Real Madrid will travel to the Emirates to record Arsenal on Tuesday in the first stage of their Champions League Quarte final draw and the side of Carlo Ancelotti suffered a nightmare preparation on the fixture
Real Madrid has hit a blow for their quarter-final collision of the Champions League with Arsenal after Valencia was upset at the Bernabeu. Madrid will be confronted on Tuesday with Arsenal in the first stage on the Emirates and would get an important victory over Valencia on Saturday.
A victory would have seen that they moved at the top of Barcelona at the top of Laliga and Carlo Ancelotti, a strong team, with Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius JR all starting. Valencia, however, took a shock 2-1 victory thanks to a late goal from Hugo Duro.
Madrid almost started a perfect start when Cesar Tarrega Mbappe brought down and admitted a penalty. Vinicius, however, was unable to convert the resulting spot kick, because the future Liverpool -goalkeeper Giorgi Mhamardashvili saved a bad effort.
Mouctar Diakhaby then gave Valencia the lead, before Vinicius finally found the back of the net in the second half to level the scores. Duro then surprised Madrid with a winner of the injury time when the side of Carlos Corberan claimed their first victory on the Bernabeu since 2008.
“It is harder to win the competition now, but we have to do things well until the end,” Ancelotti admitted in his press conference after the game. “We have much fewer options. We will certainly fight until the end, certainly.
“We have missed several [penalties]: Bellingham, Mbappe and Vini. I tried to give him confidence, but he missed. It is not a physical problem or a lack of football. We have created many opportunities. We lacked a little effectiveness.
“It is not difficult for our opponents to score against us at the moment. Complaining is useless. It is not an attitude problem, not at all. This is not a deserved defeat.
“Could things have been done better? Yes, but it is not a lack of attitude. We deserved to win, but it was not because of the small details.”
In the meantime, Arsenal dropped points when they pulled 1-1 with Everton on Saturday thanks to goals from Leandro Trossard and Iliman Ndiaye. Gunners -Baas Mikel Arteta, however, was not happy with the controversial punishment that Ndiaye converted.
“We had a lot of control over the competition, we did not admit anything at all,” Arteta told BBC Sport. “Then we are not dealing with the direct game and the referee decides to give a penalty.
“I have seen it 15 times and for me it is never a penalty. If that is a penalty, then O'Brien should be out. Because he is on a yellow card, he stops David [Raya] Play quickly and a big counterattack.
“That should be a second yellow card. They are very good at what they do. They want to make chaos.
“We have given away so many foolish mistakes that leads to a set piece. You have to win the game, that's a shame. We don't have a margin that is so clear.”
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