"You have UAE chasing UAE" - Bruyneel and Martin on La Farrapona showdown and who will come out on top from Vingegaard and Almeida

Stage 14 of the Vuelta a Espana was an interesting one, with a virtual GC stalemate at the summit of the brutal climbs to San Lorenzo and La Farrapona, and with Marc Soler winning the stage after his own team chased throughout many kilometers to try and attack Jonas Vingegaard - which ultimately did not happen.

"So we have a strange situation where UAE is pulling and then now Marc Soler after doing the 'oh guys, I'm not that strong, I'm getting dropped from this breakaway' is now off the front by himself. He's actually the strongest of the breakaway, surprise," Spencer Martin said in The Move podcast. "But so you have UAE chasing UAE, but it's kind of complicated because it's a headwind. So it's not obvious that Almeida can even attack. It's not even obvious that it's worth it for Soler to drop back".

The Spaniard won the stage from the breakaway, putting in his strongest performance thus far in this race, however something that over the past few days he hasn't done in support of the team. Bruyneel can't neglect the impressive seventh stage victory in 14 stages however: "So 50% of those stages so far in the Vuelta have been won by a UAE rider, which is quite impressive. And to me today, I mean, I think the performance of Marc Soler was quite impressive. This is a guy that when he's in the break and he gets the green light, he is really strong".

"And today he was super strong. He didn't lose that much time today in the final until Red Bull - Bora started to pull. But yeah, it seems like everything seems to work for UAE, you know, because I am 100% sure that this was not part of the plan today. At least not going with Soler for the stage win that it was decided on the go once they saw that he was in the break. And so things that they don't even try seem to work for them. We can say, you know, we can criticize them all day long, right? At the end of the day, today, they got their 80th win of the season".

Behind, UAE put all of their remaining riders in the head of the peloton to pile on the pressure on Visma, eventually making it a very hard race heading into La Farrapona, but one that then stabilized, much due to the strong wind that made it hard for attacks to be successful.  

"I have to say today, I liked what I saw from UAE. They looked solid," Bruyneel argued. "You can say, well, you know, why is Marc Soler in the break when he's not been on domestic duty in other stages? But they didn't need him today. I think another thing that I really remarked was that finally, Juan Ayuso rose up to the level that we expect him to be in terms of a teammate".

"He did a really good job on that second last climb. And that's what we should see from him, you know, more often. So obviously, I think no matter what we have said, Spencer, and no matter what we have speculated, I cannot imagine that the atmosphere in team UAE is not unbelievable in the hotel, in the bus, and at the dinner table".

However on social media, despite the team's extreme success, criticism continue to fall over the team's freedom towards its climbers instead of dedicating them to peloton work for Almeida. "I haven't heard any criticism about, you know, like internal criticism in the group or in the peloton that Mark Soler is a selfish rider. He's a strange rider. Sometimes he does things that we don't understand. That's different than, but if he's asked to do a job, the guy does the job really, really well".

However with another mountain stage down, the 48 seconds that João Almeida has to get back on the Dane become more difficult to close, specially when on paper these were the two hardest stages of the race, where on paper differences on the climbs could be made.

"I don't know if they'll be able to put any time into each other for the rest of the race until we get to the time trial, because we basically have copy and pasted versions of the same stage over and over again," Martin argued.

Vingegaard may be finishing yet another Grand Tour at the top or second, something he has done in every single Grand Tour he's started since the 2021 season. "That's super impressive. That's unbelievable. Like there's only one other rider in the sport with that type of grand tour consistency and it's Tadej Pogacar. Do you know Pogacar's worst ever finish in a grand tour? Third, third place, never finished off the podium".