Cañizares tears into Real Madrid's Copa del Rey nightmare

Former Real Madrid goalkeeper Santiago Cañizares has pulled no punches after Los Blancos’ embarrassing Copa del Rey exit, calling it an “absolute failure” while taking a swipe at Álvaro Arbeloa’s reluctance to admit the obvious.

”Esperpento” - The grotesque failure

Cañizares, who had two spells at the Bernabéu between 1988-1992 and 1994-1998, didn’t mince his words on COPE’s ‘El Partidazo’ program following Madrid’s shock 3-2 defeat to second-tier Albacete.

“Although Arbeloa doesn’t want to name it, it’s an absolute failure that Real Madrid got eliminated,” said the former Spain international, clearly frustrated with the interim coach’s post-match comments.

What really got Cañizares’s goat was Arbeloa dancing around the F-word in his press conference. While the coach acknowledged that “whoever wants to call it a failure, I understand,” he refused to use the term himself, instead suggesting that failure is merely part of the journey to success.

Arbeloa’s excuses ring hollow

Arbeloa’s post-match comments were a proper dog’s dinner of contradictions:

He claimed he was “convinced the squad selection was adequate” and would “do the same again”
He insisted his players “wanted to win” and “made an effort”
He bizarrely praised Vinícius Jr for “not hiding” despite a poor performance

Cañizares wasn’t having any of it, calling the entire week’s management an “esperpento” - a grotesque absurdity.

The harsh reality

For a club of Real Madrid’s stature, this cup exit to a Segunda División side is nothing short of disastrous. As Arbeloa himself admitted: “In this club, even a draw is a tragedy, imagine a defeat like this.”

The interim coach’s attempts to find silver linings - talking about improvement opportunities and praising effort - won’t wash with the Madrid faithful, who expect nothing less than trophies from their team.

As Cañizares bluntly put it: “When you do things badly, it’s very likely things will turn out badly.” No argument there, mate.