Latest news with #CarlosVicente
Free Malaysia Today
05-05-2025
- Sport
- Free Malaysia Today
Atletico's title hopes take another hit in 0-0 draw at Alaves
Atletico's Javi Galan (right) shields the ball from Alavés' Carlos Vicente during the match. (EPA Images pic) VITORIA-GASTEIZ: Atletico Madrid's fading hopes of winning the La Liga title suffered a potentially grievous blow today as they were held to a goalless draw by relegation-threatened Alaves at the Mendizorrotza Stadium. Atletico, who last won La Liga in 2021, dominated possession but lacked the invention and urgency to pierce an organised Alaves rearguard. Diego Simeone's side remained third in the standings with 67 points, nine behind leaders Barcelona who travel to Real Valladolid later tomorrow. The first half was a cagey affair without a single shot on target, the most notable moment coming when Atletico forward Julian Alvarez was dismissed for planting a high boot on Facundo Garces. However, TV replays showed the challenge was not as bad as it initially appeared and the red card was changed to a yellow after VAR asked the referee to consult the pitchside monitor. Antoine Griezmann made his first start in three league games but the Frenchman was unable to help Atletico find a route to goal as the visitors failed to record a shot in the opening 45 minutes. Alaves had a chance early in the second half but Jon Guridi failed to convert, sending a header wide after being left unmarked in Atletico's penalty area. Simeone brought on attackers Alexander Sorloth and Samuel Lino and the substitutions sparked the contest into life, with Lino recording Atletico's first shot on target in the 71st minute. Alaves did the same at the other end as Kike Garcia's side-footed effort from close range was expertly kept out by Jan Oblak. Alaves keeper Antonio Sivera was kept very busy in the closing stages as Atletico pushed forward, but the visitors were unable to find a winner. The draw moved Alaves up to 16th, three points clear of the relegation places. 'It's a good point against a great opponent,' Alaves defender Garces said. 'I'm very happy with the work we've done, this helps us to gain confidence and to add to our tally. We're all on the same page. We have to keep pushing and make the stadium a fortress for the last two games here.'
New York Times
20-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Carlos Vicente: From rugby roots to a meteoric La Liga rise and being mesmerised by Yamal
Carlos Vicente is not your average footballer, and it has been a far from conventional journey to the top for the 25-year-old red-haired Spaniard, who is being courted by clubs in the Premier League and beyond. Vicente plays for Alaves in La Liga — his twin, David, is with Murcia in Spain's third tier — and this season has faced Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann. But only three years ago, he was playing in the fourth division of Spanish football. Advertisement And when he was a kid, he wanted to be a rugby player. In Spain. Carlos Vicente is different, as The Athletic found out. Alaves were one of the revelations of La Liga at the start of this season. After beating Sevilla at home in their sixth match, the team from the Basque city of Vitoria were in the European places. Now the reality is different — when this interview with Vicente took place, in the days before the 1-0 home defeat to Real Madrid this month, Alaves were 17th in the 20-team table and in a battle to avoid relegation. 'I don't like to say it because I don't believe in bad luck, but we've been unlucky,' the winger tells The Athletic. 'It's true that the objectives we set ourselves as a club are different to those from outside. We started well, but the objective is always to stay in the division. 'On a personal level, I feel good. I feel loved by the people in Vitoria, they let me know in the street, on social media. I do feel a bit like the leader of the team when it comes to setting the pace, being incisive, giving the team what it needs.' Vicente has been involved in eight goals this season (four goals scored and four assists), but it is a far cry from his childhood. When they were kids, he and his brother used to play rugby with their father, Jose Carlos, on the beach in the summer, where they would take on holidaying Frenchmen (the sport is much more popular in France than it is in southern neighbour Spain) and some days end up bleeding from the tackles and other collisions involved. But their father, who is also a rower and became Spanish veterans' champion with a team from Zaragoza, told his boys they had two options: go and cry under the family's beach umbrella or wash the blood off their faces in the sea and go back to playing. 'In my family, nobody was a football (fan). My father had played rugby for many years. We always say we played rugby before football,' Vicente says. 