Real Madrid

Alberto Toril´s Castilla obtained a hard-fought draw against Alcorcón in their fifth match of the preseason. The filial lived out a drill ( quite a realistic one) of what they are going to find in the Second Division this season. The white shirts left nobody under any doubt that this year they are going to be one of the teams to be reckoned with and proved that they know how to suffer and that they will fight to the end in each match. The draw means that the filial will continue unbeaten in the preseason, but above all will be a confidence-booster for the kick-off of the new season which begins in under ten days.

It represented one of the toughest tests of the preseason for Castilla, which came up against nothing less than the star lineup of the last Adelante League, the same team that ended up only a single goal away from promotion to First Division. And the contest did not let the supporters down, not even Zinedine Zidane, who watched the game from the stands. The junior players went about the game as if no such thing as the preseason existed and got out on the pitch with determination and confidence to take control of the game. As a matter of fact, they managed to take charge during the first 45 minutes.

The white shirts went from strength to strength and indeed had very clear opportunities to take over and prove their superiority on the scoreboard. The Madrid representatives repeated along the left flank with Denis and Casado, but the first to get Di Stefano up was Raúl Tomás at minute 30 .The forward drew the goalkeeper out and took a smooth shot which was not finished off by Oscar Plano, waiting behind. Castilla showed itself to be more and more at home on the pitch, whereas Alcorcón was barely able to present a threat to Pacheco´s goal. In the light of this, nobody expected that just then the visitors would be the first on the scoreboard. They managed it in the fortieth minute when Oriol Riera scored from the goal area, finishing off a failed shot from Nieto who had made a high-energy shot against the cross-bar.

In the second half, Alcorcón showed its experience and knew how to pace themselves without endangering the 0-1. That was the situation until the seventieth minute when Castilla took revenge in the form of Denis, Juanfran and Cristian, who played with great geometry, but could not turn it into results. Alcorcón also had their opportunities, but time was running out for the whiteshirts and they were not going to admit defeat until the final moment. Quini tried from the right at the first charge, Juanfran with a very strong shot that went wide and Mosquera with a penalty shot.

But eventually justice was done with the penalty from Josema.It was Quini who led off, but attention must be drawn to the great work by Denis, who reinitiated play from the left flank.Mosquera took on the job of transforming the maximum penalty and giving Castilla the result it deserved. The whiteshirts will play their last friendly this Saturday against Recreativo de Huelva, so the match will be another Second Division duel although they are still in the preseason.