back to the
[0:06] Real Deal Podcast, a Real Madrid podcast where we break down
[0:10] everything about Real Madrid. You can find us also on Spotify
[0:14] and Apple Podcasts. Any really platform that you
[0:18] want to listen to us, make sure you guys give us a rating over
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[0:23] goes, like and subscribe would go a long way for us showing
[0:28] support. And today with me, I'm joined by
[0:30] my guys Robroni, who comes back again and today to preview he's
[0:35] beloved Team Valencia. So how are you doing man?
[0:40] Well, I have a quote, but apart from that I'm good.
[0:43] And yeah, always excited for these clashes.
[0:48] Yeah, yeah. So Valencia are naturally like
[0:50] our boogie team. Like, how many of our coaches
[0:53] have lost their job? Was the Valencia game, right?
[0:57] Like we all remember the famous Rafa Benitez one, for example.
[1:01] Like that would be the one, but he's not the only one.
[1:04] This is Alonzo's debut against Valencia as a coach of Real
[1:10] Madrid. So technically sometimes it
[1:14] doesn't really matter if Valencia is fighting relegation
[1:16] or if they're a top team, they're just kind of like a
[1:19] boogie team for Real Madrid. Then that's the truth.
[1:21] Let it be from transfers, which we have spoken before or on the
[1:26] pitch this time around. How do you feel about Valencia
[1:30] generally before we get specifically into the matchup?
[1:33] How do you feel about like the performances so far, especially
[1:37] since they have had the code change which seemed to bring a
[1:40] bit of life last season, but this season seems to be spiral
[1:44] spiraling down into like more of what Ruben Baraja was going
[1:48] through? Yeah, I, I think that we're cost
[1:55] because every time it looks like there's a, you know, a change,
[2:01] something is going to change and, you know, it's looking good
[2:03] on the horizon, something happens and then it's like back
[2:07] to square one. I I don't understand why that
[2:11] always happens, but it happened again with Cabran last season.
[2:15] Cabran looked like he was going to be a serious coach for a long
[2:19] time with Valencia. Of course, he came in as a bit
[2:22] of a rookie with just very, his experience wasn't really that
[2:27] much. And even in his highest profile
[2:29] job in Greece, if I remember correctly, that didn't last
[2:33] long. So it was like, OK, this is
[2:35] opportunity, He's a Valencia fan, he's a Valencia.
[2:39] This just seems very perfect. And the way we ended last
[2:42] season, we looked good, went from fighting relegation to
[2:46] almost making Europe for some late collapse.
[2:49] So even with the departures in the summer, it felt like for the
[2:54] first time in a long time Valencia had a scourge that
[3:00] could realistically, you know, challenge for European place in
[3:04] terms of depth of the squad. Because Kabran was backed like
[3:07] no Valencia managers since Marcelino got everything he
[3:12] wanted, almost everything he wanted.
[3:13] I think it was just a Dick that we were able to tie up.
[3:16] But we got Beltran instead on deadline day and this was his
[3:21] team, made in his image. Every player he wanted out was
[3:24] sent away, especially Boogie Amon that he had a future at the
[3:29] club. But now it seems like the
[3:34] players were a bit upset. According to reports, players
[3:37] were a bit upset at the treatments that guys like Gammon
[3:40] and Sergicanos got. It's OK to say you don't want a
[3:44] player, but there's a way you do it where you do not upset the
[3:49] dressing room and the Amon was pretty popular in the dressing
[3:52] room. He was loved his Valencia and
[3:55] he's given a lot to the club. And there was a point in 2020
[4:00] where his contract actually expired and Valencia, I didn't
[4:04] offered him a new contract. He rejected an offer from from
[4:07] Barcelona to stay and wait for that contract offer.
[4:10] He could have just easily left the time.
[4:13] So considering all of that, you know, and how popular was
[4:17] investing that seems to have affected perception of Kobaran
[4:20] within the team is viewed like someone who is a poor man
[4:24] manager. And you know, instead of him
[4:29] adjusting to that and kind of fixing that and doing better, he
[4:34] seems to have doubled down on his very brutal approach.
[4:37] And, you know, of course, players apparently are not
[4:40] happy, but there have also been, you know, a lot of comments
[4:44] about how players are probably sabotaging them and all that.
[4:47] I don't believe all of that. I think they're just the media
[4:51] looking for stories, right? But in essence, Valencia's main
[4:57] problem this season is actually a coaching problem.
[5:01] It's not about whether players are happy or not.
[5:03] Players get on board after a while.
[5:06] If you're winning, if your tactics look, you know, they're
[5:09] sensible and it looks like you know what you're doing, they
[5:12] will get over. I mean, everybody was upset when
[5:17] Simone Zaza was kicked out by Marcelino.
[5:20] It was Marcelino treated him. Zaza was basically begging to
[5:26] stay and Marcelino said Nope. And you know, because I had
[5:30] fallen in love with the club and he had such a deep connection
[5:33] with fans. When the fans were upset, after
[5:35] a while everybody got on board and got on business.
[5:37] And that's how I suppose. Yeah, feels that Valencia or as
[5:42] you mentioned on this road to finding the coach and there have
[5:49] been so many changes throughout the last few years, like to the
[5:53] point where I can't really recall a successful coach with
[5:57] with Valencia until like Marcelino, I would say like
[6:00] there hasn't been one that you would go like, OK, deserve to
[6:04] stick around. Maybe there were some things
[6:06] with Gattuso worth building on at least on the pitch, but the
[6:11] results weren't common. So with Peter Lim, of course at
[6:16] the helm, I don't know how true it is still that he's trying to
[6:19] sell it, but it's a more result driven type of club with that
[6:25] sort of like to take into account.
[6:28] Like for example, like on NBA, they would take a tanking team
[6:31] where they're basically selling, trying to recoup assets for a
[6:37] reset to just be able to produce a better environment for all the
[6:43] players coming into the future. It feels like Valencia are kind
[6:46] of stuck in that, OK, we're really going to push for this
[6:52] and we're going to do anything and everything.
[6:54] But feels like they are in that limbo of for the most part, you
[6:58] see them as kind of like battling relegation for a few
[7:02] months, then they start putting together a few results.
[7:05] They survive. As you said, they went from
[7:08] relegation to almost Europe last season and now they're back to
[7:12] that cycle again because well, we can call it a new coach
[7:18] syndrome, right it, but that wears off at one point and it
[7:22] feels that Valencia just can't seem to hit it, you know, like.
[7:26] Right with with with Cobra last season.
[7:29] It wasn't really new coach syndrome to be honest.
[7:32] Because the truth is the things that worked last season instead
[7:38] of building on them, he has gone backwards now.
[7:40] The problem with Baraa was that Bara really simply could not
[7:45] coach. He could not coach anything,
[7:48] could not could build up, could not coach anything at all, or
[7:53] even with his inability to coach, he couldn't get his
[7:56] lineups right. I feel like a manager needs to
[7:59] get that fundamentally right and anything is possible.
[8:03] If you get your lineups right, you get your system right.
[8:05] Even if you're not the best coach in the world, you're
[8:08] already on the right track. Now that's something that Cobra
[8:11] was able to do, was able to mix and match profiles correctly
[8:16] last season and, you know, come up with temporary solutions that
[8:19] worked. Now what he was now supposed to
[8:21] do in the summer was look at what worked and build on it and
[8:27] then come up with a strategy that was less about firefighting
[8:33] and something that could actually be sustainable and long
[8:36] term. Now the 442 we played last
[8:38] season and 4231 that we played last season, at times it was
[8:43] sometimes 442, sometimes 4231 depending on how we adapt.
[8:47] And then sometimes we went three at the back.
[8:50] Cabron was just basically hanging on.
[8:53] It was more or less ditch when prioritizing control and all of
[8:57] that. But now we don't have the same
[9:00] profiles. We had Enzo Bar in a chair last
[9:03] season who is a big, tall DM, just like Cabron likes it, and
[9:11] he kind of did a lot of heavy lifting so that Guerra could be
[9:14] free to do whatever he wanted to do.
[9:17] And by nature, as much as sometimes he could, you know,
[9:19] bump forward and all that, it was more of a guy who would
[9:22] actually sit for you and, you know, protect the back line.
[9:26] Now we've signed Baptist Santa Maria this season as by nature's
[9:31] replacement. Now Santa Maria is more of a guy
[9:36] who likes to get around. He's not going to just sit.
[9:40] The other day, midweek, he was the one in front delivering an
[9:44] assist across to Godura. Like that's where you'd expect
[9:48] your tent to be or your, you know, s s or whatever.
[9:52] And yet it was Santa Maria was there.
[9:55] Because he's just that kind of guy.
[9:57] He will get around, but he will also get back to, you know,
[10:00] protect your defense and all that.
[10:01] But he doesn't sit. He moves around.
[10:04] Now with that, that means Guerra always has work to do and Guerra
[10:09] does not like to have to do that work because it kind of limits
[10:13] him. Ideally Valencia should be
[10:16] playing a 433. Now it's it's a no brainer.
[10:22] Like we have Pepelu, we have Guerra, we have Santa Maria.
[10:27] Santa Maria and Pepelu can kind of switch roles at different
[10:32] points. If one goes forward, one stays,
[10:34] one stays, one goes forward, that kind of thing.
