Real Madrid’s Ancelotti Makes Title Race Confession Post-Valencia Loss

Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti admitted that winning La Liga is now more “complicated” after his team lost 2-1 to Valencia at the Bernabeu on Saturday.

Los Blancos went 1-0 down early to their relegation-threatened visitors. And though Vinicius Jr. pulled one back after missing a penalty, Hugo Duro stunned Madrid by firing home a last-gasp header set up by Rafa Mir.

Asked if the defeat was “adios” to La Liga, with FC Barcelona able to head six points clear if its beats Real Betis later on Saturday evening, Ancelotti said post-match: “It’s much more complicated to fight for La Liga now, but we have the idea of doing well until the end. We have options, except after this game, but we have to fight until the end.”

On Vinicius’ missed spot kick, Ancelotti admitted that it’s being “a complicated season in penalties”.

“[Jude]

Bellingham, [Kylian] Mbappé, Vinicius have missed… I tried to give him confidence and he missed this one too,” Ancelotti added, before saying “let’s see” about Mbappe now being the number one penalty taker.

Ancelotti refused to accept that the slump was down to either a lack of football or physicality.

“It’s neither football nor physically,” he said. “We created a lot of chances, we were very close to scoring goals. It may be that we lacked effectiveness, and in recovering the ball, but we lost very few balls.

“It’s true that opponents don’t need much to score against us at the moment. We took risks to try to win, the draw was of no use to us, and we took that counterattack. We did things well offensively. We has lacked some effectiveness.”

“We have to take into account the small details, such as the missed penalty and that they then score from set pieces,” Ancelotti went on, when asked if attitude was instead the issue.

“And they have disallowed a goal. These are small details that can change the dynamic of the game. Valencia played their game, with a fantastic job. But Madrid deserved to win, without a doubt. Can things be improved? Yes of course. It’s not a problem of attitude, you can criticize whatever you want, but I have the right to see what I see. We had deserved defeats, but today it was not deserved. Today there was no lack of attitude.

Regarding Vinicius being whistled, Ancelotti stressed that the Brazilian “is focused on what he is doing”.

“He can play well or badly, but he is focused on what he does,” Ancelotti added.

“We have lost the opportunity to fight for the league more forcefully. The match against Barça in the Copa del Rey final will be different, they will attack more and we will have to be better at the back and be effective up front,” Ancelotti offered, when asked if the Valencia defeat leaves him worried.