Zinedine Zidane has rued Real
Madrid's lack of focus during the first 10 minutes of the 2-1 defeat to
Valencia on Wednesday night (22 February) as Los Blancos missed a golden
opportunity to increase their gap over Barcelona at the top of La Liga
table.
Real Madrid visited Mestalla for an encounter
corresponding to the match week 16, which was postponed due to their
partition in the Club World Cup. Los Blancos had thus the opportunity to
increase their margin over Barcelona at the top of the table to four
points, having still another one game in hand against Celta Vigo.
However, two earlier goals from
Simone Zaza and Fabian Orellana in the first 10 minutes of the game
condemned Los Blancos to a surprising 2-1 defeat at the stadium of the
14th-placed of La Liga table.
Cristiano Ronaldo reduced the gap just before
half-time but Real Madrid were unable to find a second goal and stay
only one point ahead of Barcelona at the top of La Liga table.
"
We lost the game in the first
ten minutes. We moved the ball well, played our game and created chances
to score. We made mistakes and they scored twice," a disappointed
Zidane said in the press conference following the defeat. "We then had
80 minutes to get back into the game, we did that but we were lacking in
many areas today. We had the chance to put points on the board and
we've not managed to do that. They were very much together in their
play, tightened up well and got the better of us up top.
"We have to stay switched on at all times. If you
lose concentration for a moment, they punish you. We need to be a bit
sharper and we didn't have our heads in the game in the first ten
minutes. We did some good things with the ball but we lacked a bit of
clarity with the final pass."
Real Madrid would have put the La Liga race almost to bed had they
won at Valencia. However, they now give Barcelona an opportunity to
react ahead of a crucial weekend in which the Catalans visit Atletico
Madrid and Los Blancos face Villarreal.
Zidane sent his players a warning ahead of
the coming trip to the Yellow Submarine after pointing out that Real
Madrid will not win there either if they are not fully focused.
"Now we have to rest up and think about
Sunday's game. We had a chance to put points on the board but we didn't
do so. Congratulations to Valencia and attentions now turn to the next
game," Zidane said.
"Things have now become tougher after we
failed to get the three points. Valencia were the only team to put
points on the board today. We need to bear in mind that we can't win
games just by turning up. We're not looking for excuses, we simply have
to turn our attentions to the next game."
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