Zinedine Zidane Speaks on Real Betis Loss, Who's to Blame & Defensive Struggles
By Tom Gott
After working so hard to pick up a 2-0 win over Barcelona, Real Madrid undid all their hard work by falling to a 2-1 loss at the hands of Real Betis on Sunday.
Betis, who came into the game in 14th in the table, took the lead through Sidnei late in the first half, but a Karim Benzema penalty saw the two sides head into the break level. However, a late Cristian Tello goal saw Betis pick up all three points and handed Barcelona the lead in the title race.
It was a frustrating evening for Zinedine Zidane, and speaking after the game (via the club's official website), he made his feelings known.
On What Went Wrong
"It was a poor game for us from beginning to end. It's a pity because we had a chance to put in a good performance but we didn't.
"It was hard for us, we gave the ball away a lot and I have no explanation. I'm the person responsible. We are going to analyse what happened, but today we can't be happy with our performance.
"This is the problem. It cost us. The players have tried, but nothing good has come out of it today and in the end, I’m to blame. I have to analyse the match to see what has happened to us. After this game we have to look ahead because what we did until now wasn’t so bad. We have 11 matches left and we are going to fight for the title until the end."
On Taking the Blame
"I'm going to defend my players and if I have to tell them something, I'll tell them. We didn’t have enough of the ball, which is not usually the case for us, and that was our biggest problem.
"When we don't do what we talked about, I'm responsible. I'm not going to explain to you exactly what happened, but we can say that today was our worst game of the season."
On Real's Title Hopes
“We’ll keep fighting because there are solutions. We’ve had a good season and there are good and bad elements, we just need to correct the latter. We can come through this. We have to analyse the game and move on to the next one".
On Recent Defensive Struggles
“We didn’t show enough energy to really trouble the opposition. It’s not just defensively, we conceded two goals but that wasn’t the problem today. I’m more frustrated by how we used the ball, we really struggled."