Real Madrid beat Fuenlabrada (0-2) away in the first leg of the Last 32 round of Copa del Rey in the derby against a rival from the third division of the Spanish football. Los Blancos played quite bad, but the quality allowed them to get a good result to go through the next stage in this competition.
Zinedine Zidane left Cristiano Ronaldo, Modric or Sergio Ramos at home and he introduced an unsual line-up, with a lot of youngsters. Jesús Vallejo made his debut with Real Madrid, whereas Ceballos, Achraf, Llorente or Mayoral could enjoy some minutes with the white t-shirt. However, these players didn’t take the opportunity as they played a bad game against a team with less quality.
If you remember, last season Real Madrid thrashed (1-7) Cultural Leonesa in this stage of the competition. We could see Asensio, Morata or James in that line-up, full of quality, and able to win many games in La Liga. Perhaps this season the substitutes don’t have this quality, or at least didn’t show it against Fuenlabrada.
In the first half nothing happened. Los Blancos didn’t arrive with danger to Codina’s goal and they were unable to score any goal. Asensio was disappeared and Real Madrid didn’t look a great team. Luckily, the performance improved in the second half and the referee whistled a penalty thanks to Achraf Hakimi, again having minutes as a right back. Asensio didn’t miss it and opened the scoreboard. Just some minutes later, Mayoral could score with a header but Codina saved it.
The tie was over when the referee whistled another penalty, this time with Theo Hernández as a protagonist. Lucas Vázquez took the ball and scored the second goal. The game also left us the red card showed to Jesús Vallejo. Not the best debut ever with the white t-shirt. These players must improve their performances if they want to enjoy more minutes in La Liga.
