Real Madrid's masterclass of anything but a remontada

The Guardian

17-04-2025

While most English tourists are cultured enough to know the Spanish for a couple of pints of Stella, a full English breakfast or directions to the nearest A&E ward, in recent days the word remontada has also become seared in the collective consciousness of football fans. A colloquialism bullishly bandied about by Real Madrid's players and fans in the week after Arsenal did a number on them in north London, it was a snappy one-word rejoinder detailing how fate and the Bigger Cup champions' implacable refusal to be beaten would see them defy apparently insurmountable odds and overturn a 3-0 deficit to reach the semi-finals of a tournament they've won more often than anybody else. Sadly, it seems somebody at the Bernabéu didn't get the memo.
Instead of a remontada, Madrid's players served up a masterclass of remonstrations with the referee, reactionary recidivism, repeatedly crossing the ball to little or no effect, a refusal to play as a team and ultimately realising that the comeback or turnaround they considered their due wasn't actually going to happen. Having spent the first half playing with all the poise and assurance of a bunch of hyperactive and entitled six-year-olds who had overdosed on Tango and Squashies, Madrid didn't actually get a foothold in the tie until it was gifted to them by an uncharacteristic Arsenal error and any hope looked well beyond them. 'They came to defend, to play their role,' sniffed Lucas Vázquez, Madrid's captain, of Arsenal in a post-match interview that had more than a whiff of sour grapes about it. 'In the first half, they did almost nothing. In the second, with the team pressing, they found the victory.'
It could be argued that Madrid also played their role, specifically that of a petulant, strop-throwing toddler throwing their rattle out of the playpen because things aren't going their way. Having kept out an early Bukayo Saka penalty for the kind of off-the-ball offence that usually goes unpunished, it seemed like it might actually be their evening, but Carlo Ancelotti's side were too focused on persistent fouling, amateur dramatics and bickering with match officials or their opponents to actually concentrate on trying to win. Even Dani Carvajal, who wasn't playing, got in on the act, appearing to remonstrate with Saka for disrespecting the hosts by trying to panenka a spot-kick past Thibaut Courtois, apparently oblivious to the fact that the Englishman's comically dismal effort had been saved.
A team that famously always seem to find a way to prevail in Bigger Cup until they don't, Madrid's hopes of securing silverware this season are now pinned on them pipping a Barcelona side that has already thrashed them twice to either – or both – of the league title or Copa del Rey crown. Meanwhile, Arsenal advance to semi-finals that could scarcely look more open if they were the mouth of a patient who has just been ordered by the doctor to say 'Ahhhhhh'. For a team given a 6% chance of winning Bigger Cup by Opta's Super Computer before the tournament started, it's quite the turnaround.
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