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This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Zinedine Zidane faced the press ahead of Real Madrid’s midweek La Liga clash against Osasuna.
The French manager identified team solidity as one of the key aspects of success and urged his players to apply that in the next game.
What did he say?
The ongoing 2019/20 La Liga season has been rather harsh for Real and their squad.
Los Blancos had a pretty underwhelming start to the season, drawing with both Valladolid and Villarreal, while tasting defeat in their opening Champions League game of the campaign, a 3-0 beating at the hands of PSG.
But their latest outing domestically brought them a narrow 1-0 victory over Sevilla, propelling them into second, level on points with league leaders Athletic Bilbao.
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And Zidane made sure to reference that clash in his latest press conference ahead of the Osasuna game.
Here’s what Zidane said in full:
“Solidity and teamwork are the crucial elements because beyond the fact we did a great job in the Sevilla game, I think the key was that we played as a team from start to finish. That’s what we need to win games. There’s no such thing as an easy game, so we need to make sure the players stick together. We must keep going in this way.
“We need to put on a great performance, with the same intensity, desire and attitude. The key thing is to always give it our all on the pitch. My players are the best and they do that.”
Perfect timing
Zidane was absolutely right to emphasise team unity and solidity and the timing of it is perfect.
Maybe the start of the new season was not exactly everything Real Madrid had hoped for but it’s still only that – a start.
If we have learned anything from that Sevilla clash then that’s the fact that there is still a lot of quality in this Real Madrid squad and once they all get on the same page, even bad records – such as failing to pick up a point in Andalusia in the last four years – can be ripped up.
Florentino Perez, their president, talked about the lack of hunger in this team, and he was quite right too. He said: “Our success made us lose our intensity. “We have to recover it. These players and this coach made us champions, so they’ll do it again.”
The game against Sevilla proved, however, that this hungry and relentless team is still somewhere beneath and Zidane has the ability to dig it out.
Nothing is lost just yet and the title race is well and truly on – the next step is for Real Madrid to carry that sense of unity into the Osasuna clash.
