"Visma tried to wear out Tadej Pogacar, but they ended up wearing themselves out” - Matxin rubs salt in the wounds of Vingegaard and co

In 2025, the Maillot Jaune at the Tour de France once again came down to a fight between Tadej Pogacar and UAE Team Emirates - XRG, against Jonas Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike. After UAE proved victorious, team boss Joxean Matxin has now rubbed salt in the wounds of his defeated rivals.

Over the course of the first week, Visma were relentless in their pressuring at the front of the peloton, attempting to keep the pace high in order to hopefully weaken Pogacar ahead of the mountains. Sadly for Vingegaard and his teammates however, that is not how things transpired in reality, as Pogacar not only kept attentive to all the easy pressuring of Visma, but also then proved himself the strongest in the mountains to win a fourth Maillot Jaune in his already illustrious career.

“In my personal opinion, Visma came with the idea of trying to wear out Tadej with endless attacks. And in the end, they ended up only wearing themselves out,” Matxin analyses the Visma tactics in conversation with Velo post-2025 Tour de France. “They attacked us so much they wore themselves out.”

In contrast to Visma, the UAE maintained a more defensive shape for the most part. “We were almost predictable in how we raced this Tour because we only attacked at the right moment,” explains Matxin. “And it also helps the tactics when you have the best cyclist in the world.”

And that more defensive strategy is all relative too. Alongside the Yellow Jersey, UAE also took home the polka-dot jersey and a total of five stage wins, four through Pogacar and one for Tim Wellens. “The main goal was always the yellow jersey,” Matxin reflects. “After four victories, it wasn’t so important to win one stage more – don’t enter into the battle of the breakaways, don’t worry about statistics, just focus on the yellow jersey. Sometimes that’s not the most exciting way to race, but it’s the most coherent.”

“We always tried to maintain the calm, and keep our eye on when it was the right moment to push, the right moment to attack, and when it was the right moment to control,” he adds. “For the most important thing was the ‘timing,’ and to pick the right moments to make the race. I believe we did that in this Tour.”

The most concerning thing for UAE's rivals though, is that they don't feel Pogacar was at his very best at the Tour in 2025. “I believe Tadej can still get better. Last year, we believed he had a margin to improve. With the nutrition, with the position, doing things under a controlled environment, we can see these improvements,” Matxín says. “These small improvements can still add up, but we are seeing now Tadej at his best.”

He knows though, Pogacar isn't the only one who can improve. “Not just Vingegaard, but the entire peloton. Everyone talks about the record on Mont Ventoux, but four riders broke the record on Ventoux. The bikes, the nutrition, the training, the recovery — everything has improved. Every team and every rider has gotten better over the years,” Matxin concludes. “That’s cycling. We’ve all passed through moments when someone else is winning everything and you’re fighting for crumbs. Cycling is like the climbs, sometimes things go easy downhill, other times everything is steep and difficult. Now we have the luck to enjoy a rider like Tadej Pogacar, who is the best rider in the world.”