With almost no warning, the stadium Alfred
Gave
Stefano It has become one of the 20 First Division fiefs in this return to competition and nothing more and nothing less than hosting Real Madrid matches at home. Eibar will be its first visitor this Sunday. The gunsmiths may seem to be playing on a field similar to their beloved Ipurua, due to the size of a miniature enclosure, but they cannot entertain themselves by letting their imaginations fly too far: they need to score to avoid burning.
That Real Madrid is the host in a stadium capable of hosting a thousand spectators is a fact that is unprecedented in the First Division. Eibar will look for the feat in another Ipurua. The people from Gipuzkoa have only won Real Madrid once in their history, last season in Ipurua (3-0). The maximum harvest in white territory is limited to the draw of the 2016/2017 campaign at the Bernabéu, thanks to a goal from Fran
rich that became historical for gunsmiths.
The rest of the 11 games that have faced the Catalans with Real Madrid have resulted in victory for the Whites. Both in Eibar and in the Paseo de la Castellana. The fact that Real Madrid moves to its sports city on the occasion of these last 11 days of the League can raise the level of aspirations that Eibar holds on to give the chime.
The points at stake are momentous for either side. Eibar only adds two points more than the relegation zone with a hellish calendar ahead, the same difference that distances Real Madrid from the leadership that Barcelona has in the fight for the title.
Eibar won at Di Stéfano
Eibar already knows what it is to play on the stage of the match. And win. A fact that is also curious. But the armory victory in the Alfred
Gave
Stefano It has a trick. Or at least, explanation.
And it was that he did it during the 2013/2014 season, specifically on April 19, 2014, when the Barça team played in the Second Division and shared the category with the Merengue subsidiary, Castilla. They both finished that course in a very different way. Some descending, the whites, and the gunsmiths achieving a historical ascent to First.
Eibar's victory was by the minimum (0-1). With a goal from the now Athletic player, Ander
Cap, and with players in their ranks like Raul
Navas or the current Levante flagship, José
Luis
Morales, Commander'.
That season the Catalans swept the silver category and, in fact, in the first round match against Castilla in Ipurua they already endorsed a blank set (6-0).