“We’ve done the best and the worst”

2 Oriol Romeu saw a yellow card for this foul on former Girona player Florian Lejeune F

3 Rayo players celebrate Camello’s first goal just starting the game.

Despite not adding the three points, Míchel Sánchez finished his men’s game with the most satisfaction yesterday. Obviously, when you don’t win, there’s always a bit of a bitter aftertaste in your mouth, especially if you generate enough and reach the opposite area to do so. This, treading so much area and not being decisive is one of the aspects, along with the “fat” mistakes that Míchel complained about at the end of the game. “We did the best and the worst”, said the coach in reference to the team’s play and the mistakes that led to Rayo Vallecano’s two goals. “In terms of pace of play and mentality, we were spectacular, able to get up after their two goals.” For this reason, unlike Iraola, Míchel found that Girona, “for points” had certainly deserved a little “more”. However, in football “what counts are the goals and I’ve tied”, he was resigned.

Míchel underlined the great deployment of the team from the twenty minute mark, once it overlapped the empanada generated by the 0-1. “We have become groggy. Afterwards, we saw that we put the Rayo under control and put them in their area quite a few times. We created a lot of attacks and arrivals but we failed to generate clear goal chances». Regarding the mistakes of Miguel Gutiérrez and Arnau Martínez in the rival goals, Míchel took iron out of them. “If our defenders touch 80 balls, it can happen. We had the personality to turn it around with the same philosophy. In the end you have to put it on the scale and see if it gives us more or takes away from us and I am clear about that”, he said. In this sense, Míchel revealed that the mistake had taken Miguel Gutiérrez out of the game during the first quarter of an hour “until he focused on the game, which is what we told him to do”.

The Madrid player was of the opinion that the two whistled penalties were, contrary to Iraola. “Iván Martín tells me that he steps on it and in the second, the referee considers that the hand covers a space of the trajectory of the ball towards the goal”, said Míchel who added that it was “interpretation”, as in the case the offside of the last play that ended with Stuani’s goal disallowed. In this regard, the coach revealed that, without the Uruguayan on the field, Taty Castellanos and Riquelme are in charge of taking penalties. The Argentine scored the first, but in the second, with neither Riquelme nor Stuani on the field, Samu Saiz asked Castellanos for the ball and kicked it. “Taty had to kick him and Samu took him there. He said he had confidence, he gave it to him, and well. Now, the one in charge of kicking the two penalties was Taty”, explained Míchel without wanting to give it more importance.