RB Linense 2-1 Real Madrid Castilla

Both Real Madrid Castilla and Footters disappointed in an opening round defeat to RB Linense in the Primera RFEF on Sunday

Castilla lined up without Miguel Gutierrez who played the full game against Real Betis. Blanco, who was in the senior team squad, managed to make it to start for Castilla here alongside Ivan Morante. Raul opted for three at the back in Juvenil A Alvaro Carillo, Mario Gila and Pablo Ramon flanked by Sergio Santos and expermential wingback Peter Federico. No surprises up front in Miguel Latasa and Sergio Arribas as well as Theo Zidane.

Castilla couldn’t of asked for a better start. Four minutes into the game, the away side were knocking on the door when Sergio Santos’s cross finally unlocked the defence and Miguel Latasa managed to guide a header into the corner.

That was as good as it got until the end of the half. Linense were level five minutes later having caught Lopez miles off his line from a set piece. The hosts were ahead not long after, though only some of us caught the goal as streaming platform Footters challenged Castilla for biggest disappointment of the game. Linense completely dominated proceedings and were a unlucky offside away from being 3-1 up.

Castilla’s defence was in ribbons and only gained some form of stubbornness after Morante and Blanco dropped behind the ball, leaving the attacking trident isolated. Some Arribas magic conjured a half-chance at the near post and that was it for a extremely poor first half.

The game balanced out in the second half, in spite of Raul’s changes and Castilla continued to struggle to create any sort of clear cut chance to level the game up. Linenese had an almost identical record to Castilla last season so it was always going to be a tight opener, but the defending was inexcusable given the experience of this unit. Raul has plenty of food for thought, hopefully one being to ditch the Peter Federico at wingback experiment.

The young winger is okay at wingback, but he was one of the team’s best attackers last season and Theo’s performance offered little justification as to why both players must be jammed into the starting 11. Next up is CD Fernando at home, hopefully both Footters and Castilla have a better game.