Undefeated at the Di Stéfano Stadium in 2013 and having won away last week against Recreativo de Huelva (you'll find the full report and interviews here) --they hadn't won away since matchday 25 in Xérez, Real Madrid Castilla were facing another of their direct opponents tonight, namely Mirandés. Before this match (match day 35), the Whites were ranking #14 with 44 points while Mirandés was #17 with 38 points, only two ranks away from the relegation zone.
For this match, Alberto Toril couldn't have Nacho Fernández nor Carlos Casemiro, as both played 90' with the first team last night against Betis (you'll find the full report and interviews here). Casemiro's absence was Álex Fernández' opportunity to shine in order to try and get his spot on the starting XI back. Álvaro Morata was made available by the first team.
The starting XI included: Tomás Mejías, Juanfran Moreno (c), Iván González, David Mateos, Jorge Casado, Álex Fernández, Pedro Mosquera, Jesé Rodríguez, Denis Cheryshev, Borja García and Álvaro Morata.
Only 30" into the match, Mirandés were already terrorizing our defenders, especially through their #9 Alain, who managed to find himself ahead of our line of defense at least twice in less than two minutes. Nevertheless, nothing came out of it and it was simply a good warning for the Whites.
From the 4' on, as usual, Real Madrid Castilla started to attack and created some chances for themselves, through Jesé, Morata and Borja, but nothing particularly dangerous yet.
We started to see some really nice technical things from Borja, Juanfran and Jesé among others --I'm mentioning them because their wing was in front of me-- but we were still lacking the precision that would make our plays dangerous. Plus, Mirandés were defending in a very compact manner, leaving Castilla the initiative of play building and waiting for a chance to counterattack.
By the 17', we had already seen Álex do his signature move a couple of times, whereby he basically jumps out of the midfield with the ball and tries either a powerful shot directly or to pass to a teammate who's unmarked. Unfortunately, nothing would materialize in a goal yet.
In the 19', Pablo beat Juanfran and found himself in a position to score through a cross-shot but it went slightly out, thankfully for us. I'm a big fan of Juanfran's and I find that he has great vision, speed and technicall skills, but I have to admit that I'm not particularly a fan of seeing him as a RB. Not only isn't it his best role in my opinion, but it's also a "waste" of his talent, so to speak, in that he brings so much in offensive play building as a winger and he and Fabinho combine very well.
In the 34', Goitia fell on the wing so Juanfran, who was coming running, seized the ball and proceeded slaloming past three players at least, after which he found Borja right in the middle, whose shot went out. Aside from how beautiful it was, that play was critical in that it gave us a corner and... a goal! Iván's header opened the score and gave Castilla the advantage: Real Madrid Castilla 1-0 Mirandés.
Around the 40', a foul on Borja left our midfielder in pain for a good two minutes. He even had to leave the pitch for a few seconds. But he was back after all, although at that time it got me wondering whether he was really fine or if he was just going to finish the first half as best as he could before being substituted at half-time. As it turned out, it would be nothing serious and he would be back on the pitch.
During the extra time, Jesé saw a lot of space in front of him and jumped out of the pack with the ball to his feet. He immediately saw how all the defenders were on Morata and sent a very good pass towards Denis, but the Russian player couldn't control it. He managed to keep the ball and aimed at the goal when he found himself in a position to do so, but it was too late, the momentum had been lost.
And so both teams were eventually sent back to the dressing rooms with the 1-0 score. As you might have noticed, I haven't described much of what was going on between the 20' and the first goal, simply because we wouldn't finish any play properly, we were really lacking finishing, because we were lacking precision in our passes. I don't know how many times Jesé would be brilliant at catching the ball just to end up losing it (it would go outside) on the very next pass by lack of precision. Same with Borja, who got told off by Toril when he failed to pass to an unmarked Morata.
Actually, as I was watching Jesé, I remembered what I had just read from Rapha Varane's interview: the Frenchman said that the best advice he received from Mourinho was to keep it simple, to do what he knows how to do and to do it well without extra stuff, to know when to keep it simple. And I felt that it could apply to Jesé, who's so good and fast and spectacular, only to push the show one step too far, so to speak, and end up losing a perfectly good ball. I particularly remember a one-touch exchange with Juanfran where the player from the Canary Islands passed the ball back to the captain with a fancy back kick instead of a good old pass, and we lost the ball to a running Mirandés striker ready to assault our box.
Anyway, the second half was a whole other story. I don't know what Toril told the boys during half-time, but it fired them up alright! In the 50', Morata scored a peach of a goal from the left hand-side of the box into the right top corner of the goal. Álex assisted him. And a couple of minutes later, Borja added a third goal to our sheet by scoring with a powerful shot from the center, assisted by Jesé. Real Madrid Castilla 3-0 Mirandés.
In the 57', Jesé managed to attract the defenders and the goalkeeper towards him, leaving Morata completely unmarked. The former proceeded sending a cross pass for Morata to intercept and score, but Álvaro was a tad too late unfortunately. Great combination nonetheless.
In the 61', Pablo --who had been giving Juanfran a lot of work the whole time-- tried his luck from the wing straight to the goal, but his shot was slightly off-target. I didn't feel nervous about it anymore, given the cushion we had, but Toril sure was unhappy and started moving his arms up and down in an attempt to signal something!
It was really a whole other Castilla that we were now seeing and that would pay off, once again in the 64', when Borja combined with Álex in the midfield, before the ball was sent to Morata. Our striker kept running and did a self-pass beating three defenders --when he could have passed to Denis or Jesé-- with a final shot that ended up into the back of the net. Real Madrid Castilla 4-0 Mirandés.
Well, since it was now a scoring feast, Denis had to be a part of it too! In the 68', he scored with a header, assisted by Juanfran. Real Madrid Castilla 5-0 Mirandés.
In the 71', Toril made his second sub. Since Casemiro was sitting right behind me (no kidding), José Rodríguez was given some playing time too: Mosquera off, José Rguez on.
And since it seemed very unlikely that it would all go wrong in the last 15 minutes, Toril didn't waste time and gave another player some playing time: Denis off, Óscar Plano on.
But there was no time to lose, because Jesé still hadn't scored and that wasn't right! So in the 76', after a great play initiated by Juanfran and then Lucas, Jesé scored a peach of a goal himself after beating a defender in the box. Real Madrid Castilla 6-0 Mirandés.
In the 84', the party was a little spoiled by a penalty committed by Morata (handball in the box) and scored by Iribas, but it didn't really matter anymore... Real Madrid Castilla 6-1 Mirandés.
And that's how Real Madrid Castilla showed a drastic change of attitude from the first half to the second in order to end up scoring 6 goals! Next week: Numancia. We'll soon be posting our high-quality pictures taken from the sideline. For now, we are heading to the zona mixta to interview the players. Stay tuned! Update: The pictures are available in the slideshow below and the interviews with their English translations are over there!
tags: liga adelante, jese, denis cheryshev, real madrid, alvaro morata, real madrid castilla, castilla mirandes
About the author, Gaëlle : A Madrid-based French girl who became a Madridista because her husband and her cousin had such a bad influence on her ;-) Has a soft spot for Varane because he comes from her home region. Very excited to see that people from a variety of backgrounds actually overcome all their differences and unite around Real Madrid. // Una chica francesa que lleva varios años en Madrid y se hizo madridista por culpa de su marido y su primo ;-) Muy orgullosa de Varane, que es oriundo de su región. Muy ilusionada con la potencia del espíritu madridista que consigue reunir a personas de culturas y religiones muy distintas.
Link: [Live Football] birds - Peñafiel - Portuguese second League
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