After defeating Athletic Bilbao away, Real Madrid returned to Madrid overnight.
On the way back, the team also received the latest La Liga results. The most shocking was Barcelona's 4–1 away humiliation at the hands of Celta Vigo. It was undoubtedly a major upset.
Thus, after arriving at Valdebebas, Zidane and Yang Yang summoned the coaching staff to stay behind for a meeting and watch the footage of this huge upset together. They had only watched sixty minutes, with Barcelona trailing 3–0, before everyone felt there was no need to continue.
"This was a crushing defeat. A complete and utter defeat." Zidane summarized grimly.
Real Madrid should naturally have been happy to see Barcelona lose, but no one could bring themselves to celebrate. No one knew when Real Madrid might suddenly suffer a defeat like Barcelona's. That was impossible to predict; all they could do was try their best to avoid it.
They also needed to analyze why Barcelona had suffered such a crushing defeat.
"Balaídos Stadium has always been an away ground Barcelona greatly feared." Yang Yang took over from Zidane, searching his memory for past data. "If I remember correctly, last season Barcelona narrowly won here through Mathieu's goal, but they lost 1–0 to Celta Vigo at home."
As soon as Yang Yang finished, David Bettoni continued, "That's right. In last season's match at Camp Nou, Celta Vigo's goal also came from an assist by Nolito. Then, after Pedro left for Chelsea this summer, Barcelona tried to sign Nolito for a while. Louis Enrique admired him greatly and wanted to activate the €18 million release clause in Nolito's contract, but the matter eventually fell through for various reasons."
The reason Barcelona had suffered such a crushing defeat in this match was precisely Nolito.
In the twenty-sixth minute of