Chaos devours Real Zaragoza against Cartagena (1-2)

In a game without head and tail, catastrophic offensive and creative quality, The real Zaragoza stood naked in front of the mirror, exposing all his weaknesses.. He was unable to beat Cartagena either on equal terms or with superiority, playing the entire second half with another red card for Jairo. Not at all, suffered their first defeat at home to Velasquez, a coach who offers no solutions and has not significantly improved the team’s performance.. In the end, Zaragoza with him has the same weaknesses and the same strengths as with Escriba, only now they have a goalkeeper who holds the points. The rest, apart from tactical configurations and other more or less football issues, is the same.

Zaragoza is harmless, dense and disorganized in attack, unable to command, generate, produce, intimidate, truly rise above his opponents.. So Cartagena won the game. He defended comfortably in the first half, exploiting his fragility of attacking ideas and truly quality material in a team increasingly under the microscope. For the sake of order, solidarity and protective overpopulation, the Murcians deactivated Zaragoza. They followed suit in the second half as Julio Velasquez erected a monument to chaos and anarchy, leaving his team confused and confused as players changed positions like someone changes socks.

Velasquez did not get out of the car and repeated the formula with Zedadka entering the right lane. instead of Fran Gamez as the only nominal new addition to the Zaragoza squad. Everything remained the same, not the same, because although the team retained a line of three central defenders, full-backs, four midfielders and a striker, when it came to possession and development in attack, in defense they positioned themselves with four at the back, Frances – left back, while Mollejo and Franco are wing midfielders.

In a manner, This flexible asymmetry was the reason for Cartagena’s goal very early, in the 11th minute.. They caught up with Zaragoza halfway, came back and became disorganized, with the ball going to Calero. In the left sector of the Aragonese defense, he met with Frances, Luis Lopez, for some unknown reason, he left the zone and left the zone. Sacred place in such situations: The Calero Center is headed by Dario Poveda. thus revealing the weakness, the imbalance, the Achilles heel of Zaragoza in recent weeks: the goal was very similar to the one conceded a week ago in Eibar. This is the fourth goal in a row that the Aragonese team has conceded in the air. Everyone knows where and how to put Zaragoza’s balls so that they become a stick of dynamite.

Very quickly the game’s verses were placed where Cartagena wanted., the team, on the other hand, put forward a message from its composition, free of lyrics and embellishments, warning Zaragoza of the type of game that awaited them. Julián Calero formed the team with his usual line of four defenders and three holding midfielders, and also added a double striker; with Jairo on the left, thus consolidating Fontana and Ivan Calero – the coach’s son – advancing his position so that Diego Moreno could enter on the right flank.

This approach was aimed at sealing the interstitial spaces., cancel the width of Velasquez’s lane system and stay behind him with the intention of galloping away, no matter how far he started attacking from Dario Poveda. It worked for Cartagena because this is the type of match that shows Zaragoza’s disgrace in a positional attack against a well-knit and composed defence.

Julio Velasquez did not find a way to tense his opponent, to demand from him, to take him to the ropes. His team did not intimidate and did not do much for this, playing the game from the visitors’ goal as if it were already in stoppage time, with haste, agony, fear, doing everything very quickly and hastily.

Zaragoza, before going down, warned Zedadki with a pass that neither Franco, nor Ason, nor Maikel Mesa could catch. Ason soon placed the ball high above Lizoan, whose body expanded and prevented the goal from being scored. Such actions exacerbate Zaragoza’s problems with dominating the opponent’s zone: not only do they struggle to reach it and put their intentions in danger, but once there, in those decisive meters, they switch off, do not understand the reasons through the need to be able to impose themselves and open paths to the goal. All centers sank. This is a problem not only for the attackers, but also for the game.

Zaragoza had possession, but it was disjointed, disjointed and individual. There was neither a common idea nor an effective and organized offensive structure.. Their football was disorganized, illusory, inoffensive and static, without deep action and a well-thought-out and deployed passing map.

Zaragoza thus massaged the game, more than spurred it on, turning the game into a “I want and I can’t” mode, which is already behaving like another element of the team’s football this season, no matter who the coach is, no matter what the system and model.

