Jose Luis Mendilibar believes Eibar have ‘a proper footballer’ on their hands in Barcelona loanee Marc Cucurella after he starred against Real Madrid.
Cucurella was starting only his third Liga game for Eibar on Saturday but had a role to play in all three of their goals in a 3-0 victory, and the Basques have an option to buy the young left-sider from Barca next summer.
“I saw a good team take to the field,” Mendilibar said after the match.
“We played our game from the start and didn’t slow down for 90 minutes. My players were all over Madrid’s.
“We made more and more chances. It’s not easy or normal, but the result’s there for everyone to see. We were better than them in every way.
“We won through the work we did. We didn’t drop off and we could’ve scored more goals. From the offset, we created chances and played our game.
“They can score against you at any time but when we scored our third goal, we calmed down a bit. Our attitude was key.
“This result will help us keep doing what we’re doing. Certainly this was our best performance of my tenure, given who we were facing and what we did.
“It was a complete performance. We’ll have played better against other sides, but against Madrid it’s different.
“Marc [Cucurella] is the new kid in the class. He hadn’t played much until now and he did well here.
“He plays more than just a left-back. He’s smart, strong and a proper footballer. He almost always makes the right decision. He’s special and he had a great game.
“Even in a wheelchair, [Ivan] Ramis is still the best centre-back we have. Even if he doesn’t run much, he gives us a lot.”
