At the end of the match, Xabi Alonso expressed his satisfaction with the good work and weighed in on the comparison of assists between Vinicius Junior and Guti at Riazor: “I was on the pitch for Guti’s and it blew my mind.”
Xabi Alonso spoke to ‘DAZN’ before giving his post-match press conference. The man from Tolosa, more restrained in his analysis, was more open when choosing between Guti’s backheel at Riazor and the one Vinicius Junior gave against Salzburg, so similar to that one.
“Vini’s was very good, but I was on the pitch for Guti’s and it blew my mind, I’ll take that one. But Vini’s was almost, almost the same,” said the Basque coach.
Regarding the match itself, he celebrated the good teamwork and the notable image offered by his team against the Austrians. “The first half was serious, we worked the match with patience, knowing that it wouldn’t be won in ten minutes. We had to be mature to find the opportunity. In the second half we started well and with the 3-0 I’m happy with the boys, now we start the interesting phase.”
Regarding the advanced pressure, especially after losing the ball, the former Bayer Leverkusen player clarified that it will not be a regular occurrence, but rather will depend “on the match”. “But we have to know how to do it. This time we recovered a lot in the first half in the opposition’s half, it was a great job,” claimed Xabi Alonso.
The Real Madrid coach also clarified why he placed Arda Guler in the midfield: “I wanted to have different heights. With Jude between the lines we can create that superiority, Arda at the base has a good foot, good control, knows how to stick to the centre-backs.”
The new head coach was more cautious about the possibility of people like Endrick or Militao reinforcing the team in the round of 16. “Let’s wait, I don’t want to anticipate. We thought Kylian was going to make it to this match and it hasn’t been possible. Now we have four days, I want to be optimistic but cautious too,” he said.
