real, despite their huge stars and multitalented players, are in grave need of some player transfers and renewal.
The central defenders are horrible, at least for the level of play real is aiming at. Raul Bravo is forced from the left wing to the middle of the defence and of course he can't deliver there. You can't keep scoring 3 goals upwards to make up for the wreck that's your defence. Mitchel Salgado is no where near his previous years form, and there are tenths of players better in his position in the world, and a lot too in spain. There's also no real bench depth in defence as well. Carlos is still good, not in his peak, but not the main reason for madrid's defensive problems. They currently have the best offence in the league together with valencia, but they 've also got a double figure in goals accepted compared to valencia (48 to 24) and are currently sitting on the 12th(!!!!) position in the primera in terms of goals scored against them, like alex said, truly pathetic.
Defensive play of course starts from the midfield, and makele's absence this year is more than evident. You can't defend with "defensive midfielders" like gutti (who's actually really a striker) or beckham.
Beckham's a highly overatted player, you can sell tons of his shirts to japs and malaisian kids and have his salary paid thus in a matter of weeks, but this doesn't make up for his bad play. He can't defend, he can't dribble, he can't shoot or score (except from a foul, but again how many of those has he scored this year.), he can't use his left leg, and what he can do, and arguably does it quite well is pass from mid distance, but he's not very imaginative in his passing either. For Christ sake, the world's most expensive transfer this summer, has scored just 3 frigging goals in the primera this season out of his team's 70!!!! Bring back aging overweight alcoholic gascoine instead of this bum.
Raul and Ronaldo, while extraodinarily talented they too are out of form, esp. recently, ronaldo while still something of a phenomenon at times, he seems past his prime, and raul is nowhere near his past years spectacular self. Still, neither of them are as bad as figo or beckham.
Figo for me is another hugely overestimated player, he's got a great dribble, and very good passing and shooting skills, but he's not particularly fast and he is very very self indulgent and verbose in his play, since he left barca he's put on a lot of weight and it's been downhill since then.
Which pretty much leaves us with zidane, who is the closest it comes to a football genius nowadays, and for whom i have no critisim for (how could I) except that for the past few weeks he's been out of form and hence madrid's dreadfull performances and results. But, i mean, the man has been carrying this team on his shoulders almost solely, passing, defending, scoring, offering assists for others, for over a year now, he deserves a few bad performances now and then.
To add insult to injury madrid's preparation this year was really a parody, travelling all over asia for photo ops and friendly games for extra cash to cover their huge budgets (but bear in mind that madrid is THE most profitable team on the GLOBE, and i said team, not soccer team, as in the most profitable sporting entreprise in all sports, all over the world), instead on focusing on some proper training both physical and tactical.
[This message was edited by JackDee on May 08, 2004 at 09:46 PM.]
The central defenders are horrible, at least for the level of play real is aiming at. Raul Bravo is forced from the left wing to the middle of the defence and of course he can't deliver there. You can't keep scoring 3 goals upwards to make up for the wreck that's your defence. Mitchel Salgado is no where near his previous years form, and there are tenths of players better in his position in the world, and a lot too in spain. There's also no real bench depth in defence as well. Carlos is still good, not in his peak, but not the main reason for madrid's defensive problems. They currently have the best offence in the league together with valencia, but they 've also got a double figure in goals accepted compared to valencia (48 to 24) and are currently sitting on the 12th(!!!!) position in the primera in terms of goals scored against them, like alex said, truly pathetic.
Defensive play of course starts from the midfield, and makele's absence this year is more than evident. You can't defend with "defensive midfielders" like gutti (who's actually really a striker) or beckham.
Beckham's a highly overatted player, you can sell tons of his shirts to japs and malaisian kids and have his salary paid thus in a matter of weeks, but this doesn't make up for his bad play. He can't defend, he can't dribble, he can't shoot or score (except from a foul, but again how many of those has he scored this year.), he can't use his left leg, and what he can do, and arguably does it quite well is pass from mid distance, but he's not very imaginative in his passing either. For Christ sake, the world's most expensive transfer this summer, has scored just 3 frigging goals in the primera this season out of his team's 70!!!! Bring back aging overweight alcoholic gascoine instead of this bum.
Raul and Ronaldo, while extraodinarily talented they too are out of form, esp. recently, ronaldo while still something of a phenomenon at times, he seems past his prime, and raul is nowhere near his past years spectacular self. Still, neither of them are as bad as figo or beckham.
Figo for me is another hugely overestimated player, he's got a great dribble, and very good passing and shooting skills, but he's not particularly fast and he is very very self indulgent and verbose in his play, since he left barca he's put on a lot of weight and it's been downhill since then.
Which pretty much leaves us with zidane, who is the closest it comes to a football genius nowadays, and for whom i have no critisim for (how could I) except that for the past few weeks he's been out of form and hence madrid's dreadfull performances and results. But, i mean, the man has been carrying this team on his shoulders almost solely, passing, defending, scoring, offering assists for others, for over a year now, he deserves a few bad performances now and then.
To add insult to injury madrid's preparation this year was really a parody, travelling all over asia for photo ops and friendly games for extra cash to cover their huge budgets (but bear in mind that madrid is THE most profitable team on the GLOBE, and i said team, not soccer team, as in the most profitable sporting entreprise in all sports, all over the world), instead on focusing on some proper training both physical and tactical.
[This message was edited by JackDee on May 08, 2004 at 09:46 PM.]
Nicely put Jack. If I could add one or two things.
