Real Madrid opens the third Liga F Moeve jornada on Friday night in Riazor, visiting Deportivo Abanca at 20.45 hours with a quick chance to put its first dropped points of the season behind it. The team arrives after a 0-0 draw with Eibar, and this match is the first test of whether it can reset immediately.
The timing matters because the round begins with Real Madrid before the rest of the weekend’s marquee games, including Barcelona-Atlético de Madrid on Saturday at 19.00 hours. For Real Madrid, the question is more immediate: how does it generate enough threat without Felicia Schröder, who is suspended for two matches after the action on Rosa Otermín in the first-round Madrid derby?
Linda Caicedo is the player most likely to carry that burden again. She wore the captain’s armband in the last match and is expected to take on much of the attacking responsibility once more, which gives Real Madrid a familiar shape at the very moment it needs a sharper edge. Deportivo Abanca is not arriving empty-handed either after its own 0-0 draw at Costa Adeje Tenerife, so both sides come in with clean sheets but limited momentum.
That makes Friday’s match more than a routine opening fixture. Real Madrid femenino entered the competition in 2020 and has spent much of its early life trying to narrow the gap to Barcelona, which has won the last seven league titles after Atlético de Madrid dominated the years before that. But the table does not wait for reputation, and a second straight draw would leave Real Madrid chasing from the opening stretch instead of setting the pace.
What happens next is simple enough to say and harder to do: Real Madrid must find goals without its suspended star, and Caicedo will almost certainly be central to that answer in Riazor. If it cannot turn that responsibility into points on Friday, the pressure around the team will only grow before the round’s biggest fixture even kicks off.
