It was a high order from the start to get anything against Real Madrid, but hope dies last and tonight hope died. I was expecting a loss, but what we got was a trouncing, what we got was complete and utter dominance by Real Madrid and complete inferiority by Valencia CF. They were at least 5 classes above us and did not see anything positive from this match.
Valencia CF was able to match Real Madrid for the first 20 minutes, high pressure, positioned high to close down Real Madrid players from the back, and it worked for 20 minutes or so and Valencia CF was on occasion outplaying Real Madrid, we had couple of attacks and were threatening to make Real Madrid's night hell. After 20 or 25 minutes had passed though Valencia CF just went to defend mode. Do nothing except for sit back and allow Real Madrid to do whatever the hell they wanted! How can we win games like this when our team isn't even playing? They are all standing and doing nothing, piss poor passing, piss poor defending, no attacks, no initiative, no ball control, nothing! Should have brought the Mestalla team to play against Real Madrid, they would have probably done a bit better.
Yeah I can complain about the penalty they were awarded, it was most likely outside of the penalty area and it was a very soft foul as well, but zero response after the penalty, you'd think players would get angry and try and prove something, but no the team shut down even more.
Second half starts and you'd think Valencia CF would be ready to challenge Real Madrid and try and score an equalizer, but no we were still defending as if we are leading 5-0 or something. They just used our passiveness and scored two more goals, both of them scored by Vinicious Junior.
The frustrating thing is how easy they were able to score, how easy it was for them to shoot and create chances and find themselves in good positions, our marking and positioning at the back was atrocious, but even if it was impeccable we still can't expect to defend for 60+ minutes and not concede even once! Even the best Italian teams who played that kind of football a decade ago were not able to withstand an onslaught for 60-70 or more minutes, even they had to play some football.
Valencia CF would score a condolence goal after a pity penalty was given to us. Guedes steps in to take the penalty, shoots straight into the goalkeeper, but luckily the rebound heads towards him and he heads the ball into the net.
Real Madrid weren't even playing anymore at that point, they were just allowing Valencia CF to do whatever and hitting us on the counter, but even that wasn't enough for Valencia CF as they were not able to muster up any serious chance. Daniel Wass had few long range efforts that went wide and to make matters worse Benzema would utterly finish this match with a 4th goal for Real Madrid. Gaya tried to get to him and cover, but like a headless chicken just lunged towards the ball and Benzema with one simple move got rid of him and slotted the ball into the net.
This team can play 100 times against Real Madrid and lose like 99 of the matches, it was that obvious. In previous years even when they were considered much better Valencia CF has given them a much tougher time, on many occasion's relying on the referees to bail them out. We only have one similar loss to them in the past decade, but this was even worse as the team did not show up to play! After the first 20 or so minutes it was all Real Madrid.
I hope they give Bordalas few reinforcements this winter, and believe me Diego Godin and Juan Mata would be 10x better than what we have now. They might be old now, but they have something called skill and experience and we would be much better with these players. I truly believe Diego Godin will be better than all of our defenders except for maybe Gabriel Paulista and only because he is 35 years old, few years back much better! Juan Mata can still probably run circles around a player like Wass or Racic or Hugo or Helder Costa, etc...
So yeah bring in the elder ones, bring in the "grandpa" squad they are better than what we have now!
Bring in David Villa, David Silva, Juan Mata, Diego Godin, bring back Ayala from retirement to run circles around these kids.