Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane celebrates with his players after Marco Asensio scores against Sevilla in the Copa del Rey on Thursday night. Angel Fernandez / AP Photo
Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane celebrates with his players after Marco Asensio scores against Sevilla in the Copa del Rey on Thursday night. Angel Fernandez / AP Photo

Real Madrid’s unbeaten run not important, ‘the treble is the goal everyone wants’ — Zidane



Zinedine Zidane has played down Real Madrid’s 40-match unbeaten run by saying trophies are more important records.

Madrid advanced to the Copa del Rey quarter-finals on Thursday night with a 6-3 aggregate win over Sevilla. Trailing 3-1 on the night with seven minutes remaining, Madrid secured a 3-3 draw to ensure a new Spanish club record for most matches without defeat.

However, the only targets Madrid have set themselves involve trophies, Zidane insisted.

“The treble (Primera Liga, Uefa Champions League and Copa del Rey) is the goal that everyone wants,” he said. “But this is far off and that is only achieved day after day.”

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This season, Madrid have won the Uefa Super Cup and the Club World Cup. They top the Primera Liga table and in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Madrid will take on Sevilla again on Sunday at the Sanchez-Pizjuan stadium in the Primera Liga, and captain Sergio Ramos believes the fighting spirit displayed in salvaging a draw on Thursday bodes well for the next fixture against the same opponents.

“Being at Real Madrid, you’re forced to fight until the end and despite the fact we looked to be going through, the team reacted well and earned the draw,” Ramos said.

“We can improve on certain things but we didn’t lose and we continue on our unbeaten run.”

It has taken 30 wins and 10 draws for Zidane’s side to break the Spanish record Barcelona set in the 2015/16 campaign.

“It’s no mean feat, that’s a lot of games unbeaten,” Madrid defender Nacho Fernandez said. “The bond this team has is really strong. These runs are positive if they lead to winning titles at the end of the season.”

Ahead of Sunday’s clash Madrid are four points clear of Sevilla at the top of the standings and have a game in hand.

* Reuters

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The Freedom Artist

By Ben Okri (Head of Zeus)

The struggle is on for active managers

David Einhorn closed out 2018 with his biggest annual loss ever for the 22-year-old Greenlight Capital.

The firm’s main hedge fund fell 9 per cent in December, extending this year’s decline to 34 percent, according to an investor update viewed by Bloomberg.

Greenlight posted some of the industry’s best returns in its early years, but has stumbled since losing more than 20 per cent in 2015.

Other value-investing managers have also struggled, as a decade of historically low interest rates and the rise of passive investing and quant trading pushed growth stocks past their inexpensive brethren. Three Bays Capital and SPO Partners & Co., which sought to make wagers on undervalued stocks, closed in 2018. Mr Einhorn has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the poor performance this year, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to value investing.

Greenlight, which posted gains only in May and October, underperformed both the broader market and its peers in 2018. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.4 per cent, including dividends, while the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, an early indicator of industry performance, fell 7 per cent through December. 28.

At the start of the year, Greenlight managed $6.3 billion in assets, according to a regulatory filing. By May, the firm was down to $5.5bn. 

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