SPANISH FOOTBALL
Julen Lopetegui, the fall guy for wider malaise at Real Madrid
The coach is on the brink after the loss to Levante, but fans blame club president Florentino Perez
Madrid - Amid the sprawl of headlines calling for Julen Lopetegui to be sacked by Real Madrid on Sunday, Spanish daily sports newspaper Diario AS ran an online poll: who is more guilty, the coach or the club president? Just more than 80,000 replies were credited — almost 17,000 more than had attended the Santiago Bernabeu the day before — and 86% of them answered Florentino Perez. There were whistles after Madrid’s 2-1 loss to Levante on Saturday, their fourth defeat in five games and third in a row. There was a scattering of swinging white handkerchiefs too. But the atmosphere was marked more by deflation than disgust. At the end, as his players hunched on their knees, Lopetegui stood on the touchline, staring into space. "Julen has the support of the entire team," Sergio Ramos said. "We are with him to the death," Marcelo said. Lopetegui is on the brink — he may well not make the Clasico on Sunday — but there is a sense this "mega crisis", as termed by Barcelona’s Mundo Deportivo,...
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