It wasn’t a pretty match by any means, but Real Madrid managed to squeak out a 1-0 win against Leganes in the first leg of the Copa Del Rey quarterfinal Thursday on the road in southern Madrid. Here is what manager Zinedine Zidane said after the match.
All quotes come via the Real Madrid official website.
Opening Statement
"“We put in a disciplined performance and picked up a good result. We also kept a clean sheet and managed to score an away goal. We struggled to work up a head of steam in the first half and then we were better in the second and got the goal that won us the game.”“I was pleased with the commitment on display, we defended very well. We struggled for rhythm, but we were superb defensively and had real balance with our full-backs and Marco. We struggled a bit because we lacked a bit of nerve, but that’s to be expected because many of these players don’t play so often. The second half was much better.”"
His take on the result
“It was important to win today and we were disciplined at a difficult ground to go to against a team who defend very well. We’re happy with the result. We played well against Villarreal but couldn’t score, and today we didn’t play as well but got the goal. Hopefully sooner rather than later we manage to do both.”
“We’ve got a long way to go. We need to get our confidence back, score goals and stop conceding. We cannot sit here and say we played well but we got an important result for the tie and that is positive. There are moments when the going gets tough, but we need to have a little patience and know that together we can move forward. This win could well be a turning point for us and we may well go on to get three or four positive results.”
Update on Jesús Vallejo and Dani Ceballos
“Ceballos took a bit of a knock. He pulled up a bit and in the second half he couldn’t go on as he would have liked. I had to take him off. Vallejo got injured and he’s not happy. We will carry out some tests tomorrow or the next day.”
Thoughts on Marco Asensio’s performance
“He did well but he can do better, they all can. He bagged the winning goal and I’m pleased with him.”
My thoughts
Yet again, Zinedine Zidane is lucky to have seen his team get a result. After choosing to rest the BBC of Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema, and Cristiano Ronaldo, it was to be expected that a heavily rotated squad would struggle.
However, I don’t think anyone expected this team to have as much trouble as they did breaking down the Leganes defense, or for that matter, building up a quality attack at all. Zizou has a right to be happy with a win, but he has to be disappointed with his team’s inability to assert their dominance on a clearly inferior team.
Yes, this was the “B team” from Los Blancos in this match, but it was a team that still should have gotten a more decisive win.
As for the updates on Vallejo and Ceballos, I didn’t notice Dani limping or laboring as he exited shortly after the hour mark. It seemed to me when Jesús went down after there was no contact, something was really wrong.
Whether it is a hamstring or thigh muscle pull, Real Madrid will likely be without the center back for some time as he seemed to be in a great deal of pain.
Next: Leganes 0 – 1 Real Madrid: Madrid’s Copa del Rey win as it happened
Zidane will now need to play his strongest side Sunday against Deportivo La Coruna as Real desperately need a momentum-building win.