Real Madrid crashed to a humiliating Copa del Rey exit on Wednesday when they were knocked out by little Leganes in the quarter-finals with under-fire coach Zinedine Zidane taking the blame. It’s a failure for me,” said Zidane who recently penned a contract extension until 2020. Leganes have a budget of just 45 million euros — six times less than the 675 million euros commanded by mighty Real. In the night’s other game, Valencia made the semi-finals but needed a 3-2 penalty shoot-out to defeat Alaves who won 2-1 for a 3-3 aggregate. Meanwhile, Brazilian playmaker Philippe Coutinho has been named in the Barcelona squad for Thursday’s Copa del Rey clash against Espanyol, his first call-up since his 160 million euros ($194 million, £142 million) move from Liverpool.

Source: Punch January 24, 2018 23:37 UTC