[10:35] And then Guerra has a free role to do whatever he wants to do
[10:38] and actually help the attack. But instead, what Cabron does is
[10:43] either place the Pillows DM or play Santa Maria's DM and gives
[10:46] Guerra a lot of work and it's just not working.
[10:49] Valencia cannot control games. Valencia cannot build up
[10:53] properly. I cannot do anything right,
[10:55] cannot sustain any attacks. We've gone to all of this and
[10:59] got him battered. We've gone to all kinds of
[11:02] teams, in fact, at home against Oviedo, newly promoted Oviedo at
[11:06] home, we looked clueless. And so if a manager cannot get
[11:11] his team, cannot set up his midfield to dominate, to keep
[11:15] possession, then you cannot hold on to leads, you cannot batter
[11:20] teams into submission when you need a goal, you basically
[11:24] cannot do anything at all. And that's the problem with
[11:27] Cabran right now. That's the problem with
[11:28] Valencia. Valencia cannot control
[11:32] anything. And tactically, we look at miss.
[11:36] Yeah, I admittedly haven't watched much of Valencia this
[11:41] season. I think it's been a total of
[11:42] three games, two of them being one against Barcelona, which I
[11:45] wanted to get into, and the other one being against Viral.
[11:50] And the game against VRL really struck me because that was like
[11:54] one of the poorest performances of VRL, yet they felt as
[11:58] comfortable as they can be. It felt like Marcelino could
[12:03] experiment with anything and everything that he wanted and
[12:06] they were never going to lose that game at any moment.
[12:10] Like the momentum was never going to swing like Valencia's
[12:13] way. And usually when you get a
[12:15] performance like that on my eyes, that basically the dead
[12:20] end for the coach because that means nothing is working when
[12:24] the other coach, I'm not going to said that Marcelino got
[12:26] everything wrong, but his standards as a coach, he got the
[12:31] majority of the things wrong in that game.
[12:34] Yet A2 NIL win at Messiah, who whether they were bad or not,
[12:38] Messiah is always ground that you have to battle on to get
[12:42] away with the point. Then if you get with with the
[12:45] point from there, you're happy. You're like, OK, 38 more games,
[12:48] Messiah is done. But it did not feel that way.
[12:52] It feels that it felt that I think that the Valencia lineup
[12:59] was a bit more balanced against Villarreal than against
[13:01] Barcelona. For example, the game against
[13:04] Barcelona, Diego Lopez was playing that very weird
[13:11] midfielder role where he would barely get any touch.
[13:16] That entire lineup, that entire game was a joke.
[13:21] Everything was a joke. I was not understanding what the
[13:26] plan are. They're trying to play three of
[13:28] the back, five of the back. Are they trying to progress in
[13:32] wide areas yet there's no player in wide areas to receive.
[13:37] Are they trying to go long? But the the target man was
[13:41] moving way too deep, therefore they were trapping themselves on
[13:45] their own hulls. I did not understand the idea
[13:50] behind it, or maybe it was just OK.
[13:53] I don't see myself getting a result here.
[13:56] I'm going to arrest my players because I remember Valencia, the
[13:58] game three days after, if I'm correct from that Barcelona game
[14:02] it. It didn't matter.
[14:04] I, I think that it was just Koran being I, I say, I keep
[14:09] saying it, that it was sabotage. It's managerial malpractice
[14:14] because Barcelona had the amount missing.
[14:17] They had a bunch of players missing.
[14:19] In fact, their lineup was a joke in my eyes.
[14:23] It felt like the easiest Barcelona team to face in maybe
[14:28] 20 years or something. That was OK since let me say,
[14:33] can you remember when Carnevo collected 7 nil in the copper?
[14:38] So the second leg, yeah, the second leg Barcelona basically
[14:43] played, played a bunch of kids and came out to the 11 draw,
[14:47] which for me was very insulting, right?
[14:50] That was the easiest line up until this one.
[14:53] This was this was a team begging to be battered and we had the
[14:58] tools to do it. You have pacey wingers in
[15:02] Danjuma Ramazani who can like basically I'm these guys are
[15:06] playing very high of the pitch. So you just squeeze it, get very
[15:10] compact and know when to jump, when to release the balls With
[15:16] I, I was I was so, so pissed. And that was the day I, I
[15:21] because I said it last season after we lost 71 to Barcelona
[15:26] and five nil in in in space of a few weeks.
[15:30] I said it that after those two defeats, I said our next game
[15:34] against Barcelona will tell me whether Cabron is a serious
[15:37] coach or not. Because I'll be able to tell
[15:40] whether he has learnt anything from those two games.
[15:43] Because there's no way you can play the same thing, same
[15:47] system. Because Flick is pretty.
[15:50] Straightforward. You're going to face the same
[15:52] thing, Yeah. You know, you're you're coming
[15:54] to face and if you're going to face, it seems like that three
[15:57] times and by the third time you still end up losing 6 nil.
[16:01] It was so soulless. We offered no threat and we
[16:05] could have lost that game 11 nil and it wouldn't have been
[16:08] enough. And this was just the second
[16:12] Valencia game since in my life that I turned off.
[16:17] I turned off this game. I don't turn off Valencia games
[16:19] even when we're losing by a lot. I don't.
[16:23] This was the second game by Valencia that I turned off
[16:26] consciously and said, I'm so irritated, I can't watch this
[16:30] shit. Yeah.
[16:32] And the first one was against Ava in 2017 or so.
[16:38] We lost 40 at home. I could not believe what I was
[16:41] seeing that day. It was so soulless.
[16:44] For me, it's I don't care if we lose games, but I want to see
[16:48] some fight. I want to see some ideas that
[16:50] look like, OK, you know what? We tried, but it just didn't
[16:53] work out. And we maybe we go over
[16:57] overwhelmed or, you know, the outdiders, that's fine.
[17:00] But to see a flat performance where it's so obvious, it's not
[17:05] like the players aren't trying, it's that the coach has set them
[17:08] up to fail, I feel spectacularly.
[17:12] It irritates me. And from that day I said, yeah,
[17:14] Kabran, you're not that guy. My agenda against Kabran started
[17:18] that day because for me it was this is just malpractice, you
[17:23] know, and I don't think we can even use that as anything other
[17:28] than a sign that Cobra does not have the tools to tactically out
[17:33] with anybody. For me, that's the only take
[17:36] away from that game. Like he does not have the tools,
[17:39] he does not have the origin of the game.
[17:41] He doesn't know how to react to anything.
[17:43] And he came out after the game and said that he, you know, it
[17:48] was his fault. He came up with the wrong
[17:50] strategy and all that. I'm like, duh, of course it was
[17:53] your fault. Everyone could see that wasn't
[17:55] like the players were bad and everything.
[17:57] And then when we lost against Oviedo, he handpicked players
[18:00] and blamed them, which also upset the dressing room because
[18:06] they have, they have to have a meeting with him.
[18:07] Like why would you pick out players?
[18:10] And that they picked out Santa Maria and blamed him for the
[18:12] second goal. And after that, he didn't play
[18:15] Santa Maria anymore. Like he didn't start him
[18:17] anymore. And this is a new signing.
[18:20] If you do that to a new signing and it it just just, you know,
[18:24] says a lot about you. And also Danny Robert, he got in
[18:28] Danny Robert to be the guy in the hole to, you know, do
[18:31] everything behind the striker. And then all of a sudden, I
[18:34] think Danny Robert was upset about the substitution.
[18:37] Who got a red card. Guy got a red card against
[18:39] Sasuna. And Danny, Robert, come off
[18:42] early and you know, he was a bit upset that he had to come up,
[18:48] you know, early he had. To be, yeah, of course.
[18:50] And Cobra, undecided, is not playing him anymore and just
[18:54] stopped playing him all together.
[18:58] It's it's just there's there's a problem really everywhere for
[19:01] Valencia. But again, yeah, it's always
[19:03] like. Starling down, it doesn't.
[19:06] Matter where Valencia are at any point in time, once it's Real
[19:10] Madrid, anything can happen. 2008 were coached by Ronald
[19:16] Coleman and that was the Coleman season where we were absolute
[19:21] rubbish, absolute rubbish. And somehow Real Madrid were
[19:28] champions in weight Single, had already won the league or
[19:31] something and we showed up and we won 32.
[19:34] Iris many last minute goal, his only goal with Valencia and just
[19:37] happened to be that big. It was crazy.
[19:41] I thought we're going to lose 7 zero and then we won that.
[19:45] You know the the different type to ones like the one where
[19:48] Ronaldo's got a little colizer with the back of his foot.
[19:53] Title race. We had nothing to play for, We
[19:56] were rubbish and we came out there and we LED till very late
[20:02] in the game last season as well. We're not really in a good space
[20:07] at that time, or somehow we showed up and we won.
[20:10] So it's just the thing that Valencia does so.
[20:13] Yeah, Yeah. But Valencia historically are
[20:18] pretty buggy team for Madrid. Like I would say like they're on
[20:21] that top two, top three. Like last season, you're only
[20:24] away when I think by that point, February, March, by that point
[20:29] it was only Madrid. Then we won, so that's two.
[20:33] We've had two away wins since April 2024 and one of them was
[20:39] against Madrid, Yeah. But it goes to show that, look,
[20:48] Madrid was disjointed, disoriented last year.
[20:51] Ancelotti kind of lost the foot on the team completely.