With this in mind, Cartagena and its workers felt a sense of glory as they splashed through this mass of concrete and reinforcement, holding back the Aragonese while also exposing them to casualties and flight back. Franco’s high shot and Ason’s poor cross were the few things Zaragoza got out of the game in the desert. In one of these transitions Jairo Izquierdo elbows Mourinho and VAR alarm goes off. He saw the Reds and Cartagena, who had already lost former Zaragoza player Alarcón to a shoulder injury after twenty minutes, was left with ten players.

Before the break, Mollejo brought Zaragoza out of lethargy with an unsuccessful shot from the right foot. The game, with Cartagena one down, further appreciated the course it was about to take as Zaragoza tried to decipher an even more garrisoned, retreated and armored enemy.

Velazquez cancels his original plan

And this was the plot on which the story of the second half revolved. As at Eibar, Julio Velasquez canceled his original plan and shook up the team. Valera entered from the left, passing Frances to the center.. The one sacrificed was Mourinho. The manager, faced with a high-possession game, chose to save his best for Luiz’s pass. In addition, Bakis replaced Ason. The most profound changes occurred on the scoreboard: Mollejo took the lead, and the center of the field was located in the form of a diamond. It didn’t take long for Zaragoza to box out their opponents in their area and pepper them with crosses. Maikel Mesa warned in a good combination with Bakis. The cross of Zedadka continued the danger. And Lizoain blocked Mollejo’s goal with a superb hand just a foot from the line.

Thus, Zaragoza crowded the finishing area., and it didn’t take long for Calero to provide his antidote with a triple change that left his side with five defenders through the introduction of Sola on the left flank. Soon after, Maikel Mesa received Valera’s cross, but Lizoain again parried the ball away for a corner.

There was no pause or meaning to the game.. To bring the game to final chaos, Julio Velasquez gave the team another turn: Franco and Zedadka went to the bench, while Enrich and Manu Vallejo entered. All the gunpowder was on the field, the coach, far from peace and tranquility, was looking for a draw, and from that disorder (Valera went to the right flank, and Mollejo returned to the left), which further revolutionized the method of attack. And then, in one of the countless balls that were pumped into the Murcia zone, a corner came out. Tony Moya scored, Lizoain hesitated, he couldn’t win the ball high, and Frances found the gap from the ground. The draw was protested by the guests, whose coach was sent off.

There was a quarter of an hour left, and everything would be a matter of heart, despair, heroism, dizziness and emotion. Ortuño, already on the field, almost scored. Bakis scored his first goal, but was unsuccessful. Cartagena stretched the clock, playing with time, while Zaragoza was unable to slow down its attacks. It was all about selection, without coherence and logic in the game, it was easy for Cartagena to defend. The visitors, even though they had one less goal, declared that they were still in the game: Badia saved his team by not giving Ortiz the ball one on one. Bakis sent her into the clouds when everything was a goal… And so, With ninety on the clock, Cartagena stretched out and converted the corner, which resulted in their winning goal.: Fountain, alone, unguarded, as if defense no longer mattered, grabbed the ball and sent it into Badia’s corner. La Romareda froze, and Zaragoza’s bones creaked.

DATA SHEET

Royal Zaragoza: Edgar Badia; Mourinho (Valera, 46 years old), Luis Lopez, French; Zedadka (Manu Vallejo, 70), Tony Moya, Mark Aguado, Francho Serrano (Enrich, 70), Mollejo; Maikel Mesa; and Azon (Bakis, 46).

Cartagena: Lysoain; Ivan Calero, Alcala, Kiko Olivas Fountain; Diego Moreno (Ortiz, 55), Musto, Andy, Alarcon (Honey Alamo, 21) (Arnau Sola, 55) (Gonzalo Verdu (79), Jairo; Dario Poveda (Ortuño, 55).

Goals: 0-1, min.11: Dario Poveda. 1-1, min. 75: French. 1-2, min. 89: Jose Fontan.

Referee: Iván Caparrós Hernández (Valencian Community Committee). He showed yellow cards to Alarcón (17), Maikel Mesa (41), Ortiz (57), Tony Moya (57), Zedadke (70), Kiko Olivas (75), Frances (78). He sent off Jairo Izquierdo (44) and visiting coach Calero (76) with a straight red card.

Incidents: The match of the 27th round of the second division league, held at the La Romareda stadium, attracted 21,000 spectators on a pleasant day and a minute of silence was observed in honor of Alarcia, the former goalkeeper of Real Zaragoza.