Immediate Reaction: Athletic Club 0 - 4 Real Madrid; Copa de la Reina

Real Madrid won with a whopping 0-4 against Athletic Club from Bilbao to reach the Copa de la Reina final. Below are my views on the match.

Grid View

• Real Madrid XI
• Athletic Club XI
• Bench

The starting lineup wasn’t much different than what was expected. Kenti, Ivana, Weir, Feller and Toletti all started against Athletic after not being called up for last weekend’s league game when they were most probably rested. Aside from those five, Linda and Misa are also back after being benched the last game. The only real surprise here is the change of Rocío for Ivana. Finally, the formation would be 4-2-3-1 with Ivana-Kathellen as the CB duo and Olga and Kenti on the fullbacks. It was the standard midfield of Weir-Toletti-Zornoza, and in front Linda, Feller and Athenea. However, Athenea would act more of a second number 10, while also going wide at times, and Feller’s role wasn’t strictly central.

In the second minute of the encounter, Linda created a chance from the left side making a run and crossing in to Feller’s head whose shot was on target but caught by Quiñones.

In the next few minutes, Valdezate came in clutch for Athletic’s defense a couple of times. However, in 7’, that wasn’t enough.

7’: GOAL by Caroline Weir (0-1)! Zornoza’s brilliant long ball was perfectly controlled by Weir

Two minutes later, Linda went on to try a powerful long-range shot that hit the woodwork.

Only 13 minutes into the match did Athletic go to attack. Their attempt was stopped before it got dangerous. For the rest of the time, Real Madrid played on Athletic’s half.

A few minutes later, Valdezate had to be subbed off due to injury. Ane Azkona replaced her. A tactical change from Iraia Iturregi bringing on a striker for a center back, trying to overturn the result. From this point onwards, they couldn’t afford to press Madrid’s center backs so they would wait for Las Blancas to go up and take over the possession from the back. Those plans didn’t last long.

26’: GOAL by Sandie Toletti (0-2)! Weir’s cross to around 16-meter distance from the goal to Toletti was shot with a volley. What a goal!

In the next few minutes, Athletic got really feisty. For the next 4 minutes, first Arana and then Oguiza got yellow cards. The first one was for pulling down Kathellen by her shirt, and the second for a late tackle on Weir. In between the fouls, there was a dangerous attack led by Oihane on the right side. The ball ended just wide from Real Madrid’s goal.

40’: GOAL by Athenea del Castillo (0-3)! Naomie Feller brings the ball in from the left side to Athenea who ran in just in time to shoot the ball in with her weak foot.

There were two halftime changes. Moller for Feller and Maite for Athenea.

46’: GOAL by Caroline Weir (0-4)! Not even half a minute into the second half, Real Madrid went to attack. Zornoza sent the ball into the box where Weir attempted to get it to Moller but instead it was bounced off a defender to arrive back to Weir. She made no mistakes.

In the continuation, the game died down a bit, and for a reason. In 54’ there were 2 more changes: Teresa for Weir and Svava for Zornoza. The two midfielders get deserved rest ahead of the finals.

There were some good connections between the players, especially Møller with the surrounding players in attack. Too bad nothing concrete happened.

A few minutes later, in 72’ Nahikari got in for Linda. From that point, the disconnection between her and Møller was more than evident.

In 79’ there was an incident in the stands. Reportedly, one of the fans had a sugar drop and fainted. There was a 5-minute pause before the match continued. Nothing much happened for the rest of the game.

Real Madrid reached their first ever final. Their opponent in the final will be Atlético Madrid. The first Madrid derby final in the cup. The final is on Saturday, May 27th, at 22:00 CEST.