[20:55] Like we're even seeing now that there was a bit too much freedom
[20:58] given. Players had a bit too little on
[21:01] their plate, if we really want to call it that.
[21:04] They were too comfortable. Everything is coming out now, so
[21:08] that makes a lot of sense. But again, given where Valencia
[21:13] was, it's not a game that you should naturally lose at home.
[21:17] At the very least, player quality.
[21:20] The fact that Valencia are pretty much like, kind of like
[21:23] on the same zone as you in terms of, like, players being
[21:26] disjointed, disinterested, not really given that all there is
[21:31] like, you're in. It's just not a game like
[21:35] General Madrid should have lost, but they did.
[21:37] Yeah. And it wasn't a game where you
[21:40] felt that they should have won the game, but they only lost by
[21:43] the margin of football, right? It felt a game that Madrid just
[21:47] can't win it. And that's the reality of it.
[21:51] Yeah. Because as you said, it's not
[21:52] always result driven, but you want to see the idea.
[21:55] You want to see how things are progressing.
[21:57] And with Madrid, it was really stale.
[22:00] And it's not the first time when we're talking about a game
[22:04] against specifically Valencia, where Madrid kind of seems to
[22:07] lose it. Well, on this case, Valencia
[22:10] have done well. Not the best job, of course,
[22:14] because there is a bigger thing that lies there.
[22:17] But rattling Vinicius even inside the pitch, like he's
[22:21] probably given Valencia the most, his weakest side when it
[22:29] comes to mentally facing A-Team. I think that he's been at his
[22:33] weakest as a Madrid player against Valencia for one or
[22:37] another reason. Seems to lose his head, lose his
[22:39] composure, lose everything. There's a difference between,
[22:42] again, I'm not going to take into example when he was
[22:45] racially abused, that's a completely different story.
[22:47] But it's even on the pitch by the players.
[22:49] We have no reports of that happening, but it's the fact
[22:53] that when he's taken down, he gives you that one extra bad
[22:58] reaction that you don't want out of him.
[23:01] And Valencia does a good job with that when it to be honest,
[23:06] they do a good job containing on number sevens for some reason,
[23:09] because I remember Ronaldo missing the penalties against
[23:13] Diego Alves which therefore resulted in those losing the
[23:17] league. But.
[23:19] Yeah. I'm just trying to make a point
[23:22] in narrative of the fact that we're coming off a very high,
[23:25] high, like we came ahead, tough away, a victory that for the
[23:30] most part was comfortable in terms of the performance, not
[23:33] the result. Then you're coming off a
[23:36] relatively comfortable game against Juventus with some
[23:39] lapses and Barcelona, which was like cream of the crop, and the
[23:43] result doesn't do justice to the performance, at least in my
[23:46] eyes. So Madrid comes into this game
[23:49] having full control of the last three ones, while Valencia had
[23:54] also played Coba del Rey in midweek and didn't watch the
[23:58] game, admittedly, but I saw that some key players had actually
[24:02] played in that game. I don't know if it was for moral
[24:05] reasons to get it up, have them score some goals or try new
[24:09] things, or I don't know if the coach just felt pressured until
[24:13] there is no chance that I have to lose this.
[24:16] Therefore, like players like Duro are going to play the game,
[24:19] or Diego Lopez. Yeah.
[24:22] So now going into tomorrow's game for Madrid, Madrid have
[24:28] also Liverpool on the Champions League.
[24:30] So of course it's never easy like league season and Champions
[24:37] League. Now being in more league format
[24:39] means that you need goals on both ends, you need results in
[24:43] both ends. Madrid.
[24:44] Madrid have a lead to Barcelona, but it's just not enough lead
[24:48] where you can comfortably sit and be like, OK, I can treat
[24:51] this game a bit more lightly because of the Champions League.
[24:54] The competition seems to be pretty damn good.
[24:57] So Valencia, what do you expect of them to have for Joby
[25:06] tomorrow? Do you expect like a
[25:08] disoriented, disjointed team, or do or do you expect a team that
[25:12] comes together for that one game?
[25:16] Well, I think that if there's any game to unify the team,
[25:23] there's any game that brings everybody together in Valencia,
[25:27] it's Real Madrid, yes, regardless of where we're
[25:31] playing it, if it's an opportunity for us to get some
[25:35] together, togetherness together. So like Danjuma, it was said
[25:41] that for instance, Diego Lopez was a bit upset that he didn't
[25:44] get the number 7. Danjuma just came in and kind of
[25:48] just picked it up automatically and the club backed it and all
[25:52] of that. But some of those stories are a
[25:54] bit exaggerated, I think. I think players get over that.
[25:56] They were those talk about jealousy in the dressing room
[25:59] over Danjuma. But in mid week you could see
[26:01] that, you know, the group has kind of like accepted him a bit
[26:05] more and everyone is getting along and all that.
[26:10] So but and this kind of game is kind of game that then
[26:13] solidifies that kind of bond. You know, you're fighting for
[26:17] yourselves. Like you said about Vinnie, we
[26:20] seem to get to him a lot. Of course, the the racist
[26:24] incident was like the catalyst for that because he he always
[26:29] feels like, you know what, like since that game, he's felt like
[26:31] in fact, even before that game, because I remember Gabriel
[26:34] Powell is start kicking him and getting a red card some years
[26:37] ago for no reason when we're basically getting tortured.
[26:42] And you know, I felt like that was in bad taste, especially
[26:46] because we're countrymen as well.
[26:47] Like, why are you kicking? Just get on with your job and if
[26:51] you are not so bad, we wouldn't be losing 5 NIL and you wouldn't
[26:55] be angry. Like actually I don't like that
[26:58] teams. I don't like when my team is
[26:59] Dead Sea. I hated what I lost as my coach
[27:02] because that's not football. It's nonsense.
[27:05] You know, I want to win fans square.
[27:07] I want to win with like proper strategy.
[27:10] I know that I beat the opponents without any complaints.
[27:14] And thankfully, Quran is not that kind of coach that tells
[27:17] his players to go out and keep, you know, the opponents because
[27:20] they can't win. So you're not going to get that
[27:23] tomorrow. And so I think that it's going
[27:26] to be personally, I think we're going to play 5 at the back.
[27:31] It's the kind of thing that Cobra will do.
[27:34] Yeah, that's so you're saying that that's kind of like his big
[27:38] games or mitigation way of OK, so I you because usually it's a
[27:45] 442 right, 4231 type of thing. And suddenly, for a big game, he
[27:50] just goes at 3:00 at the back with, yeah, OK, How?
[27:54] How? Just can they?
[27:55] Survive the moment. Yes, his back against the wall
[27:59] strategy is you know what, 5-5 at the back.
[28:04] If if I don't know, I don't think who cares fit yet, but if
[28:07] he was, he'd probably be the right center back with theory
[28:12] Korea as the wing back or real hard because real kind of solves
[28:17] a lot of problems for us. Real can play as a wing back on
[28:21] either side and can play for the forward and he's very energetic.
[28:26] He runs a lot is always very hard working.
[28:29] So he's kind of someone that you don't have on the bench for a
[28:32] game like this and you make way for him, but it kind of gives
[28:35] you extra. I don't think Santa Maria is
[28:38] going to start because he only he started midweek and got an
[28:42] assist and he was good. But Oberon has not been using
[28:46] him in that role since the Oviedo game.
[28:49] So it's probably going to be pepelo as them with era.
[28:56] Era has not been good this season.
[28:58] It seems to be completely dissolutioned again.
[29:01] It happened on the bar and it's happening again and fans are
[29:04] starting to like turn on him. But for games like this he tends
[29:08] to, you know, raise his level and really ball out.
[29:12] So I think that we're going to see Gara and Pipilu in the
[29:15] centre unless there's a fitness nickel or something like that.
[29:20] I think the biggest threats also Guru went off injured in mid
[29:25] week. I don't, I'm not sure what his
[29:28] situation is right now. Well, he went off, enjoyed it,
[29:31] looked a bit back. So I don't know if he's going to
[29:34] be fit for this. But he's also not really been on
[29:37] good terms with Kabran from all indications, because Yaman was
[29:42] his best friend in Valencia and he was, it was said that he took
[29:46] it particularly hard the way Yaman was treated.
[29:49] And so, so far this season, Kabran has been taking him off,
[29:54] bringing him on sometimes taking him off early or not starting
[29:58] him and all that. So, but we know that Duro
[30:01] against Barcelona, Real Madrid is almost a guaranteed goal
[30:04] every time. He always scores in those games,
[30:07] always. But I don't think he's going to
[30:09] play here. And if he's not playing, then
[30:11] the biggest threat is Dondruma. Dondruma has started very well.
[30:17] Dondruma is very fast and his profile.
[30:22] His profile with the Highline is exactly what very dangerous.
[30:26] You see the game against Juventus where Vlavic got away
[30:30] and, you know, missed the chance eventually.
[30:34] I think there are about two or three bricks like that.
[30:37] Yes, I think if you even in Barcelona, Emily Tao has to keep
[30:40] guiding house and how to move because Madrid.
