Real reacts but King's Cup shocks still in store

The round of 16 is usually where the major contenders for the regimented parade of varying ambition that is soccer's King's Cup step forward, now that the serious stuff has begun. This year that may also be the case, but there is something different given the fact that four lower-league teams have made it this far, beating first-division opposition in the previous round, the first time that the elite clubs actually deign to enter the fray.

Then there is the real possibility that Mirandés, a Segunda B team from the Castilian town of Miranda de Ebro, will make it to the last eight, while Albacete, from the same league, is not out of it yet, and nor is Alcorcón, the Madrid suburb Segunda División side that famously dumped Real Madrid out of the competition two seasons back.

Not that the King's Cup is typically a cakewalk for the country's two top teams, who unusually faced off in last year's final when José Mourinho's Real recorded its only victory over Barcelona during the Portuguese coach's reign. The alcorconazo of 2009 was an illustration of the motivation problems that coaches such as, on that occasion, Manuel Pellegrini, at Real Madrid and Barça traditionally face. Barcelona's 2009 win in Pep Guardiola's first season in charge was the club's only triumph in Spanish soccer's national knockout competition this century.

Curiously, it was the Pellegrini-coached Málaga that almost pulled off a shock in this week's cup action, taking a 0-2 lead into the locker room as fans at Real Madrid's Bernabéu stadium suffered a bout of collective post-Christmas indigestion. Both goals came from corners taken by Santi Cazorla from the same left side, leading a furious Mourinho to make all of his three substitutions at half time, replacing Kaká, Álvaro Arbeloa and José María Callejón with Mesut Özil, Sami Khedira and Karim Benzema.

"I told my players at half time that it was a pity I couldn't make 11 substitutions," Mourinho commented later, after seeing his team react in a furious second half to take a 3-2 advantage to Málaga next week. The coach - who claimed that the three who were replaced were not being singled out in any way, but were merely unfortunate tactical pawns in his rearguard play - said ironically of the mid-season break that "some players saw it as a rest period, and others as a time to travel, eat and drink, so they arrive back a little altered."

Khedira and Benzema both scored in the comeback effort, while Özil looked his lively self again, so the Portuguese may have come through a night when his fragile temper was sorely tested with a new feather in his master tactician's cap.

Guardiola, though, still dons the biggest figurative headgear in La Liga, and his Barça line-up against visitor Osasuna made as bright a start to the new year as the shine it left on the old, when the Spanish and European champion waltzed to a world club crown. Leo Messi may have only played the final half-hour due to an illness, but it was long enough for the insatiable Argentinean to score the third and fourth goals in a win whose foundations were laid with the excellent work of Xavi and two strikes from Cesc Fàbregas in the opening stages. Job done, it would seem, but the much-billed quarterfinal against Real remains in doubt.

Elsewhere, Real Sociedad was the only other top-division team to make a smooth start ahead of Thursday night's games (Córdoba-Espanyol; Valencia-Sevilla), beating Mallorca 2-0. Mirandés will fancy its chances of consummating an upset when taking its 2-0 home win up the road to Santander, while Albacete at least prevented Athletic Bilbao from scoring an away goal in their 0-0 tie. If the third-tier outfit could grab one at San Mamés, it has a chance of a second genuine giant-killing after dispatching Atlético Madrid in the previous round. Finally, Alcorcón beat visiting Levante 2-1, giving the smaller club a sporting chance in the return leg by the Mediterranean coast.