'He's always played football with us, but he played goalkeeper, so there was a time when my brother and I were hitting the ball so hard that he didn't want to play.' A post shared by Carlos Vicente Robles (@carlosvcnt_) Vicente has come a long way in the space of five years and there were moments in that time when he considered quitting football. Throughout his childhood, up to 2020, the winger grew up in the youth academy of Real Zaragoza, his hometown a near three-hour drive south-east from Vitoria, where he shared the right wing with twin brother David, a full-back. Advertisement Together, they were difficult to tell apart, but as teenagers, they managed to win the Spanish championship with the national team of Aragon, the Spanish region of which Zaragoza is the capital. However, in the middle of the pandemic in the summer of 2020, the two brothers decided to go their separate ways. David left to join the youth academy at Las Palmas, on the Canary Islands, and Vicente to try his luck at Nastic Tarragona, in Catalonia, south-west along the coast from Barcelona. 'I arrived late, I was out of form, I didn't feel like a player and it made me rethink things,' says Vicente. 'I decided to go home for two months, to rest my head a bit. I went to train with a fourth division team, Teruel (a small town near Zaragoza). 'I have no problem talking about it because I always say that bad things are good things with time. I thought that football wasn't for me, that I wasn't as good as I thought. 'Confidence is everything in football. When I was training with the fourth division team, little by little, I was enjoying football, I would come home and say, 'Damn, what a good time I had'. That made me come back.' After playing for modest fourth-division teams such as Ejea and Calahorra, in 2022, Vicente finally got his chance in professional football with Racing de Ferrol in the second tier. Despite moving up the ladder, Vicente adapted to Ferrol quickly, contributing 12 goals and 16 assists in just a season and a half. His form alerted clubs in Spain's top flight and he also drew interest from across Europe. 'It was difficult to manage — if it happens again, I'll manage it differently,' says Vicente. 'You play with the pressure of knowing that 10 teams are watching you and you want to be at your best.' In those weeks of December 2023, various Spanish media outlets were talking about Vicente as the great discovery of the season, creating a phenomenon unbefitting of a second division player. Advertisement Among the teams that sounded out his situation were Valencia and Celta Vigo, but he went for the more unheralded Alaves. Why? 'Luis Garcia (the Alaves coach at the time) called me, as did Sergio (Fernandez, the sporting director),' Vicente says. 'Players are always looking for that feeling of being told that the club, more than wanting you, needs you. They trusted me.' Vicente's boom continued with his debut on La Liga's fantasy gaming app, where he was coveted. At the beginning of September, his market value in the app shot up to €50million (42.8m/$57m) — although his market value in reality is €8m, according to the website. 'There were days when 200 people would write to me on Instagram. There can be a point where it stings because they tell you something (about how they've rated your game). It's clear that good players are going to score and give assists and it's going to be noticed, but football is much more than that.' 𝑷𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒔 𝒅𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂 𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒓 𝒆𝒍 𝒈𝒐𝒍 𝒅𝒆 @carlosvcnt_ … 𝑨𝒍 𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓 𝒆𝒍 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔 300 𝒅𝒆 𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒂 🔥#GironaAlavés | #GoazenGlorioso ⚪️🔵 — Deportivo Alavés (@Alaves) April 8, 2025 The Alaves forward has played 50 games in La Liga now and is enjoying discovering the talent of many players up close. '(Atletico Madrid winger) Griezmann knows where his team-mates are at all times, he doesn't need to watch the game. 'Another is Mikel Merino (who played at Real Sociedad last season and is now with Arsenal), who I think everyone knows is good, but technically he is much better than you might think. He simply doesn't miss, he is a physical beast and has a great goalscoring ability. He is a complete player. 'And then Isco at Real Betis, who everyone knows, but has different things. Advertisement 'The one who has impressed me the most is (Barcelona teenager) Lamine Yamal. He started at 16 and it seems crazy to me that such a young person is able to manage all that.' Vicente and his team-mates experienced Yamal in full flight when he dribbled past five of them. 'It's like he's floating down the pitch,' Vicente says. 