{"id":517976,"date":"2026-01-15T13:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/517976\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T13:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:17:13","slug":"it-was-supposed-to-be-a-new-dawn-for-real-madrid-instead-they-hit-rock-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/517976\/","title":{"rendered":"It was supposed to be a new dawn for Real Madrid. Instead, they hit \u2018rock bottom\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa got off to the worst possible start as the La Liga giants were humbled 3-2 at second division Albacete in the Copa del Rey last 16.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Arbeloa was appointed to replace his friend Xabi Alonso on the Bernabeu bench<\/a>. On Tuesday, he was presented as the 17th coach of Florentino Perez\u2019s two terms as Madrid president. On Wednesday, Arbeloa\u2019s side were embarrassingly eliminated by a team that is battling against relegation to Spain\u2019s third tier.<\/p>\n

Firing Alonso, just eight months after appointing him to bring a fresh modern approach to the team, might have dulled some of the pain that Perez and other Madridistas were feeling after regular blows through this season, with Sunday\u2019s Supercopa 3-2 final defeat by Barcelona<\/a> the latest.<\/p>\n

But changing the coach was never going to immediately fix any of the obvious problems with the squad, which date back through Alonso\u2019s short time on the bench to the miserable final stages of predecessor Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s second reign.<\/p>\n

These include a lack of physical and mental sharpness throughout the squad, a lack of leadership when things are not going their way, not enough top-class, fit defenders, no midfielder capable of organising play, and an attack that struggles to break down rivals who sit deep.<\/p>\n

\"Vinicius<\/p>\n

\n Vinicius Jr gestures to the Real Madrid bench in frustration (Jose Hernandez\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Having said that, surely nobody around the Bernabeu, and definitely not Perez nor Arbeloa, expected Madrid to shockingly exit a second competition in just four days. This was Arbeloa\u2019s first match managing at the top level, and a first defeat \u2014 his only previous senior experience being the start of this season in Spain\u2019s third division with Real Madrid\u2019s reserves.<\/p>\n

Regular starters Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham, Thibaut Courtois, Alvaro Carreras, Rodrygo and Aurelien Tchouameni were excused from the trip, despite being fit enough to feature in last week\u2019s Supercopa in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

But the Madrid starting XI still included big names. Vinicius Junior, Federico Valverde, Dean Huijsen, Arda Guler and Franco Mastantuono all featured, but Madrid were never really in control against an Albacete side who rotated their own starting XI.<\/p>\n

Madrid\u2019s physical and energy levels also really seemed to drop in the second half \u2014 a sign of the fitness issues which were a problem for both Ancelotti and Alonso, and also of a lack of confidence and conviction. That has been a regular feature of the past 18 months.<\/p>\n

There was very little sign of the aggression, fight and pride Arbeloa promised to bring to the team<\/a> on Tuesday. His substitutions did not bring any more order, just the opposite, as he appeared to switch to a three man backline, and brought on fit again club captain Dani Carvajal for his first game since October.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Albacete seemed to grow in belief as the game entered the last 10 minutes with the score still 1-1, and the opportunity of a historic victory grew.<\/p>\n

Some really poor defending at another Albacete corner was punished by a neat finish by Albacete substitute forward Jefte Betancor to put the home side 2-1 up. Madrid academy graduate Gonzalo Garcia was among those to blame, but the 21-year-old striker then appeared to be a hero when he headed in for an excellent stoppage-time equaliser.<\/p>\n

It seemed like Madrid had escaped, and would likely go on to win the game in extra time. Instead, Carvajal was unable to stop Betancor from curling a superb 96th-minute winner over a flat-footed Andriy Lunin and inside the far post.<\/p>\n

\"Albacete's<\/p>\n

\n Albacete\u2019s players celebrated a famous win (Jose Hernandez\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

This will be one of the most ignominious Copa del Rey exits in Real Madrid\u2019s entire history \u2014 up there with the 4-0 Copa del Rey defeat by third-tier Alcorcon during Manuel Pellegrini\u2019s one season on the Bernabeu bench in October 2009. Madrid were also dumped out of the competition by third-tier Alcoyano in January 2021.<\/p>\n

Arbeloa scored an own goal during that 2009 game, which came in the first season after he had rejoined Madrid from Liverpool the previous summer. The 42-year-old appeared to refer to it in his post-match press conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand if people call this defeat a failure,\u201d Arbeloa said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not afraid of the word failure, I\u2019ve failed many times in my life, suffered very painful exits from competitions, even worse than this one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned that failure is on the path to success. For me, they\u2019re not in opposite directions. This will make me improve, help everyone to improve. We have a lot of room for improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arbeloa did not rage like his former Madrid manager Jose Mourinho might have in a moment like this, finding a scapegoat inside or outside his team, or mounting a drama to distract from what had happened.<\/p>\n

\"Arbeloa<\/p>\n

\n The opening stages of Wednesday\u2019s game were played through fog (Francisco Macia\/Europa Press via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The closest he came to pointing to a reason for what had happened was regularly saying the team\u2019s physical level needed to improve, a lot, and that the return of veteran fitness coach Antonio Pintus would help with that.<\/p>\n

Arbeloa repeated many times that he was the one responsible for the defeat, saying his players had given everything and he had nothing to reproach them for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players wanted to win, tried hard to do what I asked them to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t blame them for anything at all. We Madridistas go to bed feeling hurt, but we\u2019ve no choice but to get up again and get back to work and prepare for Saturday\u2019s game at the Bernabeu. We still have two very important competitions to fight for and a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my job to improve things. I\u2019m ready to get back to work tomorrow at Valdebebas, with my players, and prepare for Saturday\u2019s game with the maximum dedication, and do things much better than today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arbeloa also accepted that his team would likely face the wrath of angry fans when they play against Levante at the Bernabeu on Saturday. The new coach and his team really need to improve radically and rapidly if they are to have any chance of success in La Liga or the Champions League this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have hit rock bottom in spectacular fashion,\u201d Carvajal told reporters after the match. \u201cWe, the players, are ultimately responsible. There\u2019s little else I can say.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarting tomorrow, it\u2019s time for self-criticism. We have two fantastic competitions ahead of us, and we\u2019re going to fight for everything. We apologise to the fans. We are not, myself included, living up to the expectations of this club, and we will give our all in the coming months to turn the situation around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether the squad is actually capable of making those improvements remains to be seen. What is clear from Wednesday\u2019s shocking Copa exit is that Alonso was certainly not the only person who has not been up to the standards required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa got off to the worst possible start as the La Liga giants…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":517977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[24937,4732,10214,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-517976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-champions-league","9":"tag-la-liga","10":"tag-real-madrid","11":"tag-soccer","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115899312187689420","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}