{"id":12085,"date":"2026-03-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/the-chalkboard-malaga-lives-and-dies-in-the-boxes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:00:00","slug":"the-chalkboard-malaga-lives-and-dies-in-the-boxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/the-chalkboard-malaga-lives-and-dies-in-the-boxes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chalkboard | Malaga Lives and Dies in the Boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Chalkboard is Antonio Merchan&#8217;s opinion segment on Merchan en Directo.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s an uncomfortable truth that has been hanging over La Rosaleda for weeks and that no one at the club seems willing to say out loud: <strong>Malaga CF wins and loses matches in the two boxes<\/strong>. Not in midfield. Not in the press. In the boxes. That simple and that brutal.    <\/p>\n<p>When the team is able to take advantage of the chances it creates, Malaga is a different side, capable of beating anyone in the division. But when it fails in finishing or gives away goals through avoidable defensive errors, the blue and whites look like a team from another league. <\/p>\n<p>Pellicer knows it. The players know it. The fans have been suffering through it all season. The problem isn&#8217;t the system, or the budget, or even the external noise surrounding the club. The problem is concentration and precision in the final meters.    <\/p>\n<p>And that isn&#8217;t solved with press conferences or statements. It&#8217;s solved by training, believing and, above all, having the courage to look at the opposition goal without hesitation. Malaga has the tools. What it sometimes lacks is conviction.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The blue and whites have the tools, but their mistakes in both boxes remain their biggest Achilles heel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merchan.holaincompany.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}