As you pointed out correctly Real Madrid has become a brand much more than a football team. I doubt they really bought Beckham for his football skills - it was much more for the publicity. I expect them to make another high profile signing this Summer - possibly Van Nisteroy (been reading rumours), although a forward is probably the last thing Real Madrid truly needs. I'd like to see Thuram in Real Madrid, or who knows Lizarazu.
I have also never been a huge fan of Figo. He dives so much its really pathetic. Out of all the 'galacticos', i'd say he's the weakest - he had a great Euro2000 and that was it!
They do lack a good bench, I read a statistic somewhere that the starting 11 is one of the most consistent in la liga. Injuries really screw them up so Morientes maybe coming back next season is definetly good news.
They will have a busy Summer ahead of them with promotions and a club championship, followed by Euro2004, it will be interesting to see how the team copes in the beginning of the next season.
As you pointed out correctly Real Madrid has become a brand much more than a football team. I doubt they really bought Beckham for his football skills - it was much more for the publicity. I expect them to make another high profile signing this Summer - possibly Van Nisteroy (been reading rumours), although a forward is probably the last thing Real Madrid truly needs. I'd like to see Thuram in Real Madrid, or who knows Lizarazu.
I have also never been a huge fan of Figo. He dives so much its really pathetic. Out of all the 'galacticos', i'd say he's the weakest - he had a great Euro2000 and that was it!
They do lack a good bench, I read a statistic somewhere that the starting 11 is one of the most consistent in la liga. Injuries really screw them up so Morientes maybe coming back next season is definetly good news.
They will have a busy Summer ahead of them with promotions and a club championship, followed by Euro2004, it will be interesting to see how the team copes in the beginning of the next season.
i too am glad for valencia, "the bats" as their nick is, which is the team i favour in spain, i also consider aimar a fanstastic player.
"C'mon guys, what are you talking about ?
Am I the only one who would say that the blame is 95% on Carlos Queiroz ?
Does Valencia have a better man-by-man squad ?"
Well might just have a better man-by-man squad valencia, their defense is arguably the best in the world, with tough, technical and effective defenders ayalla, Aurelio, curro torres, mauricio pellegrino etc. no comparison with madrid's anemic defenders, no roberto carlos either but that doesn't make up for what's lacking in madrid's defence.
In midfield they got a solid player Ruben Baraja, which has no much in madrid's line up, a defensive midfielder with some excellent offensive skills, on par with makelele, but makelele is nowhere to be found this year on the madrid squad, and gutti, beckam or any other so called defensive midfielder they got comes no where near this guy. Winger vicent is one of the best spanish talents to be born in the 80s, and a great player too, and imo better than figo nowadays. Of course no team in the world has got one algerian french by the name of zidane, but my own favourite pablito aimar comes pretty close, and is probably THE succesor to the man. Admittably mista up front comes no where near to competing with ronaldo and raul, but that's just about the only aspect in which valencia is found lacking. And of course like alex said, valencia in vastly better in terms of bench depth.
Queiroz, does take part of the blame, but for me it's minimal, the problem lies with the owners and president who chose pop idol beckham instead of a couple of reliable midfielders, who still keep in the line up out of form ex stars such and figo, and who decided to have a travelling circus of team this summer instead of some proper training camp to prepare. But, that's show biz baby.
"C'mon guys, what are you talking about ?
Am I the only one who would say that the blame is 95% on Carlos Queiroz ?
Does Valencia have a better man-by-man squad ?"
Well might just have a better man-by-man squad valencia, their defense is arguably the best in the world, with tough, technical and effective defenders ayalla, Aurelio, curro torres, mauricio pellegrino etc. no comparison with madrid's anemic defenders, no roberto carlos either but that doesn't make up for what's lacking in madrid's defence.
In midfield they got a solid player Ruben Baraja, which has no much in madrid's line up, a defensive midfielder with some excellent offensive skills, on par with makelele, but makelele is nowhere to be found this year on the madrid squad, and gutti, beckam or any other so called defensive midfielder they got comes no where near this guy. Winger vicent is one of the best spanish talents to be born in the 80s, and a great player too, and imo better than figo nowadays. Of course no team in the world has got one algerian french by the name of zidane, but my own favourite pablito aimar comes pretty close, and is probably THE succesor to the man. Admittably mista up front comes no where near to competing with ronaldo and raul, but that's just about the only aspect in which valencia is found lacking. And of course like alex said, valencia in vastly better in terms of bench depth.
Queiroz, does take part of the blame, but for me it's minimal, the problem lies with the owners and president who chose pop idol beckham instead of a couple of reliable midfielders, who still keep in the line up out of form ex stars such and figo, and who decided to have a travelling circus of team this summer instead of some proper training camp to prepare. But, that's show biz baby.
I think they just might have wisened up a bit over at real what with the end of this season being a worldwide disgrace for them. They 've got Camatso (sp?) on the bench, ex national Spain coach and currently working for benfica, a tough defense minded coach, who was also a tough defender for madrid some years ago. I ve also been reading that they ve started looking at players' tranfers for their defence, and they 've already signed a very solid defender, walter samuel from Roma. Of course there multibillion dollar contracts for doing the travelling circus bit over at Asia are still running, and are still giving them a hard time with respect to a proper training schedule in the summer and there's the extra bourden of the euro too, so i guess we should have to wait and see.
But they've been soooo damn terrible this past month, and to tell you truth i liked it.
But they've been soooo damn terrible this past month, and to tell you truth i liked it.
