Real Madrid vs Fuenlabrada LIVE Football Score 17 Aug 2022
Real Madrid face the short trip to Fuenlabrada in the 2022 Spanish Copa del Rey on Thursday, as Los Blancos meet the minnows in the round of 32 at the Estadio Fernando Torres.
The Segunda Division Group 1 side’s small stadium is named after the local star striker who plays for Atletico Madrid.
Real have climbed to third in La Liga after a rocky start to the campaign, and they will expect to breeze into the next phase.
Manager Zinedine Zidane is likely to rotate his options, as he saves his superstars for the forthcoming trip to Tottenham Hotspur in the UEFA Champions League.
Zidane will get the chance to play his younger players and fringe prospects in the cup, with Fuenlabrada expected to offer little resistance in front of a very small crowd.
Fuenla play their games in the metropolitan area of the capital city, and Real’s second string should have no problems dispatching their opponents.
However, Zindane has watched his team huff and puff in the opening weeks of the season, and they have lacked motivation against much weaker sides than themselves.
Complacency has riddled the Spanish and European champions, but a defeat to Fuenlabrada would be a historic loss.
Despite their slow start this term, Real have won six from their first nine in La Liga, and results have started to improve.
At last Manchester United appear to be seeing the reality of their situation. A sweeping of the decks at Old Trafford might be the only way to eventually restore some star power to this fading icon and that starts with the A-lister who shone brightest the last time this club were at the top of the European game.
Manchester United sources Monday night were publicly insistent that Cristiano Ronaldo is not for sale and is expected to see out the final year of his contract. In particular, they insisted that reports United would look to terminate that deal were incorrect. By Tuesday morning, that stance has gotten somewhat softer and the five-time Ballon d’Or winner could indeed be allowed to leave.
The question, of course, is where to? Of the possible Champions League contenders that he wants to join, only Chelsea took a long look at him and they have concluded otherwise. Atletico Madrid’s fans are campaigning against his signature while Barcelona president Joan Laporta did not deny that his club had been offered (and rejected) the chance to sign the 37-year-old before picking the younger model in Robert Lewandowski and then activating the fourth “lever.”
Indeed, CBS Sports understands that the only offers currently on the table for Ronaldo come from Saudi Arabia, where two leading clubs have made plain their willingness to take the Portugal international on increased wages despite his own reticence. Ronaldo, the current Champions League record scorer, feels he has unfinished business in that competition and will want to be playing at the highest level before this winter’s World Cup in Qatar. One of the two Saudi clubs interested in his services has told CBS Sports that their offer would still be on the table for Ronaldo in January, but that may be too late for Erik ten Hag’s new start.
Ronaldo could be well be unshiftable in the closing days of the transfer window. The worry for United ought to be how many others in their squad are of the same status.
Fuenlabrada lay second in their league and are in consistent form after winning seven of their 10 games this term.
The small team know this game represents one of the biggest days in their short history, and there is every chance Cristiano Ronaldo will be given the night off.
Ronaldo’s potential absence could see Real lack fluency, but with a strong squad desperate for minutes, it should be a simple day at the office.
It was instructive to see former Manchester United defender Gary Neville apply RAG status to the club’s financial business in the years since their guiding light, Sir Alex Ferguson, retired. Of 33 signings made over the past nine years, two got the green light from the pundit, seven were amber and the rest were the sort of unqualified disappointments that constituted red status.
To which one had two immediate reactions. First of all, surely something deeper than red is required? After all, Daley Blind wasn’t great but he was hardly an Alexis Sanchez-style blow up your wage bill, rob minutes from talented youngsters and end up paying his wages just for him to go away disaster.
Then when your eyes moved from the mass of inadequate recruitment to the supposed successes, you cannot help but feel the bar might be too low. Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave United a great first season but didn’t even make it to the end of a deeply disappointing second while Bruno Fernandes’ form has fallen off a cliff since Ronaldo, implausibly an amber on Neville’s list, arrived.