Real Madrid face off again tonight (9:00 p.m.) with Valencia, this time at the Bernabeu in a postponed League match, after having beaten them on penalties on January 11 in the semifinals of the Spanish Super Cup played in Riyadh ( Arabia). The two teams arrive at different times, with Madrid more in a hurry than then, five points behind leader Barcelona.
For Valencia, who played one of their best games of the season against the whites, the situation is much worse. Last weekend he dismissed his coach, the Italian Gennaro Gattuso, and today Voro will be on the bench as an emergency solution, who yesterday confirmed that he will keep his position until the end of the season. The team from the capital of Turia marches in the fourteenth League, but only one point above the relegation places. Valencia has only added one point from the last twelve.
For today's game in Chamartín, Carlo Ancelotti recovers Dani Carvajal and Tchouaméni. Not so David Alaba, who remains for next week in the Club World Cup. The other injured are Ferland Mendy and Lucas Vázquez.
Valencia appears in Madrid with four casualties: Justin Kluivert, Correia, Nico González and Jaume Domènech, the latter two of long duration.
Voro, who already knows what it is to take the bench in the middle of the season (the last time he led it in a period of four games), assured that he "has no fear of relegation." His message was optimistic: “This team has played very well and we must take advantage of it. You have to try to be competitive. We have gone from playing all the balls to not playing any. And you have to find a balance where the team is comfortable”.
At Madrid Ancelotti also said he was not worried about the progress of the League: “Right now we have a lot of confidence and we will fight until the end. We have had an improvement, we can fight everything, without a doubt. Now comes the good for us, ”he said.
However, with this match, Madrid begins a grueling February, with eight games on its calendar. The Italian coach complained about it yesterday: "This must be corrected by all of us," he said.
The crisis is such in Valencia that yesterday morning the president of Valencia, Lay Hoon, went out to give a press conference; the football director, Miguel Ángel Corona and the corporate director, Javier Solís. The president wanted to make it clear that Peter Lim (the club's top shareholder and owner, a businessman who lives in Singapore) has no intention of selling the property, "Lim continues no matter what. We are committed to the club and we want to save it."
Lay Hoon explained Gatusso's dismissal this way: “When Gattuso requested the meeting, I sensed that it was not good news. It was a very long meeting and he told us that he did not see himself capable of reversing the situation. This is football and we have to move on."
And Lay Hoon continued: "We are not happy with the results and, under no circumstances, the word relegation is in our head. We have to compete and rebuild the club and there is only one way to win back the affection of the people and that is by working". he claimed.
