“It’s life or death”

Imanol Alguacil gives all importance to tomorrow’s match against Osasuna: “We both know it’s life and death.” He expects a “very different” match from a month and a half ago in the League (1-1), among other things because “none of us arrived the same way.” And La Real, especially after losing the derby on Saturday (2-1), seems to be getting worse, although the realistic coach declared that the team is “fine”: “We never make excuses; we are competing and tomorrow will be the same”.

It was a single-match cup tie that Real had to play away from home; but ImanolFor now, he doesn’t think about going to extra time or penalties: “I just remember that I played extra time in the Super Cup,” he said. “We prepare the game to win in 90 minutes,” he emphasizes.

Don’t trust the statistics

La Real has not lost against Osasuna in its last 16 matches and the statistics of the last 10 duels between Imanol and Jagoba Arrasate are seven wins for the Real coach and three draws: “When the statistics are in favor, they the , but they can change at any time; and vice versa, the same thing,” he added. Imanol. He also noted that his team, with him at the helm, was able to eliminate “bad dynamics” on “some of the cursed fields and against the cursed teams.” He predicts that the cup match will be “as complicated” as the last Liga match in Iruñea, which ended in a draw.

They ran more than Athletic

Imanol does not believe that his team lacks freshness. And he gave information related to the derby: “We ran more than them, more than a top team in that aspect,” he pointed out. And he added: “We are victorious in duels, but in decisive ones, they are.” The problem is that “at some point they will beat us in intensity.” Therefore, he appears to be “very calm at that level” and insists that “we are more than Athletic in physical numbers, but less in intensity.”

The coach from Oriot does not want the defeat in San Mamés to be attributed to something that is not strictly football: “I have never made excuses for fatigue or emotional issues. We have six more games in the Champions League than them. We lost because the rival was better than us in certain moments,” he pointed out.

Mysterious reason

Imanol pointed out other factors that justify this defeat in the derby against the main enemy, such as “the barren that is unbalanced with the ease with which it was unbalanced last month” or that “we didn’t get the things that usually happen to us.” And he is enigmatic with another phrase for reflection: “There are little things that I can’t say. you, that I don’t know. You don’t know them and I won’t tell you about them either. And they count, as they counted when we have been winning,” it means. Among them are the repeated annoyances that keep pulling. Zubimendi. “These are things that you don’t know and sometimes you read without knowing, you don’t have information and I don’t take into account, things that the coach and I keep to ourselves because we can’t give clues,” he concluded.

And in any case, Imanol He came out angry, but with a Bilbao smile, for a certain reason: “You can’t imagine how happy I was after losing the derby, after seeing the players we trained, many of whom were from the reserve team, accompanied by Remiro and Andre Silva. For me it’s passion, it’s pleasure. “That gives me the excitement and desire to continue leading this project and value what the team is doing this season.”