Real Madrid gained time and Xabi Alonso more. The coach, after achieving a victory that was as essential as its result was painful, wanted to send a message to everyone who wanted to listen to it. “I’m not new to this,” he said. Have you taken a weight off your shoulders? They asked him in the press room. “No,” he answered quickly. “I carried it much more calmly than you could have expected. I know that the road is long, and the road is not always rosy. You have to know how to live with complex curves, not to go crazy. You have to be decisive, have a demand on yourself and look forward. There is always a next match,” he explained after dismissing a sensitive duel of everything that had happened in the last few hours. Because of the bad results and deafening rumors about his relationship with part of the locker room.
Despite his usual reticence towards the media, the Basque coach said that the hours leading up to this match were useful. “Since our arrival (in Athens), it has been very positive and productive hours. They have helped us continue to grow, not break the dynamic and learn how to live with difficult moments. The things we talked about are very positive, the unity of the players and their participation. I stay with that very much, apart from the three points. They are very positive things that have happened within the team,” Alonso insisted in his message. Could it be a turning point? They asked him from the press bench. He added, “We will see. We had good feelings, we shared things. We arrived at a match in a complicated context, with losses and the calendar as it is (the fourth match in a row away from our stadium and we still have Girona and Bilbao).”
Waiting for what the future holds, Xavi stressed that the most important thing in Piraeus is the three points. He admitted after three matches without winning and three matches without Mbappe scoring any goals: “Today was about winning. We broke the dynamic. We were not feeling good.” “The goals are the main thing for him. But the character, the leadership, the influence on the rest, day to day… these are intangible things to have as a unit,” stressed Xavi, who also praised Vinicius’ impressive performance. “I’m very sad about the disallowed goal because it’s a game we talked about. It would have given him a good feeling. It’s a typical goal for him, a shot from outside the field. But I still have the assists for Kylian and the impact he had,” he said.
He said that Real Madrid was “calm, confident and mature so as not to go crazy” after the early 1-0 lead. “We turned it around comfortably,” he said. But then everything started going wrong, almost derailing. He added, “We needed to adapt and possess the ball longer. But I will get the three points.”