In the central match of the 35th round of the Spanish championship, Real Madrid faced its most principled rival, Barcelona, and suffered a dramatic defeat with a score of 4:3. After the match, Madrid's head coach Karlo Ancelotti shared his thoughts on the reasons for the team's defeat and the players' situation at the press conference.
“Unfortunately, today we made many serious mistakes in the defensive line. This allowed the opponent to easily score goals. Our performance in defense was at an unacceptable level for us,” said the Italian coach.
At the same time, Ancelotti emphasized that he was completely satisfied with the attacking actions and rated the team's performance in the forward line highly:
“We acted as we planned in the attacking line, executing very good and effective attacks. Kylian Mbappe played wonderfully today and scored three goals, achieving a hat-trick. We had enough situations to score even more goals. However, as I mentioned above, our defensive mistakes did not allow us to achieve victory.”
Ancelotti also noted that the team faced structural problems in the defensive line and was simultaneously missing five key defenders:
“There were structural issues in our defensive line. Five of our main defenders were unable to help us for various reasons, and this situation negatively affected today's game.”
Additionally, the coach explained the reason for Vinicius Junior's substitution:
“The reason for Vinicius being taken off was that he was experiencing pain in his ankle. Although Vinicius expressed a desire to continue the game, we decided to take him off the field cautiously to prevent his injury from becoming more serious.”
Ancelotti also commented on Rodrigo Goes' performance in today's match, stating it was not ideal for the team:
“Rodrigo felt quite weak before the game. He had not fully recovered from an illness recently, so we did not expect a great result from his performance today. But this is not a problem; I am pleased with Rodrigo. He is bringing great benefit to the team with his professionalism.”
Currently, Real Madrid is in second place in the Spanish championship standings with 75 points. The team is 7 points behind the leader, Barcelona, with only three rounds remaining in the season.