[30:46] I think Alonzo doesn't really trust the low block or kind of
[30:51] like a mid central live block. He needs like that highline so
[30:56] the players can suffocate the other team and make the passes
[30:59] as uncomfortable as possible. Which means that a dribble tidy
[31:03] way like you saw against Juventus for example with Ken
[31:06] Andy, LDS and Cambiasso, they were able to send Lavish through
[31:11] two or three times really throughout the period when
[31:14] Lavish was there. So if you give Danjuma, if you
[31:18] give Danjuma three of those chances, he's going to score
[31:21] two. I assure you he's going to score
[31:23] 2. We give him three, he's going to
[31:25] score 2 because he has looked very good in front of goal.
[31:29] He's looked very, very dangerous, which is why it was
[31:32] baffling to me that against Barcelona we completely
[31:35] nullified the threat that he poses because that was literally
[31:39] a game made for him. Like that was that should have
[31:43] been dungeons game. So I've gotten 2, three goals,
[31:46] you know, from the way Barcelona was set up and all of that space
[31:48] and all that. But again, another problem we
[31:50] have is apart from Cabron not really getting profiles
[31:56] correctly, because if it's just like the way Madrid play Guler
[32:01] and Mbappe, there's a way you use Guler.
[32:06] As soon as he gets the ball, Mbappe starts making a run
[32:10] because he knows that ball is coming and you know he's going
[32:14] to go through. Apart from like the assets that
[32:17] Jude made last last time out, Jude is not as direct as that.
[32:23] I was a bit surprised that he played that pass one time.
[32:26] It's not as direct as you know, that Galet takes.
[32:30] One seems to be coming though, like it seems that Madrid are
[32:33] gearing up towards that Orden Judes or teams are OK who's
[32:38] actually going to try to lead off that pass?
[32:40] And that's a bit scary for opponents in general because if
[32:47] the ball goes through, then you're just not beating Papaya
[32:50] on that duel no matter what. So you kinda to play against
[32:56] Madrid. Like, it feels weird to play to
[32:58] talk against your team technically, but it feels that
[33:01] you need to stop the supporting cast to be able to needle in
[33:04] those passes. Because if they are comfortable
[33:08] recycling on your end, then even the disallowed goal of Papaya,
[33:12] right? Like, we can talk a lot of
[33:14] reasons, all of that. I don't want to get into that.
[33:16] But the first goal of the game, yeah, Papa just takes the first
[33:20] time shot from 30 meters away and he just goes in smoothly.
[33:24] You know, it's not, he's not overthinking the situation.
[33:28] He's not he's just taking that shot and he's he missed scoring
[33:34] in two games this whole season for Madrid.
[33:37] Yeah, two games so long. Justin Lee.
[33:38] Yeah, Justin Lee. He has not scored against
[33:40] Valencia Justin Lee so far, which which means that he you.
[33:45] Know there's always, of course. He cares about my feelings
[33:49] because I did say it. I said when he was signed I said
[33:52] Bobby is going to score against everybody but he's not going to
[33:55] score against Valencia at Mestaya.
[33:57] Mestaya though and last season he didn't score against us
[34:01] twice. So he did score though when he
[34:03] was disallowed. I think that may have been on
[34:06] side won a Mestaya. I think it was very, very
[34:09] marginal looks. Like, yeah, the marginal 1, yes.
[34:12] Yeah. But for us, I think that if we
[34:16] don't have someone that is playing those passes to Danjuma,
[34:21] who ideally would be Pepello, because it's Pepello who's who
[34:26] tends to see those passes. But if he's so preoccupied with
[34:29] defensive work, which is why we're supposed to play 3, so
[34:33] that he's a bit freer to play those passes, I think the other
[34:37] person that can play those passes is real hard.
[34:40] Or he'll play them into space. Not necessarily watching who is
[34:44] making the run. He just played into space and
[34:46] expect Anjuman to go ahead of it.
[34:48] So with Madrid's approach, I think they'll always be
[34:52] opportunity opportunities for chances like that.
[34:54] Because you can't block everything.
[34:57] Some things will slip through the cracks, which I think is
[34:59] what I'm saying. Click, click counts on it counts
[35:02] on you know what, I I like my odds like this.
[35:06] Like, OK, as much as I'm going to give up chances every now and
[35:10] then, I like my odds that I will also have my chances and have
[35:14] more chances than you. And you probably would miss
[35:17] because he's buying them. For some reason, players kept
[35:21] missing easy chances against them.
[35:24] I never understood what someone tried to explain it as.
[35:27] Oh, they, they get very nervous because they don't know whether
[35:33] they will see that chance again or something like that.
[35:35] And so it affects their composure in front of go because
[35:37] I remember the Champions in semi final against Leon, Leon had
[35:41] like three of those chances when it was near near.
[35:44] I know the pie missed 1 and I was it was going crazy.
[35:48] Like, look, all this space just hit it up and, you know, finish
[35:52] one. So it's it's the idea that OK,
[35:57] of course, that's like one of the hazards of the trade.
[35:59] It's just like a deep line playmaker or someone like
[36:04] Pharrell basically, who you know comes deep.
[36:08] He's going to take his time on the ball.
[36:09] He's a bit soft. You know that if you press him,
[36:13] you probably won't get lucky so many times, but there will be
[36:17] times when they will give up the ball.
[36:19] It happened against events this season very well.
[36:22] They pressed them and pressed them at some point to give up
[36:25] the ball and they considered. This is exactly what I wanted to
[36:28] guess to get to because Madrid are now like one of the highest
[36:33] person teams in La Liga. They don't allow more than 9
[36:36] passes to be strong. How would volunteer cope with
[36:41] that because Madrid are? Also, I think it's legitimate to
[36:48] say that La Liga is a bit harder to create chances than any other
[36:52] league due to the styles that are presented.
[36:55] I'm not here to sit and say that it's the hardest legal or
[36:59] anything because every league comes with its own issues,
[37:02] problems and the adversity that you have to deal with.
[37:05] But La Ligas is more of like, you're going to get less of the
[37:10] ball on the field, if that makes sense, because teams are willing
[37:13] to do. The teams have changed from that
[37:15] 2015 time when Paco Hames was still a coach and everybody
[37:19] wants to play football, right? It's more of like, I need the
[37:23] result here and this all I care about.
[37:26] Yeah. Madrid are tied with Ben Money
[37:29] in terms of expectancy of goals this season, which is huge in
[37:35] terms of volume and comparing the fact that Madrid are
[37:39] relatively never there. They are a team that scores a
[37:42] lot but historically will over perform their expected goals by
[37:47] quite a bit. Of course, we'll we'll helped by
[37:50] the elite of elitist talent, but this season, of course, Zimbabwe
[37:55] just been a ridiculous of creating chances and actually
[38:00] pulling at least one away per game, which is huge to give you
[38:05] that cushion to be able to maneuver and help Madrid
[38:08] progress into what they where they're seemingly going to go.
[38:12] Like right now. It's not a finished product by
[38:14] any means. We already spoke about one of
[38:15] their problems and they do have more than one.
[38:19] But would Valencia, in your opinion, be able to cope with
[38:24] the level of pressure that Madrid brings?
[38:26] You even saw that last weekend against Barcelona.
[38:32] I think we'll struggle with it, to be very honest with you.
[38:36] I think one person that will help us if he plays is Coppete.
[38:41] Nobody likes Coppete in Valencia, by the way.
[38:45] The fans barely gave him one game and said he's crap, and
[38:49] Myoka fans celebrated when he was sold.
[38:52] But I liked Coppete at Myoka. I like what Coppete gives us.
[38:56] I don't think he's the greatest defender in the world.
[38:59] Obviously Jacobi is the starter, but he's currently not fit.
[39:06] So we're going to probably see Tarika and Compete at the back
[39:11] depending on. I'm not so sure if compete is
[39:13] currently fit well if he is immediately such a man, but I
[39:19] think it was just because it was against that mature side.
[39:23] So if Compete starts, what competing gives us is that he's
[39:28] the best passer amongst our defenders.
[39:30] Like he's always looking to play the line breaking pass.
[39:35] The right pass of the right, yes.
[39:37] Yes, into that half space down the left that left half space,
[39:41] which is where Danjuma probably is going to be.
[39:45] If he's not played as like the striker, Even if he's played as
[39:47] a striker, he's going to probably.
[39:50] You normally would like him paired with another target man
[39:53] like ideally Hugo Duro against Madrid to pin one of the center
[39:57] backs. So Benjamin and three of I
[40:00] don't. Think Dury is is available?
[40:02] It's not fit. Is there another number man that
[40:05] you believe could do that job and be servers servable for
[40:09] Valencia on this game? So because if it's Danjuma alone
[40:15] and Madrid have basically Chaomini sitting in front and
[40:19] then have let's even say that they're going to give MI Letao a
[40:23] break, it's still Asencio who's a pretty aggressive player.
[40:28] Like not the best, but he's an aggressive centre back.
[40:31] And once you play Highline and you're comfortable with that and
[40:35] he's listening to his teammates, especially Chaomini as Madrid
[40:40] are setting the screens up for the press, he can be a pretty
[40:44] dangerous player for one attacker to deal with.
[40:48] I think that with the way how you deal with Ascencio, it's
[40:51] basically the blueprint is there.
[40:53] You need to kinda trap him so he loses focus a bit too quickly.
[40:59] He's a bit rash. Jumps are a little bit late at
[41:01] times. Therefore, if you can target
[41:05] that, because my assumption is the fact that ascension is going
[41:08] to start due to Militaus, well, double ACL and load of minutes,
[41:12] then it's Liverpool away. So probably getting called up
[41:17] with Brazil again. So I think that a load
[41:20] management is going to be key with him.
