Preparing for a difficult confrontation against Sociedad without new names
Real Madrid launches the new season hosted by the «Basque»
Luka Modric in the Real Madrid team training yesterday.
■ from the source
The Real Madrid team begins the Spanish Football League title defense campaign next Sunday in the Basque Country, when it visits Real Sociedad in the second round of the Spanish League.
Al-Riyal is preparing for its first match in the new season without any new names, and with the same names that it played with last season.
And he will be reinforced by the return of the Norwegian Martin Odegaard, who spent the last season on loan at Sociedad.
Sociedad will benefit from the return of Spanish star David Silva, who missed his team’s opening match against Valladolid, which ended in a 1/1 draw, due to his presence in quarantine, after medical tests confirmed that he was infected with the new Corona virus.
Odegaard is looking forward to present himself well to coach Zinedine Zidane, and the possibility of him playing in more than one position means that the coach will be able to push him in the midfield or in one of the centers on the offensive line.
There are doubts about Eden Hazard's participation in the match, especially as he did not participate in the friendly match against Getafe.
He was absent from the team for most of last season, after joining Real from Chelsea last summer.
There are other doubts about the participation of Isco and Marco Asensio, which means that Odegaard has a logical chance to start the match at the Anoeta stadium, in which he starred last season.
On the other hand, and within the league matches, Unai Emery hopes to record his first victory as coach of Villarreal, when his team hosts Eibar tomorrow.
The team drew 1/1 against Huesca in the first round, thanks to the goal scored by Gerard Moreno from the penalty spot.
And Francis Cukulin, who joined the team recently, was out injured, and although the tests showed that the player does not suffer a serious knee injury, he will miss the match.
Barcelona, last season's summer runners-up, will have to wait a new week before playing its first league match, as its match with Athletic Bilbao was postponed due to European links from last season, which ended last August.
Barcelona, under new coach Ronald Koeman, will not start their league matches before September 27 when they host Villarreal at the Camp Nou.
The matches against Sevilla, the European champions, against Elche and Atletico against Levante were also postponed for the same reason.
In the rest of the matches of this round, Getafe will meet Osasuna, Celta Vigo with Valencia, Huesca with Cadiz, Granada with Alaves, and Real Betis with Valladolid.
Barcelona will not enter the second round due to the comfort they got from participating in the former European Champions.
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