Immediate Reaction: Villarreal 1 - 2 Real Madrid; Copa de la Reina

Real Madrid are through to the semifinals of Copa de la Reina after beating Villarreal 1-2 with goals by Esther and Linda Caicedo.

Grid View

• Real Madrid XI
• Villarreal XI
• Subs

Misa on goal with Gérard on bench for this game, as she’s usually the goalkeeper who plays the cup matches. Misa is on goal, Kenti is back to the starting line-up after getting benched the last game, Svava starts on left back and Ivana and Claudia F. are the only two available center backs. Teresa acts as the deepest midfielder accompanied by Weir and Zornoza in the midfield. The attack is led by Esther in center who has Olga and Athenea on her sides.

• The game in general was very frustrating. It started with an early chance by Athenea where she tried dribbling past the defense but her pass didn’t go through. There were a lot of long passes and crosses attempted in the match out of which barely any resulted in a concrete chance.
• There were a couple attempts from long range, many blocked crosses inside the box for the first half an hour.
• In 34’ Esther scored a rebound goal after Teresa shot from outside of the box hitting the post then the ball bounced off the goalkeeper to finally arrive to Esther who was positioned to push it in.

• There wasn’t much happening for the rest of the first half and there weren’t any halftime substitutions by Real Madrid.
• Not anything different goes for the second half as the same ideas continued with the crosses and long passes. Most intended crosses were by Olga, she also got caught offside a few times.
• In 67’ Olga was replaced by Linda C. and Zornoza by Toletti. There was only one exciting moment before this substitution and the second one and it was Misa’s sweeper keeper moment in 72’. Two minutes later Feller was brought on for Esther.
• In 78’ a cross by Villarreal’s Lara ended up being pushed into Real Madrid’s goal by Ivana. Unlucky moment by the Real Madrid center back.
• After the equalizer, Villarreal pushed but Madrid managed their actions well. There were two more late chances by Las Blancas, one by Weir and then by Athenea who both shot just over the crossbar. The regular 90 minutes ended with 1-1.
• At fulltime, Nahikari and Maite were brought on for Athenea and Teresa. Nahikari instantly connected with Caicedo on the left flank. The chance that took place at 96’ ended after the ball was sent too fast to the front.
• Four minutes later, at 100’, Sofie Svava made a run on the left flank and passed the ball to the center of the box to Linda Caicedo to pus it inside for 1-2. Linda’s first goal for the white club gave Las Blacas the ticket to the semifinals.

• Until the end of the game, there were a couple more attempts by Villarreal, but even more by Madrid. Most came from Feller, Nahikari and Weir.

The frustration ends after 120 minutes and Real Madrid are through to the semifinals of Copa de la Reina which will be played in the last two weeks of May!