[41:22] So when I think of that, Danjuma is definitely going to need a
[41:26] partner that can trap, that can trap Essential or Dean House and
[41:34] maybe like it depending on the player that's starting.
[41:37] But one of the centre backs need to be pinned and tapped with
[41:41] Madrid. Because one thing that we're
[41:43] saying depends on whether Vini or Rodrigo start.
[41:46] But if Vini starts, you have seen that Carreras acts more
[41:50] like a centre back, an inverted player with only pushing
[41:55] whenever needy. Vinnie needs support.
[41:57] It's like that timely, tidy player who's doesn't need to
[42:02] push. And this again where we expect
[42:04] Trent to come back from Madrid on the right side.
[42:07] I think that this where the reps are going to start with Trent.
[42:11] Alberta came out with a cramp, probably starts with Shamani,
[42:17] Arda, Guillerin, Bellingham could likely keep there, but one
[42:22] of them might set this one out for Franco and Santuano.
[42:27] But I mean here I'm Speaking of the depth that Madrid has, which
[42:31] is like a huge luxury. Like every single player that I
[42:34] mentioned here probably stars for Valencia.
[42:39] I don't know about Ascencio to be honest, given how rare she
[42:42] is, but outside of that, every player comfortably starts and I
[42:48] wanted to get here. I saw Gaia in two games now, as
[42:52] I said, and I feel that the mileage has finally gone to him
[42:57] like this, feels that he's given his all throughout his career
[43:04] and he's not the same player anymore.
[43:06] Like he, he's had a lot of injuries, the same player.
[43:10] He's had a lot of injuries. Unfortunately, the fans have
[43:13] turned on him instead of giving him some grace, unfortunately.
[43:17] But I, I, I think the only thing that would make him start here,
[43:20] I don't think he's fit for if he was fit, the only thing that
[43:24] would make him start here would be just for the leadership
[43:28] because of the occasion. But ideally it should be Issus
[43:33] Vasquez who starts. Now going back to what you were
[43:36] saying about Danjuma, I don't think Kobran is that smart, to
[43:42] be very honest. Based on the evidence, it's not
[43:44] an insult. I just don't think he's that
[43:46] smart. You don't want Danjuma doing
[43:50] that job that Guru should be doing.
[43:53] But reports in the Valencian media have said that they are
[43:57] preparing for Danjuma to play as the number 9, which doesn't make
[44:01] any sense to me. What I'll do personally, because
[44:06] I know that Kobran for the most part is going to opt for hoofing
[44:12] the ball when he might come into the game saying, OK, you know,
[44:18] we're going to try to pass out When we're pressed twice and we
[44:23] lose the ball twice. It's going to tell them to who
[44:25] fit, who fit for Diego Lopez or who fit for Danzuma or
[44:29] something, just who fit into space and hope that they run
[44:32] after it or whatever. Now, if you're going for that
[44:34] strategy, like you said, you want someone that can bring it
[44:38] down and you know with. Especially if you're going to
[44:44] play against the high press team, at least a player, even if
[44:47] they can bring it down, they contest on a player like he's
[44:52] like, there is a lot of film, a lot of samples with them as a
[44:56] footballer. He's not that, he's not going to
[44:59] be. Wasn't that we are all he can be
[45:02] a number 9 in terms of if you want like a floating type of
[45:06] player, but not your number 9 for a game against Madrid where
[45:11] he's going to be isolated and dealing with can he get in
[45:17] behind maybe? Can that be used?
[45:21] Maybe. But here we're getting into
[45:23] territory of everything on the game plan is a maybe.
[45:26] Everything on the game plan is a maybe because if you have like a
[45:31] target man alongside him or at least a midfielder that you
[45:35] could push to contest, let's say 1:00, the midfield and one of
[45:39] the midfielders goes to contest. Then you're getting into, OK, I
[45:43] need out of five duals, I need this midfielder or this striker
[45:47] to win one of them. And then Juma is off the rails
[45:50] because pace wise, in terms of the speed, no Madrid player is
[45:54] going to be able to catch up with them or relatively even
[45:57] contest when it comes to a highline type of situation.
[46:02] But if Valencia ultimately are setting up in a low block and
[46:08] hoof the ball up, then that's pretty much mitigating how
[46:14] dangerous he can be. There will be slaves people is
[46:17] all about momentum. But as I said against viral, it
[46:21] didn't feel that Valencia could ever get back into it even at
[46:25] the slightest moment and it does the Valencia that shows up
[46:29] tomorrow night, then they better not even show up and I'm I'm
[46:34] really being respectful here. But is the fact that this is not
[46:38] a very disjointed team anymore. This is a team that clearly
[46:43] follows the instructions, whether they are correct or
[46:45] wrong, that Valencia is not even going to punish.
[46:50] It's not going to punish a team that even a coach that even gets
[46:54] it wrong. Like I said with Marcelina, like
[46:57] because you still have a an Mbappe.
[47:00] There's a reason why I mentioned that for his goal last week,
[47:03] because he can still do that. And another question that I had
[47:07] about Valencia is the fact that I'm used to seeing Mama Darvili
[47:11] on the goal, right? Like he was the guy.
[47:15] And I saw that. Of course, we knew from last
[47:20] season that he was moving to Liverpool.
[47:22] Last season, I believe he was on loan by technicalities to
[47:26] Valencia and Alison was supposed to be done.
[47:30] But come this season, Alison starts the season, gets injured,
[47:34] Mama, there's really some goal. It's a completely news thing.
[47:37] But Mamar for me was one of the top three goalkeepers in the
[47:41] league for quite a few years when it came to other least shot
[47:44] stopping and dealing with adversity.
[47:46] Like he's a very good shot reader and his reflexes and and
[47:53] his body is very capable of jumping to the right spot, even
[47:58] if that shot feels like a goal. And that guy's not on goal
[48:01] anymore for Valencia. How do you feel about the new
[48:05] goalkeeper? Which, my apologies, not going
[48:08] to try to pronounce the name. I know that it's a bad name.
[48:16] So. Yeah, I get it.
[48:19] Yeah, actually, Yeah, thank you. I need my commentators to do a
[48:23] good job tomorrow night there. Let's hope his name is called
[48:27] out a lot. But how do you feel about him
[48:30] now, going from Mamadas really to that?
[48:33] He was the. 1st for Athletic Club I believe or athletic build
[48:37] no as some people he was the first choice for a bit when they
[48:41] dropped an ICMO for I believe some issues on the training
[48:46] ground last season. But he went back to the bench
[48:52] when Unai was fully fit or whatever was happening was
[48:55] resolved and now he's at Valencia.
[48:57] So how do you feel about him? Like because we know that Madrid
[49:02] are going to test the goalkeeper, so how do you feel
[49:04] about him? Well, I think what we we lost
[49:09] with Mama Dasvili that Aguirre Zabala is not really doesn't
[49:14] give me confidence with is aerial balls, the aerial threat
[49:19] now from corners. I think there will be some
[49:22] problem. He's not it doesn't give me the
[49:25] same confidence. If there's a corner cake and my
[49:28] mother's really is there. I know he's coming to claim and
[49:31] he's he's very he's pretty tall and everything and dominant in
[49:34] terms of short stopping. He's not my ma level.
[49:38] I think my MA was pulling miracles, especially like 2 two
[49:43] seasons ago where he's according to staff, he basically saved us
[49:47] by nine goals. Just, yeah, I think he, he's he
[49:51] kinda like nine goals, which is a lot, yeah, for people to
[49:55] understand. Crazy, but apart from the
[49:59] Barcelona game where he was just straight up poor like Sherman
[50:03] was just shooting and so just going in also pissed apart from
[50:08] that game and a few other games here and there, I think he's
[50:12] been pretty decent with shot stopping.
[50:14] He's made some very good saves, but I'm not expecting him to
[50:20] pull miracles in this game. I think that.
[50:22] It's not going to be like your dear Alvarez Mamadas.
[50:24] Really, somebody was going to, even if you have a dead
[50:28] defensive performance, he's going to keep you in at the very
[50:32] least to survive. Yeah, so you mentioned.
[50:34] Corner. There's a personality that de
[50:38] Guavas had, yeah. I mean, de Guavas would be kind
[50:42] of like an extreme example because he was like, but you
[50:47] know, like you go through that motion of Valencia always used
[50:52] to have that goalkeeper right, where you know that he can bail
[50:56] them out. And now you're kind of like in a
[50:59] phase of, OK, he does some decent saves, but overall it's a
[51:04] downgrade to what we previously used to have.
[51:08] You mentioned the corners or set pieces in general, like dead
[51:11] ball situations being a Valencia weakness.
[51:16] Madrid haven't particularly been great with them either, but
[51:22] there's a huge improvement compared to where they were last
[51:24] season. Like you can see that they're
[51:26] trying to do some some of the things that were missing.
[51:29] Plus they have the natural players that are great in the
[51:34] air, like Dean Allison, even a sensual strong that he can get
[51:38] at the end of some shots. Germany, of course, like always
[51:42] there. Militao, if he plays Jude
[51:46] Bellingham, there is just a lot of quality.
[51:50] We even saw the goal against Barcelona, right?
