Eibar 3-0 Real Madrid: the winners and losers as Solari suffers first defeat as Los Blancos boss

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Solari suffers his first defeat as the mighty Eibar trounce Real Madrid 3-0 at the Ipurua Municipal Stadium.

Real Madrid’s season takes another rotten turn as the La Liga giants were convincingly defeated by Eibar on Saturday afternoon. Eibar have beaten Real Madrid in La Liga for the first time in their history; keeping their first clean sheet against them.

Los Blancos had the opportunity to get back into the top four, but goals from Kike, Sergi Enrich and Gonzalo Escalante capped off a miserable afternoon on the road for Solari’s men.

Eibar’s team dominated the game in defence and in attack with help from some fantastic individual performances. Here are three winners and three losers from Eibar’s odds defying victory.

Winners

Eibar’s fans

Eibar is a fan owned club with over 10,000 shareholders from 69 countries worldwide. This could explain the unique an unconventional atmosphere at  the Ipurua Municipal Stadium. Eibar’s announcer is more animated than the announcer from Space Jam and the ground features sirens following goals.

The fans are constantly singing and applaud every effort from their players, a rarity in the modern game.The stadium itself is a throwback to the bare-bones stadiums of the past – it’s Spain’s Upton Park. Anyone living on the upper floors in the block of flats towering over the stadium, must regularly get treated to free football.

Kike

The 28-year-old played very well on Saturday. He was unlucky not to open the scoring in the opening stages when his wonderfully struck long-range effort was tipped onto the post by the fingertips of Courtois.

It was looking like the Spaniard was going to have a frustrating afternoon when moments later his glancing header left Madrid’s ‘keeper rooted to the spot, but it was directed at the wrong side of the sticks.

Kike got his reward in the second-half when he tapped home Eibar’s third of the afternoon, topping off a miserable afternoon for the European Champions.

Marc Cucurella

The Barcelona loanee only made one appearance for the Catalans, but the 20-year-old Spaniard is a star in the making. Cucurella played sensationally this afternoon and frequently took some of the world’s best defenders apart with weaving runs and quick passes.

The midfielder’s moment of the match came when he picked Alvaro Odriozola’s pocket after the Madrid right-back had to manage a terrible pass from Luka Modric. Curcuella muscled Odriozola off the ball and delivered a cross to Sergi Enrich, whose right footed shot left no chance for the diving Courtois.

Losers

Raphael Varane

Following Madrid’ three-peat in the Champions League and France’s triumph at the World Cup in Russia over the summer, Varane emerged from the tournament as one of the best defenders in the world. A case could even be made that Varane had the best chance a centre-back has had to win the Ballon d’Or since Fabio Cannavaro.

However, the Frenchman’s stellar form has not carried into this season and the defender has struggled so far. Varane’s performance against Eibar was poor again on Saturday. He failed to get tight to José Luis Mendilibar’s attackers throughout and gave the ball away in dangerous areas. Maybe it’s fatigue from almost non-stop football, but something has to give soon.

Alvaro Odriozola

Odriozola struggled all afternoon with Cucurella on Eibar’s left flank, and allowed far too many crosses into the box which led to the first two goals before he limped off the field.

For the home side’s second goal the Spaniard was put into an awkward position by a wayward pass from Luka Modric – who certainly didn’t live up to his Ballon d’Or  this afternoon – but the right-back could have done more to steer the ball into safety when he was muscled off the ball by Cucurella who set up Sergi Enrich.

Florentino Perez

The Los Blancos president has had a miserable six months since watching his club secure a third consecutive Champions League trophy.

In the wake of the final in Kiev Perez lost club legend Zinedine Zidane from the dug out and star player Cristiano Ronaldo who departed for Serie A. Perez replaced Zizou with Julen Lopetegui, who turned out to be a massive flop, and in Solari’s first game as permanent manager the Capital club get battered 3-0. El presidente simply has no luck at the moment.

 

The post Eibar 3-0 Real Madrid: the winners and losers as Solari suffers first defeat as Los Blancos boss appeared first on Squawka News.



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