'Sometimes you don't know what it is, he must have a special kind of intelligence. Players like that have to have a mentality that you don't care about anything, that you play, you take the ball and all other thoughts slip a little bit, but you go into a state of consciousness that you don't think, you just execute.' Accustomed to fourth-tier pitches and the slower defenders in those lower divisions, Vicente is aware of the general change in level, but especially two key issues: 'I have noticed above all the pace of play, which goes hand in hand with the physical condition of the players. There is not a single bad player. The other thing is that people don't miss. On a technical level, you don't have the option of missing a control or a pass because you lose the ball.' Vicente is no more than 5ft 9in (179cm) tall, but standing with him, you realise he takes up a lot of space. His muscles stand out under his short-sleeved shirt and his rugby past is evident. 'I'm a physical player with stamina. I have the ability to generate things with a dribble, but I'm disciplined for my team, too. I've always been a winger and I've played as an attacker. But thanks to my physical ability, I can hold up well in a wide position. I think I can adapt as a full-back, too. The style of play I have now is not the one I had when I was younger, when I looked at Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale. 'I watch Premier League games and I'm a profile that is seen and liked there. It tends to be a much more physical competition than here. Now we have a big challenge with Alaves, but it is clear that the Premier League is one of the best leagues in the world, it is very attractive.' Because of the way they understand sport, first David and then his brother got hooked on the NFL — they are fans of the Houston Texans. 'It's a sport where the millisecond matters a lot and where you see the weirdest stats. I really like how they prepare and the show they put on,' says Vicente. 'They're getting to that point (in football) in Europe, where everything is more of a show. Advertisement 'But there has to be a point where we are considered people. We are workers, just like everybody else. We have legs, we have health and sport is very demanding. Elite football is very demanding, but anything that makes people enjoy it more and is more of a spectacle. 'In the NBA, they are playing every other day (teams have an 82-game regular season); in the NFL, they are playing more and more games (once 10 games long, there is now talk of each team having an 18-game regular season) and with a tremendous risk, so it's important to find a balance between the two things.' The two brothers share a devotion to all things American and last year they travelled to New York, where they went to watch a baseball game at iconic Yankee Stadium. Vicente is keeping himself busy away from sport, too. He is finishing a degree in business administration and law at the University of San Jorge (Zaragoza) in preparation for life after football. 'To me, it has always seemed like something basic, not only as a plan B for the future, but to give me the tools to manage problems in the future,' says Vicente. Plan A is going pretty well.
USA Today
27-01-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Carlos Vicente vs. RC Celta de Vigo – Player props & odds to score a goal on January 27
Carlos Vicente vs. RC Celta de Vigo – Player props & odds to score a goal on January 27 [gambcom-standard rankid="4130" ] For the upcoming match between Deportivo Alaves and RC Celta de Vigo, at 3:00 PM ET on Monday, January 27, is Carlos Vicente a good bet to score a goal? We offer anytime goalscorer odds below, along with the current stats and trends you should know. Deportivo Alaves earned a win on January 18 against Real Betis with the final score 3-1. The victorious Deportivo Alaves took five more shots in the game, 11 to six. Keep up with LaLiga action this season on Fubo! Carlos Vicente's Odds to Score a Goal vs. RC Celta de Vigo Odds to score a goal next game: +340 Soccer player prop odds courtesy of BetMGM Sportsbook. Odds updated Monday at 12:39 AM ET. For a full list of sports betting odds, access USA TODAY Sports Betting Scores Odds Hub. [gambcom-standard rankid="4142" ] Carlos Vicente's 2024-25 Stats This season, he has found the back of the net in three of the 20 matches he has appeared in. In terms of expected goals, Vicente (0.8 xG) is 2.2 lower than his actual goal tally (three). In terms of assists, he has picked up at least one in three of 20 games this season. So far in the 2024-25 season, he has taken 18 shots (0.9 per match), with seven being on target. Deportivo Alaves vs. RC Celta de Vigo Scoring Insights With 24 goals in 20 games, Deportivo Alaves is 11th in LaLiga. On the other side, Celta de Vigo has conceded 32 goals in 20 matches, 14th in the league. With 29 goals in 20 matches, Celta de Vigo is sixth in LaLiga. On the flip side, Deportivo Alaves has conceded 32 goals in 20 matches, 14th in the league. With 24 goals scored and 32 allowed, Deportivo Alaves is 15th in LaLiga in goal differential. In terms of goal differential, Celta de Vigo is 10th in LaLiga at -3. Deportivo Alaves vs. RC Celta de Vigo Match Info Matchup: Deportivo Alaves vs. Celta de Vigo Deportivo Alaves vs. Celta de Vigo Time: 3:00 PM ET 3:00 PM ET Date: January 27, 2025 January 27, 2025 Venue: Estadio de Mendizorroza More Player Props: [gambcom-standard rankid="4338" ]