[51:53] It comes from a dead ball situation where Arda Guilera
[51:56] goes to Vinicius. Vinicius already knows that he
[51:58] needs to cross on the back post, but there's a centre back in
[52:02] Militao before pulling the ball back.
[52:05] So Madrid are definitely more drilled into set pieces now than
[52:09] they previously were when they are solely relied on those
[52:15] players actually just being so physically gifted rather than
[52:19] having some sort of strategy and going like early season.
[52:22] I don't know if you saw, remember we were running this
[52:25] one player is going to fake run so they can pull the offside and
[52:30] the and there is going to be an extra pass before the shot is
[52:34] taken. And with a non reactionary
[52:37] goalkeeper on this case, with a goalkeeper that's not going to
[52:41] leave his line and contest for the passes that is going to do.
[52:48] It kind of feels that it feeds into Madrid's strengths into the
[52:52] set pieces because it gives Madrid that second chance onto
[52:56] every set piece that they're going to get because they're not
[52:59] being contested by the goalkeeper.
[53:00] Therefore, they can run as they can.
[53:05] And an important absence is the Acabi.
[53:09] Yeah, the Akabe is pretty dominant in the air.
[53:13] And him not being there, it's a problem because for for some of
[53:18] the weaknesses that the goalkeeper has in the air, when
[53:21] you have a the Akabe, you kind of mix up for it a bit because
[53:24] it's just that guy, you know, But not having him around, we
[53:29] have just Tiger that is really like, but even Tiger is not, I
[53:34] don't know. I'm still be unsure of him
[53:36] aerially compared to the Jacabi, the Jacabi with the Jacabi, I'm
[53:40] like pretty confident. Yeah.
[53:42] And just like last season, mascara wasn't the most
[53:47] dominant, really compared to the Jacabi.
[53:50] So like, just having the Jacabi there kind of helps even with
[53:53] like everybody. One thing I wanted to bring out
[53:56] is, like I was saying before, if we were to go long, the player I
[54:02] would play amongst our options would be Danny Raba because he's
[54:09] pretty tall and you know that if rubber brings down that ball, he
[54:14] has the quality to play a pass in behind for, to hold off the
[54:19] ball and play a pass in behind for Danjuma.
[54:21] If Kobran is smart enough to play that, then we could have a
[54:25] strategy that just involves going long and getting rubber to
[54:30] bring the ball down. Also, if we have Armida playing,
[54:34] because I don't think Armada is going to start, boy, Armada
[54:36] starts. He helps us with ball retention
[54:40] and a bit of dribbling, you know, when when he's pressed and
[54:44] also being able to play that dangerous pass.
[54:47] So Armada, if he plays, could be a very, very important piece
[54:52] depending on how we approach the game.
[54:54] But with that said, I don't think we're going to have
[54:59] anything other than just aimless hoof balls.
[55:02] And also, even with that, I think that our inability to
[55:09] control games means that even if we go in front in this game, we
[55:15] will not know how to manage things and keep the lead.
[55:20] And I'm going to use Real Madrid as an example from last season.
[55:25] 2 Zero up against Barcelona in the classical, the title decider
[55:31] and Real Madrid look terrified. Yes.
[55:36] Because they just feel, yeah, we're 20 or we're going to lose
[55:40] this game. Yeah, it doesn't feel
[55:43] achievable. Yeah, it does.
[55:46] And that's from a lack of strategy, a lack of OK, you know
[55:50] what, we have the lead now we can keep it Barcelona.
[55:53] Nothing to fall back into in terms of systematically, there's
[55:57] nothing to fall back into for the play.
[55:59] Exactly that. And that's why I'm bringing that
[56:01] example. For Barcelona, it was no matter
[56:03] how many times we concede, we know we can score because our
[56:07] the system ensures that we do so the confidence of the players is
[56:12] about the the preparedness. I think the official pod, you
[56:17] know, tweeted about that some time ago when I was talking
[56:19] about something like that, the preparedness when you come into
[56:24] a game and you know you're prepared, you know that you have
[56:26] a strategy to keep a lead to control a game.
[56:32] It changes how you even execute actions because you are existing
[56:36] with more confidence. You have a clear direction.
[56:40] Yes, it we do not have that. So if we're going to this game,
[56:45] somehow we go in the lead and we're leading in the first half,
[56:49] trust me, before half time we probably are 331 down.
[56:55] And that is my fear for this team.
[56:58] That's always my fear with with, you know, Violence said.
[57:01] This isn't at least, and he doesn't.
[57:05] Have a coach that actually watches film instead of just
[57:08] going aimlessly into games. Exactly.
[57:12] So now you're facing an opponent that knows that no matter what,
[57:16] we have a strategy and we know where to kill you and we know
[57:20] how to get you. Now we are coming in saying, OK,
[57:22] this is our plan, OK, If your plan is to use Dandema like this
[57:26] and somehow get him in front of Cotois, when he gets in front of
[57:31] Cotois and he scores, what's the next plan?
[57:34] How do you intend to keep the ball?
[57:36] How do you intend to now deal with the barrage of chances that
[57:40] are going to come? Also another thing to mention is
[57:44] that. First and foremost, like do they
[57:46] respect you as a team or are they just going to let all hand
[57:49] loose and you need to control that chaos that they're going to
[57:53] bring to? Be honest, if you're a team,
[57:56] that's what Valencia this season and you respect Valencia too
[58:00] much, then the problem is you because every single opponent we
[58:05] face, you could see that we did not have the facilities to
[58:11] control games, to direct the flow of the game, to sustain
[58:15] attacks, to pin them down and say we're looking for a goal and
[58:18] we're going to get a goal. We've not shown that and we've
[58:21] not shown that we are capable of that.
[58:23] And we have a coach who keeps, you know, trying things that are
[58:27] not working and is very stubborn about his line UPS, about his
[58:31] system, about everything. And he refuses to learn.
[58:34] So, you know, how do you get out of that?
[58:36] Alternatively, I think this is both an opportunity for Real
[58:41] Madrid, an opportunity for Valencia.
[58:44] Interestingly, Cesar Tariga for me, he's one of the best
[58:49] defenders I've seen in taking the ball out of defense.
[58:54] He always, he's such a good ball carrier when he carries the
[58:59] ball. So that's another route for us
[59:00] out of defense. He's a great ball carrier.
[59:03] He carries the ball out of defense, but it comes with the
[59:05] risk. Now that helps us with like
[59:08] getting the ball out of that zone into the other zone, but
[59:12] that comes with the risk of him getting cut out.
[59:14] Because if if Tiger takes the ball out and Madrid press and
[59:20] suffocate him and get the ball, there's a way Kamavinga jumps.
[59:24] There's a way to many jumps that just they just bring it on you
[59:30] and before you know it you've lost the ball.
[59:31] Now if that happens and Tiger is cut out.
[59:35] He's left all that space for him, Bob, Pete or any player
[59:39] really, together. And Kopete cannot handle that.
[59:42] Vasquez is not really a defender.
[59:46] I've always said that. He's more it's like Garrett
[59:49] Bill. And Garrett Bill was a left
[59:50] back. Yeah, this guy is not here to
[59:54] defend. He's he's not really a great
[59:56] defender. He's just thrown that can.
[59:58] He can carry the ball out of defense.
[1:00:00] And that's what he wants to do. In fact, Vasquez wants to
[1:00:03] dribble as well. So it's not.
[1:00:05] Going to help you? Yeah, but that makes it even
[1:00:08] tougher against a team that wants to shrink the space down.
[1:00:12] Exactly. So if Tiger is cut out, I'm not
[1:00:16] sure we have any defender. If we had the Akabi behind him,
[1:00:19] the Akabi can kind of mop up and you know, hold off.
[1:00:23] But if Tiger comes out and we're cut out, I don't think the
[1:00:26] defenders were going to start can deal with that, except OK,
[1:00:31] if we're starting with five, maybe we'll have just a few
[1:00:34] numbers that would help like an extra figure there.
[1:00:37] But I think that could be a vulnerability for us.
[1:00:40] But also if Tiger is successful in kind of coming out and laying
[1:00:44] the ball, you know, for somebody who's going to play past
[1:00:47] dungeon, then that's the threat coming from us.
[1:00:50] So that's that's another thing that is worth looking at.
[1:00:54] Well, I I I think there's going to be a lot of last ditch
[1:00:57] defending from our side. I, I, I, I always come into
[1:01:03] games like this with the belief that, you know, I don't care who
[1:01:06] are facing right, I, we can be facing prime.
[1:01:10] I've never been scared of anything.
[1:01:12] I I always say it. We played against MSN with
[1:01:15] Pacquiao, Esta and as our coach and Abdino in defense and we won
[1:01:21] at camp. No, you know, we played one with
[1:01:25] Barragan as a right back at camp No as well with you know, a
[1:01:30] bunch of overall Romeo as our DM and a very disjointed team.
[1:01:35] I was losing and we went there and we won.
[1:01:37] So I know that with Valencia is the day you do not expect them
[1:01:41] to do anything that they just find a way and cause trouble.
[1:01:46] Now with that said, I I don't come to games like this scared.
[1:01:51] I just want to see what Kabran has planned, but mentally,
[1:01:56] mentally come into this game based on if I'm being logical,
[1:02:00] based on what we have shown so far this season, it's going to
[1:02:04] be a bloodbath. I'm talking for zero tough time.
