Everything is ready for another unprecedented Copa del Rey final. In La Cartuja de Sevilla tonight the illusion of Osasuna is measured against the experience of Real Madrid, a team that does not usually fail in the finals, but that does not pay much attention to the Cup, considered by the whites a minor competition in the years of bonanza In fact, since 1956 Madrid has won more European Cups or Champions Leagues (14) than Copas del Rey (10). To win today, it will be the twentieth.
Given the opulence of Florentino Pérez Osasuna’s team, it is undoubtedly the most important game in its history. It will be his second assault on the cup title, since he lost the first on June 11, 2005, when Betis beat him 2-1 after extra time in a match played at the Calderón. That was a more offensive Osasuna than the current one, led by Javier Aguirre, with Patxi Puñal as captain and strikers like Webó, Milosevic, Valdo and Aloisi.
The season is being excellent for Osasuna, which is tenth, with no qualifying difficulties, which is already good news in Pamplona. They have only won two of their last five games, but on Monday they lost at the Camp Nou the day Jagoba Arrasate presented an eleven with only two starters: Chimy Avila and Torró, and four homegrown players: Diego Moreno, Herrando, Pablo Ibáñez and Iker Benedict. Still he held up pretty well for an hour.
Jagoba Arrasate, (Berriatúa, 45 years old) is celebrating his fifth season on the Sadar bench, the first of them with the team in Second Division. He has consolidated a style of play based on strict defensive discipline at the cost of losing attacking power. This season he has only scored fewer goals than the Navarrese team (29), Cádiz (26) and Elche (25). And it is a team with a lot of character. The last four cup qualifiers were surpassed in extra time, something unprecedented also in 120 years of the Cup
Everyone knows how Osasuna will play. Arrasate will plant the Navarrese bus around Sergio Herrera, a magnificent goalkeeper who has already stopped Benzema three penalties (two of them last season at Sadar) and will seek to score against with balls behind the back of Madrid’s full-backs . If one of them succeeds in beating Courtois, it would be better in the 92nd minute than in the 87th.
Arrasate acknowledged yesterday that he was “before the most important game of my career.” He said “to have indications of how to beat Madrid, and everything happens to make them an uncomfortable game.”
Without Osasuna everything is quite clear, Madrid arrives at this Copa del Rey Seat with some doubts, even in the lineup. Modric is doubt. All in all, the real problem for Madrid is having to play the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Manchester City on Tuesday. There are all the illusions of the white club and its fans. Winning the Cup will only be a minor palliative if Pep Guardiola’s men throw the current champion out of Europe.
The big question being asked by Madrid and Ancelotti, whose continuity is in doubt despite the fact that he has another year on his contract, is whether it is convenient to put all the meat on the grill against Osasuna at the risk of losing or diminishing some of their stars before the key appointment on Tuesday. For Madrid, the Champions League is everything; The rest, except for the League, is little more than Carranza.
This Madrid comes to the game somewhat irregularly. La Liga has been torture since the World Cup returned but the team has responded when it had to respond. He passed the qualifying rounds against Liverpool and Chelsea with solvency and the day he had to make a coup of authority at the Camp Nou to reach the Cup final, he had the pleasure of endorsing a beating on the Catalans (0-4 ), a shot of morale that is what he is looking for today against Osasuna. In the club they already warn. If we win, zero celebrations. They don’t want distractions.
