Real Madrid came back from being down 2-0 to draw Arsenal in International Champions Cup action tonight in Landover, Maryland. Now because this is the ICC, and there will be winner crowned once this thing is all over, there must be a winner and loser in every single match, and on Tuesday night it was Madrid who achieved victory, via a penalty kick shootout.
That said, here are some of the news and notes items emerging from what was certainly the most compelling of the friendlies that were staged today.
The top storyline heading into this match is obviously the Gareth Bale situation, as the Welshman wants to leave and Real boss Zinedine Zidane has been refreshingly candid and straight-forward during media opportunities about the team’s plans to grant him his wish.
Before the match, Zidane clarified his remarks, and made sure that nothing got lost in translation. During the match, Bale came on at halftime for Eden Hazard and scored in the 57′ to commence the comeback.
Do we see a case of seller’s remorse coming on the horizon?
WHO ELSE BUT GARETH BALE pic.twitter.com/zaIDYeVMYR
— ESPN (@espn) July 24, 2019
Speaking of Hazard, he wore the #50 shirt again and started, as did fellow new arrivals Ferland Mendy and Luka Jovic. This was obviously the first time he took on Arsenal, a chief rival of his former club, in a Madrid shirt.
It’s just a friendly, but the 10 on 10 aspect of this clash was interesting
Real was down a man just 10 minutes in when Nacho Fernandez committed a hand ball on the goal line, setting up a PK conversion from Arsenal striker Alexandre Lacazette.
Arsenal made it even steven again in the 40th minute when defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos picked up his second booking of the contest.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Marco Asensio provided the other two goals scored in this game, with the latter getting seriously injured. Just minutes after equalizing for the La Liga giants, Asensio had to be stretchered off.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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