[1:02:09] If if Kobran doesn't adjust, if he's if he doesn't decide, if he
[1:02:14] decides to continue being stubborn and if he proves to me
[1:02:17] that he's not very smart, we're going.
[1:02:20] It's going to be a bloodbath, honestly.
[1:02:22] But if we come as the Valencia that just turns up in big games
[1:02:27] for whatever reason, especially against Madrid, then maybe we
[1:02:32] we, we stand a chance if we can hold off and just come into half
[1:02:35] time at 00 or something like that.
[1:02:37] But I, I really doubt it. If I'm being objective, I think
[1:02:40] that it's probably one of those easy games.
[1:02:43] It's like there was this game we lost five one.
[1:02:46] That was the game where Vinicius was kicked.
[1:02:49] I think he scored a hat trick that day.
[1:02:51] Yeah, he scored that. It it that that day was just so
[1:02:56] less and it was kind of what we expected coming to that game.
[1:02:59] So I think this feels a lot like that kind of thing where we just
[1:03:04] show up and we get battered and we go home.
[1:03:08] Yeah. Do you feel that for once, maybe
[1:03:11] let's say that it's a bloodbath and basically there's no
[1:03:15] learning curve for the coach. You feel that a Valencia coach
[1:03:20] is going to be sacked after a Madrid game for once, rather
[1:03:24] than the other way around because of the results that have
[1:03:27] been coming. They've already come out
[1:03:30] apparently this week to say that his position is secure and they
[1:03:34] are keeping him for the future. Whatever.
[1:03:37] So I don't think and Peter Lim is just not the kind of guy that
[1:03:41] sucks you for losing to Real Madrid.
[1:03:42] He only sucks you when apart from like for things like what
[1:03:48] you say in press conferences or whatever, it only sucks you when
[1:03:52] the Valencia fans start turning on him and it's your fault for
[1:03:59] bringing the attention back to him.
[1:04:01] He doesn't want that attention. So when the Yankees are out at
[1:04:05] Nestia and everybody's riots in outside, then Peter thinks and
[1:04:10] says, you know what? It seems like this thing has
[1:04:12] gotten really bad. Just just leave, you know, but
[1:04:17] they paid a lot of money for Cabran, stuff that we never
[1:04:20] believed was possible for Talim to do.
[1:04:23] They actually paid money. They paid off Barrad then paid
[1:04:27] more money to release Cabran from his contract to West Brom
[1:04:31] and bring him. So because of that and you know,
[1:04:35] even Rangoli that came in as you know to to run things at the
[1:04:39] club is someone that you know, Cabran requested apparently.
[1:04:45] So he has a lot of backing. The players that were signed
[1:04:48] were cause of him. So I think they will have more
[1:04:50] patience unless we lose 10 zero. Yeah.
[1:04:55] Even even Gary Neville wasn't fired after losing 70.
[1:05:00] Yeah, but that was Gary Neville, so you know, it's.
[1:05:03] Like Peter Lim was upset that I was trying to resign.
[1:05:07] Yeah. I mean nothing shocking with
[1:05:11] Peter Lim at this point. He's no longer the one in
[1:05:16] charge. It's his son that is now in
[1:05:19] charge of Valencia. Yeah, Lim.
[1:05:21] So I don't know. Yeah, maybe something is
[1:05:23] different with him. OK.
[1:05:27] So I think we have kind of wrapped it up nicely like
[1:05:31] normally on paper just to find the conclusion to this.
[1:05:35] Normally on paper, Madrid or not good team for Valencia Tafes
[1:05:41] right now considering where Madrid are like 13 out of 14
[1:05:46] wins for the new coach. And it's been an impressive work
[1:05:51] of process. It's not just been results.
[1:05:53] You have felt that the team has constantly improved and shifted
[1:05:57] because they went from, OK, we kind of need this Guillerin Bapi
[1:06:01] connection to keep on working to throw in a little bit more of
[1:06:05] like offensive dimension. And as I said, there's still
[1:06:09] work with the team. But generally speaking, Madrid
[1:06:12] should have the solutions to deal with Valencia tomorrow
[1:06:16] night. Should like we're only talking
[1:06:18] on paper because as you said, mentality, things can change.
[1:06:21] Valencia can suddenly just make Madrid not only respect them,
[1:06:26] but really respect them because you never know, like first 5
[1:06:30] minutes they're on behind three times because that can happen
[1:06:34] and suddenly the team feels more panicked.
[1:06:36] The plan is kind of thrown out and they kind of need to restart
[1:06:40] and readjust. So Valencia can kill times that
[1:06:43] way, even if they're not structurally set correct to deal
[1:06:47] with it. So a lot of circumstances can
[1:06:49] happen out there that can dictate the process of the game.
[1:06:54] So to wrap this up, what's your realistic score prediction for
[1:06:59] the game? I don't like doing it a lot, but
[1:07:02] it's kind of fun. Try talk as as an emotional
[1:07:09] Valencia fan or as an objective football fan.
[1:07:15] I'm going to give you 2 results. Not only I love that.
[1:07:19] I'm going to give you 2 results. I'm going to give you the
[1:07:22] optimistic result, which is that we lose 2/1 margins, little
[1:07:28] margins, and somehow weathered Storm and Margaret's Abala has
[1:07:32] the game of his life and maybe it's, you know, some marginal
[1:07:38] thing. A lot of things are going your
[1:07:40] way, right? And then, yeah.
[1:07:43] And you know, some algebra uses his head properly and reads the
[1:07:48] game and all that and. It's really interesting.
[1:07:52] Of course Madrid are coming on a high on this game.
[1:07:55] As I mentioned, they're not coming from a lower lows where
[1:07:58] you can kind of sing them even deeper.
[1:08:01] They're coming from the highest they've been in quite a while,
[1:08:05] to be honest, like this. Probably the highest in terms of
[1:08:08] spirit since they won the Champions League with Bellingham
[1:08:12] and Denise's junior leading them.
[1:08:14] So because last season was special mess from beginning to
[1:08:17] the end where they just couldn't get past any of the hurdles that
[1:08:21] were in front of them. Like you started with Lapes, you
[1:08:25] know, not unoriginal, very out of character, I want to say
[1:08:31] finishing. But then we got to learn that
[1:08:34] Thrun Bappe speaking, he it took him a while to just to get to
[1:08:38] know the culture because it it was such a huge trip for him.
[1:08:42] The chances were there. Everything was there.
[1:08:45] But generally, yeah. Yeah.
[1:08:51] So this season it feels a lot more coordinated as a team, as a
[1:08:56] side, like we're seeing a little bit more and more.
[1:08:59] And also with Alonzo, even for us, it's kind of hard to know
[1:09:03] what he's going to do. I'm projecting Trent to start
[1:09:07] because I think that Valencia's danger through the flanks can be
[1:09:12] mitigated a lot easier than majority of the La Liga teams
[1:09:17] due to the profiles on the team. So I think that this the warm up
[1:09:22] game for Trent. Now Coral is out for quite a
[1:09:24] while, so Trent is going to need to be there but where they just
[1:09:27] can't keep playing that you saw the issues with him at right
[1:09:30] back against Barcelona and I think that the coach is going to
[1:09:34] take all of these into consideration.
[1:09:37] He's good to have as an option there, but I don't think you
[1:09:40] want him as a full time option on that.
[1:09:42] So it's you're left with Trent. So generally here, let's say
[1:09:49] that Madrid start in 11 is has Jude, Trent, Kamalinga, Chuomeni
[1:09:58] and that they will lay on it. And then you have Vinnie, SUS
[1:10:01] and Bape basically kind of operating into those wherever
[1:10:06] they have that floating role. Like I didn't understand some of
[1:10:09] the articles that went like it's very rigid.
[1:10:12] I'm like, it's not really rigid, is it?
[1:10:17] Do you think Venezia starts after what happened last
[1:10:19] weekend? I feel like.
[1:10:22] It depends on the match. Normally if Alonzo feels
[1:10:27] threatened by the wings of the teams, Rodrigo gets the nod.
[1:10:31] For example, like Marseille as example, he wanted to pin
[1:10:36] Marseille as deep as possible, didn't want to let them
[1:10:38] progress, so he went with Rodrigo because Rodrigo is
[1:10:40] naturally better at jumping into the full backs and making a stop
[1:10:46] there, which is why he got taken off against Vinny, got taken off
[1:10:50] against Barcelona too. Vinny apologized for for what he
[1:10:55] did. And I don't think that Alonzo is
[1:10:58] the type of coach to be like, you made that gesture, now
[1:11:03] you're not playing if Vinny doesn't play.
[1:11:06] It's purely tactical and I don't think it has to do with anything
[1:11:10] of them on personal level. So with that, I think Vini
[1:11:17] starts because the nature of the game and what I expect or would
[1:11:23] be expected of Valencia to do would be more like a drop team
[1:11:26] that's going to try to progress centrally.
[1:11:29] So it I don't think Madrid are going to have, are going to need
[1:11:36] to require a lot of Vini issues against the ball and on the ball
[1:11:41] is just a whole different story. As we are saying.
