Elche measures the hangover of the super champion

Four days after winning the Spanish Super Cup, Real Madrid visits the Martínez Valero to face Elche in the round of 16 of the Copa del Rey. The team from Elche, besieged by the covid but released after adding three consecutive wins, will measure the hangover of Carlo Ancelotti’s team, who will not be able to count on Courtois due to an indisposition and gives rest to Benzema, once again decisive in Saudi Arabia so that the whites lifted a title that has triggered the euphoria of a locker room that aspires to put up a fight in all competitions.

Solvent leader of the League, whose next stage will bring another duel on Sunday with Elche at the Santiago Bernabéu, and instilling new respect in Europe, where an exciting clash with PSG awaits, Real Madrid takes up the pending issue that it has with the Copa del Rey, a tournament that in recent years has caused him more embarrassment than pleasure. A couple of weeks ago, the whites healed the wound caused by Alcoyano last year, but Ancelotti remains on his guard. “It’s another final. A tie in a competition that makes us excited, like all of them. We are prepared and we need to be because Elche has had a good dynamic in recent times”, warned the Italian, who announced that he will once again have “the best possible team”, although “considering the fatigue” of the footballers who defeated last Sunday the Athletic in Riyadh.

He has no choice. Six Real Madrid players have far exceeded the 2,000-minute barrier since the season closed. Two of them will have a truce this Thursday. These are Courtois and Benzema, the most decisive figures, along with Vinicius and Modric, in the overwhelming journey of Ancelotti’s team. The normal thing would be for the technician to keep the Croatian’s bullet in his chamber, squeezed at 36 years old, but he is still reluctant to dose the Brazilian. «Vinicius has to stop when we see him tired, when he cannot show his qualities on the pitch or when he is injured. Give him rest because it may happen that in two months he may be tired, no. When he is tired he will not play. Now I don’t see him tired. He can play,” he asserted in the preview.

Bale returns to the fold

The losses reduce the margin of action of Ancelotti who, apart from Courtois and Benzema, regrets the absences of Asensio, Vallejo and Mariano, injured, as well as that of Carvajal, positive for coronavirus, and that of Militao, sanctioned after his expulsion in the final of the Super Cup, for which he completed the call with Mario Gila, central defender of Castilla. On the other hand, he recovers Bale, who could once again defend the Real Madrid jersey 145 days after his last appearance on the third day of the League against Betis. Hazard, unprecedented in the last three appointments, also aspires to get out of ostracism. Those who will have minutes for sure are Lunin, the goalkeeper of the Cup, and Jovic, with the difficult mission that the attack does not suffer without his great reference.

The victories they won against Espanyol and Villarreal in the last two days of the League allow Elche to concentrate their forces in a tournament in which they have already left Leioa, Unionistas de Salamanca and Almería behind. “The King’s Cup candy appeals to all of us,” said José Manuel Rodríguez Ortega, Francisco’s assistant who will lead the team from Elche this Thursday due to the positive results of the main coach and his second, Jaime Ramos.

The coronavirus has hit the Elche dressing room, which in recent days saw the bug shake Casilla, Piatti, Josema or Pastore. Fidel and Palacios, who also suffered from the pathogen, have already returned to work, but Elche has had to prepare the game to a minimum because to these setbacks we must add that Bigas and Roco are injured, while Iván Marcone and Lucas Boyé remained between cottons. In addition, Benedetto, who arrived with the star poster, has left the club to return to Argentina, without having responded to the expectations raised by his signing. Despite this, the people of Elche promise war. “We will make things very difficult for Real Madrid,” warned his circumstance coach.