Real Madrid Thread

Yep £20M...so around 30MEuros..about right..we paid that amount for Ruud who is a similar player at a similar age.
 
Guys, 27 million euros. Ajax has confirmed. Besides 27M aint that much, considering he is one of the best strikers in Europe.
3 months ago Manchester City was willing to pay 40 million euros, at the last day before closing the transferline.
 


Huntelaar is officially a real madrid player.
Will he finally become a champion in (one of) the most important team of the world?
 
have they been underperforming?

i know sneijder/van nistelrooy is pretty key, with robben always a danger on the wings

havent seen much of van der vaart at real but seems like it's hard to keep all of them fit

drenthe also provides width and stamina to the side

no wonder huntelaar agreed to real
 
Theyre all individually very talented, but to build a team around them is very risky imo, except for RVN. Theyre all very injury prone and a bit 'lightweight', except RVN again. Its hard to use them as a spine. In their past, they had players like Zidane, Figo, Cambiasso, Solari etc... who are all quite physical players that can fight in midfield. Now they rely on these players, so there is a lack of balance. Its also hard to keep them all fit.
 
Aboutreika18 said:
TBH they've always looked a bit unbalanced in midfield since they sold Makelele.
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I was just gonna say the same thing whilst reading the other posts above. God knows how strong they could be if they had an Essien or anyone similar in their team.
 
They signed Diarra, who imo was amazing with Lyon, but is not as effective now. He is still too isolated from the attacking players, leaving a fat gap. Especially since VDV and Sneijder are very similar and can't defend for their lives.
 
Aboutreika18 said:
TBH they've always looked a bit unbalanced in midfield since they sold Makelele.
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:YES:;))

diarra and essien are both very nice players. personally i love them... but they can't give to a team the same contribution the likes of makelele and cambiasso can (both ex- real madrid players, both of them gone for free... wich says a lot about real's management skills).

diarra is a fantastic defensive midfielder, with a very good shoot... but he can't do much more than this.
essien is a magnificent all-around midfielder, balance, stamina, shoot..... but talking about defensive midfielder's duties.... he has some serious weaknesses (i'm talking about his marking ability mostly). i know many of u will think i'm crazy right now, but, just take a look at his feet position when he's on a tight man marking, and u'll see what i'm talking about.

claude is a fantastic defensive midfielder.... but he was also much more than that. he gives timing to the plays, he gives the rhythm to the whole team, he has the ability to tune up the team's plays. theese kind of players are extremely hard to find, and are usually the best assetts of the teams they play for, coz they have the ability to set the tone of the plays, the ability to turn an average team in a good team, a very good team in a great team (just by themselves).

Many people in england didn't really appreciate this great feature of claude, but that's because the pace in england is just too high to appreciate those things.... and most important, the pace in premiership never changes; it's always the same, wich makes pointless to have a player who can change the tempo of the game (got to say however the british top teams are starting to change the way football in seen in england lately).

in Spain instead the changes of tempo are extremely importants, as the rhythm of the game is not really high usually.
so having a "metronome" on the centre of the pitch makes all the difference in the world.

real madrid lacks of something right now. but their real issue doesn't concern the players... with the roster they have, schuster can still count on a huge load of quality and depth.
their real issue is their football, their mentality.
to be a winning team, u have to play good football in both the opponents half of the pitch and your own half of the pitch. u have to play as a team, not only in the opponent's box, but also in your own box. u can't expect to win matches, with such an unbalanced display, unless all your players have a great off-the-ball movement skill (and real madrid players don't).
u can't expect to win football matches displaying your whole midfielders beyond the midfield line (and both the fullbacks on the midfield line), just coz u have the likes of cannavaro, pepe and casillas protecting your ass. football teams in europe attack with 5\6 players today, so 2 cbs and a great keeper just won't be enough (no matter how good they are).

i mean look at cannavaro's performances. since he joined the merengues, his standards went down...... and that's exactly the same thing that happened to samuel before him.
real madrid bought samuel from roma; he was one of the 3\4 best cbs in europe those days.... then he joined the galacticos and he suddenly became crap..... but when he joined inter (after just 1 season), soon he was world class again.

the real problem is not the quality of the defenders, it's the way the team plays.
some might say "hey but till a couple of years ago this system used to work"...... yes that's true, but that team could line up zidane, figo, raul and ronaldo (all in their primes) all together.
van der vaart, snejder, robben, higuain, they're all great players..... but honestly they don't frighten their opponents aswell as those monster used to do.
and let's not forget that makelele was behind those monster, giving some logic to that crazy team.
 
Milanista said:
imo its part of the reason why they aren't succeeding.
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Not succeeding?! Ok not at the moment, but did you already forget the championships of 2006/2007 and 2007/2008?!
Real's problem at the moment is that the midfield is not in balance. With 2 players like Van der Vaart and Sneijder, you need at least 2 defensive midfielders. But for some reason Schuster uses always only 1, in this case Diarra(injured atm).
I would recommend to Calderon to look at least for 2 other defensive midfielders. Type of players like Gattuso, Stankovic, Ambrosini and Yaya Toure.
 
Winchester said:
Real's problem at the moment is that the midfield is not in balance. With 2 players like Van der Vaart and Sneijder, you need at least 2 defensive midfielders.
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lining up 2 defensive midfielders at the sanitago bernabeu? that's just not going to happen. and if u're spanish u will also now why. ;)

do u remember wich was the merengues fans and the board reaction when capello used to line up both diarra and emerson in the same time?

madrid's people just can't tolerate such a line up.... coz it's against their "mentality" :CONF:
it's not even schuster's fault actually. he just doesn't want to end like capello.
Don fabio gave some balance to the galacticos, he gave some logic to the team line up...... but nobody understood it.... everybody (the media, the fans, the board) were complaining about the "lack of attacking spirit" of fabio's real madrid...... and fabio couldn't keep his job, even if he won the title (against all odds!).
so can we really blame schuster? :THINK:

Stefano, very good posts.... both of them. u made some very good points :)):TU:
 
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lo zio said:
so can we really blame schuster? :THINK:
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how can you not blame schuster, the guy is a clown, his attitude and dispostion is questionable, his team selections are suspect...

i know injuries havent helped...

but still...

anyway, Rafa as the next "proper" coach, his tactics should endear him to the madrid supporters!
 
Vannizzlefashizzal said:
how can you not blame schuster, the guy is a clown, his attitude and dispostion is questionable, his team selections are suspect...

i know injuries havent helped...

but still...

anyway, Rafa as the next "proper" coach, his tactics should endear him to the madrid supporters!
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i'm not saying schuster has no responsabilities at all.

what i'm trying to say is that it's really hard to be real madrid's coach. it's really hard to take the right decisions in madrid, coz even if u'll win, even if your decisions will result to be the right decisions, this could still be "not enough" for the whole madrid's establishment (the media, the fans and the board), as fabio's experience proved.

capello was the only one who had the guts to go against everybody in madrid (media, fans and the board), and he also achieved some great results..... but still, look at what happened to him...
 
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