Doubts are contagious between the French and Spanish capitals. Real Madrid perfectly follows in the footsteps of PSG twelve days before their clash in the knockout stages of the Champions League. Like Paris, released from the Coupe de France by Nice on Monday, Real suffered the same disappointment in the quarter-finals of the King’s Cup, released at the very end of the match by Athletic Bilbao (1-0). A test that the Madrid club has not won for eight years.
The people of Madrid, deprived of Karim Benzema (preserved) and dominated throughout the match, gave in in the 89th minute on a strike from the left of Alex Berenguer when Real was barely beginning to float. Isco had an equalizer in added time, well found by Eduardo Camavinga, but his shot too crossed did not catch the target… and it was Bilbao who got their revenge from the Supercopa final from Spain.
In the absence of Karim Benzema, still in difficulty with his left thigh, the people of Madrid had the worst difficulty in the world to be dangerous, and remained entrenched in their camp for a large part of the meeting, to wipe the waves of Basque attacks.
“We knew the match would be complicated”
While Los Blancos’ bus was attacked by Basque fans before kick-off (a side window of the bus was even smashed after being targeted by a projectile), the people of Madrid never really entered the game .
And Brazilians Rodrygo and Vinicius, who had just returned from a match against Ecuador less than 48 hours earlier in South America, fell short of the international centre-forward’s absence French. He was replaced in the 63rd minute by Isco, giving way with his mouth wide open, exhausted.
“It hurts because we want to go to the end in each competition, sighed Carlo Ancelotti, the Madrid coach after the disappointment. There are two left… We knew that the match would be complicated, in particular because of the absences in our squad. Athletic played very well, with a lot of pressure as usual, especially at home. We struggled to get the ball out properly. We controlled better towards the end of the game. »
