"I’m convinced João Almeida would have made the podium" - Matxin reflects on UAE's biggest disappointment at 2025 Tour de France

The 2025 Tour de France was an undoubted success for UAE Team Emirates - XRG, as team leader Tadej Pogacar romped to a 4th Maillot Jaune of his career. The Grand Tour wasn't completely perfect though, with the crash-enforced abandon of João Almeida being the most notable disappointment.

"I’d rate the Tour a strong 8 or 9 out of 10 in every respect. I wouldn’t quite give it a 10 because of João Almeida’s crash," assesses UAE boss Joxean Matxin honestly in a post-Tour de France conversation with AS. "I’m ambitious — and so is the team — and with good reason."

Almeida's race ended on stage 9, but it was a crash a couple of days earlier that had done the damage to Pogacar's Portuguese lieutenant. "Losing João to a crash was tough, because I’m convinced he would have made the podium, or at least fought for it," Matxin says. "It also had implications for the team classification. That crash, in my view, cost us a podium place and the team standings."

Admittedly, these are small disappointments when a team achieves its main goal of winning the Tour de France, but they are still disappointments. For Almeida meanwhile, he gets a chance to go for glory himself at the upcoming Vuelta a Espana, as he leads the UAE team alongside Juan Ayuso in Pogacar's absence.

As mentioned, Pogacar is settling for just one Grand Tour in 2025. Matxin explains how the three-week races really take it out of a rider like the world champion, and how the time simply isn't right to return to the Vuelta a Espana later this season.

"Everything has its time. Last year, right after the Tour, everyone was saying he had to go to the Vuelta and chase history by winning all three Grand Tours in a single season. Then he won the World Championships, and no one remembered that Vuelta talk anymore," Matxin explains. "After he did a recon of Paris–Roubaix, people started demanding he ride that. Everyone talks about history, but in the same breath, it’s all so fleeting — and often contradictory. That’s why our planning is so thorough."

And despite seemingly having Pogacar to lead the team for at least the foreseeable future, Matxin insists that there will be opportunities for other riders in future. "I don’t want to put pressure on anyone, but I’ll talk about those within our own ranks. Isaac del Toro, Juan Ayuso… young riders with the capacity to take on major roles," he concludes. "Nobody outside Mexico picked Del Toro as a favourite for the Giro, but he showed the engine he has."