[1:11:45] It's also testament to see how Vinicius is going to control his
[1:11:48] feelings. It's Valencia, it's him coming
[1:11:52] off that sub reaction we have. We saw him hold himself against
[1:11:57] the TAFE perfectly well. You saw how he bought 2 red
[1:12:01] cards in that game just by simply keeping a bit more
[1:12:04] composure rather than losing his head against Barcelona.
[1:12:08] A lot of widows have come out. Vini's kind of playing those
[1:12:11] mind games with them now. It's not that he's falling trap
[1:12:14] of that. So there seems to be a bit of a
[1:12:16] growth against Valencia. You kind of want to test that
[1:12:21] out, I think as a coach, as Alonzo said, that he's watched a
[1:12:26] lot of Madrid last season. Obviously he's noticed that
[1:12:29] Vinnie does have an emotional thing against Valencia, even
[1:12:34] against the players, even if it's at the Bernabeu.
[1:12:37] There is that feeling of him that he wants to go out there
[1:12:42] and kind of show them that, hey, I'm a better footballer and be
[1:12:45] more for wealthy and all of that.
[1:12:47] Which if you remember correctly led him to doing a lot of Anita
[1:12:52] touches tricks last time at the Benabel because he just wanted
[1:12:56] to show off and felt comfortable doing it, which backfired on him
[1:13:01] in a lot of actions. That's not something the job
[1:13:03] he's going to want to see. So it's I think that the
[1:13:07] collation of all of this will lead to Vini's starting because
[1:13:12] this kind of the mental test, the mental hurdle that he'll
[1:13:15] need to get off to have that nobody doesn't, but that
[1:13:20] collective and championship mentality that we really needed
[1:13:25] to go as far as we want to go. So I think you're going to get a
[1:13:33] Venice Zimbabwe attack because that's how we kind of operate.
[1:13:39] You see that both of them, this is going back to all our podcast
[1:13:44] that we did during the summer leading up to the season, and we
[1:13:48] said that they can coexist and they can do pretty well with one
[1:13:52] another because naturally they don't like playing on the same
[1:13:55] spaces. Naturally they don't like
[1:13:57] playing on the same spaces. We could configure them and say
[1:14:00] that both prefer the left side the way how they prefer the left
[1:14:04] side is completely different to one another.
[1:14:07] Bape likes to be more on that inside, more of like pick a pop
[1:14:11] type of Venusius like likes now more of the carries get into the
[1:14:15] penalty box and then look for his teammates.
[1:14:18] So we we have seen and we're seeing even this season, a
[1:14:22] bigger clash of Bape and Jude on the box then we're seeing of
[1:14:26] Venetius. So that's something to be fixed
[1:14:31] with the time we you saw, you know, classical, but I gave up a
[1:14:34] lot of runs into the box because Jude was crashing it.
[1:14:38] And that takes a mental toll because you're consistently
[1:14:41] having to check that. But if Valencia are just going
[1:14:45] to kind of set, it's going to allow both Jude and Puppet to
[1:14:50] kind of pick their times into a less stressful manners and
[1:14:54] figure things out together. So, yeah, to wrap this up in
[1:14:58] terms of Madrid, I don't see a lot of goals.
[1:15:02] Frankly, I think that we have been way too wasteful.
[1:15:05] I you're really kind of hope that you're not going to be the
[1:15:09] team that gets to pay for every single team that hasn't conceded
[1:15:13] those goals. So I'm going to be on a more
[1:15:18] cautionary side and I want to say it too now because I think
[1:15:22] that Madrid, the gas tank is definitely a bit more depleted
[1:15:27] despite the week off. They just had too much football
[1:15:30] to play through. And I think that Alonzo seems to
[1:15:34] be a bit more content with that mid block second-half.
[1:15:38] Just waste the last 30 minutes and have teams like we saw
[1:15:43] Espanol and Levante back-to-back kind of give up on the game
[1:15:47] because they wanted to preserve their players and they just went
[1:15:51] like, OK, you know, it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.
[1:15:54] So I'm better off starting to think for the next game in
[1:15:58] middle of that, which is kind of like, one thing that I've loved
[1:16:01] the most about Alonzo is the fact that he makes other teams
[1:16:04] give up. And I think that's going to be
[1:16:08] the strategy. And in terms of the defense,
[1:16:12] it's going to depend. But I think that they're going
[1:16:15] to get back to the nature of not really conceding.
[1:16:19] So I don't see violins are getting like a lot of what we
[1:16:22] wants against Tebow, which also plays a huge part in tow.
[1:16:28] Why attackers are scared when they're on on that position
[1:16:31] because they just see a giant coming at them and huge
[1:16:35] reputation at this point for what we wants, which leads even
[1:16:39] more. So I lean towards a 2 nil a
[1:16:42] relatively comfortable win with what I've seen.
[1:16:46] As I said, there are only two game sample of me of Valencia
[1:16:49] and I don't wanna say not impressed.
[1:16:53] But you never know what happens on that given night.
[1:16:56] Valencia might come turn it up. First 5 minutes is 2 nil and now
[1:17:00] you're dealing with a huge adversity that you have to beat.
[1:17:03] That's. Very optimistic.
[1:17:07] I, I, I don't remove that as an actual possibility to happen
[1:17:11] there because I'm going to be honest, Steve Dean Nelson makes
[1:17:16] that mistake that he made on the 1st 5 seconds against Valencia.
[1:17:19] I think we can see it there. It's just the nature of the
[1:17:22] teams that you're playing against.
[1:17:23] Some teams just make you pay more than the others.
[1:17:26] But I have my confidence. The VRL game, it's not only the
[1:17:30] L classical. I just have like a big sample,
[1:17:33] big enough sample now to see that an Alonzo team can deal
[1:17:37] with those adversities that team like Valencia can bring to the
[1:17:41] table. Hetafa Way, for example, is one
[1:17:44] of them. A lot of people mischaracterize
[1:17:48] Hetafa as a team, right, But it's a fact that you're going to
[1:17:55] get dirty plays out of them. But they do a pretty good job at
[1:17:58] stopping you from playing. They do a pretty good job of
[1:18:02] suffocating that middle of the pitch and getting at least at
[1:18:06] the end of enough chances. But we even saw head opposite
[1:18:09] Bora Mayoral out because still not a decision that I fully
[1:18:14] understood because normally I always go with you want a player
[1:18:18] that can pin Madrid center backs and make them uncomfortable and
[1:18:24] Valencia doesn't seem to have that.
[1:18:26] For time being, I'm going with a tunnel, Yeah, to kind of go off
[1:18:33] my because I off my tangent. So it's a tunnel victory in my
[1:18:38] opinion. I think to 1 I.
[1:18:43] Say 2 to one. Okay, so you have.
[1:18:45] That's me being optimistic, to be honest.
[1:18:47] That's. It's a really optimistic given
[1:18:49] the level of finishing because we have seen a lot of two to
[1:18:52] ones of 100 like it was Levante. You know, it's not that Oviedo,
[1:18:58] it's not that we're a team Majorca, it's not that we have
[1:19:04] blown teams away like 789. Like even against Skyrat, which
[1:19:08] was supposed to be like a combat game, that was the game where we
[1:19:12] scored the most. But it felt that we're least in
[1:19:14] control of a game. It was just due to opponent's
[1:19:19] quality that we were able to get that score line.
[1:19:23] Finishing us felt like a big problem for us generally and we
[1:19:28] have relied a lot on Bapay to be able to generate three to four
[1:19:34] shots on target per game. Venice you sometimes he's
[1:19:39] dribbling his carries into the penalty box to win, maybe a
[1:19:42] penalty or something like that. We have carried.
[1:19:45] We have kind of shown some tendencies also against a low
[1:19:49] block against Sasuna. I know that it's the first game
[1:19:51] of the season, but we did show more problems accessing between
[1:19:55] the lines against the three at back, which you said could be a
[1:19:59] potential. A move for Valencia.
[1:20:03] So in terms of the full sample, the full thing, generally, I
[1:20:09] believe that we we are at a point where Madrid just need to
[1:20:15] do the job, get the win, go to Liverpool and hopefully from
[1:20:20] there, you know, kind of like finish it up against Elsa, I
[1:20:23] believe next week, finish this before international break, then
[1:20:30] come back and you don't play until basically you're back and
[1:20:34] you don't play until the end of the mid season.
[1:20:37] So they need to do the job. They have three more games and
[1:20:41] tomorrow it's kind of like the one where you want to get
[1:20:44] started on a high note. Yeah.
[1:20:48] So thank you for coming into this podcast.
[1:20:52] It's always a pleasure talking to you.
[1:20:55] We'll do more of these. Thanks to everybody that came in
[1:21:01] for the comments. I'm seeing a lot of people here
[1:21:04] having discussions. Not many are agreeing with my
[1:21:07] assessment of hundreds attack. Interesting.
[1:21:10] But yeah, for the most part, it's just how I'm seeing it.
[1:21:14] I think it hasn't come together and I don't see it coming
[1:21:16] together tomorrow. As always, guys, stay tuned.
[1:21:22] We have a mailbag episode coming later.
[1:21:24] Check ceremony on Twitter if you guys want.
[1:21:27] There is more than Valencia out there.
[1:21:29] A lot of football takes great account.
[1:21:31] Absolutely love following you. So with that being said, wait
[1:21:39] for the episode later today. Listen to this, give us a rating
[1:21:42] on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and we'll see you guys later.
[1:21:47] Thanks again ma'am for joining.

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