Here it goes again…
By: Steve | August 17th, 2007Yeah, it’s a slow news day. Latest crap of the day: Cicinho, Baptista and 25 million euros for Alves? No thanks. Here’s some OK Go for your viewing pleasure.
So I’m just going to vent a little about the club. We talk about Schuster not really getting it right, about the transfer being bollocks… but the problem starts at the top.
Chairman Ramon Calderon is an idiot. First of all, he needed a court order to enforce his pseudo-election win. Then he states that the Galacticos era is over, while promising Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Cesc Fabregas and Arjen Robben. Um, don’t they qualify as galacticos? I gave him some credit for bringing in Fabio Capello as the trainer, and of course, Capello delivered as he did his first time around. Two years at the helm, two titles. Um, what’s not to like about that?
Calderon’s hand-picked sporting director Peja Mijatovic is no less an idiot. He sold youth teamer Jurado to Atletico, then upon hearing the outrage over the youngster, had to insert some buyback clause into the deal which will likely never get exercised. Javi Garcia got loaned out this year instead of being given the chance to prove himself on the team. And Roberto Soldado doesn’t hear the end of any loan rumours, despite his talent for putting the ball in the back of the net.
Bernd Schuster, the new trainer, still needs this season to be judged, but his track record at Getafe is pretty decent. I’m just a bit wary that Calderon and Mijatovic got too spooked by Barcelona’s run from 2004-5 and 2005-6 and insist upon “winning, and winning pretty”. Um sorry, it doesn’t always work that way. Barca got lucky, and now we’re chasing after a ghost. If you can’t have both, I’d rather have winning than playing pretty. Schuster, you got that? Entiendas?
If former chair Florentino Perez had any idea, he wouldn’t have sold Claude Makalele, he wouldn’t have bought David Beckham instead of Ronaldinho (simply based on the ability to sell shirts), and if that had happened, how many more titles would we have had now?
Instead, Calderon chased Beckham away and tried to make it look like Becks’ fault, plus he more or less insulted the player by insisting Becks was leaving to become an actor. He basically threw out Capello after the coach basically did everything that was asked of him. You didn’t think the team was playing pretty football? What the hell were you expecting? Didn’t you watch Juventus play when he was coaching?
Mijatovic’s idea of negotiating a transfer is to throw down a number, insist that’s the price, and walk away. Um, hello? And that’s not even to mention the lack of any direction behind the team’s acquisitions. Let’s see, two central defenders when you have Cannavaro, reigning European Player of the Year, and Sergio Ramos, the best young defender in Spain? Well, at least Metzelder has played international football; the same can’t be said of Pepe. Wait a sec, isn’t Pepe the one who they blew 30 million euros on? Jerzy Dudek, a goalkeeper whose greatest claim to fame is a remarkably flukey 120 minutes and shootout in Istanbul? Barcelona castaway Saviola? Ugh. I’m ok with Drenthe and Sneijder though… At least Schuster has the sense to keep up youth teamers like Balboa, de la Red, Granero, etc.
Anyways, what i’m getting at is… Real will contend for a title in spite of, not because of, the leadership at the top. Calderon and Mijatovic have to go. Simple as that.
Category: Editorial/Opinion
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…..aaaaaand relax! Take a deep breath!
Not much to argue with the above, except perhaps I’ll reserve judgement on the new signings until they’ve played competitively for a while.
Brylcreem boy and Motormouth are running out of time and excuses. They’ve spent shedloads of money and promised attractive football. I know in theory we’re lumbered with Calderón for another three years, but, given the general quality of presidents in Spanish football, we’re not as badly off as we could be.
I have low expectations of the team; until I see Raúl regularly relegated to the substitutes bench (he’s been ‘coming back’ for four years now) I know the renewal of the side won’t be complete. Thank God we got someone to replace Guti (Sneijder); let’s hope he works out.
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United Kingdom
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Message to Predrag: Drop the bags and get the hell out.
I’m with you on a lot of the points, and I have high hopes for the young dutchies. I, however, am not going to be as patient with Schuster. I didn’t like this guy from day 1, or day negative forty five, really, when they first started talking about him. And seeing his direction in the preseason (I KNOW: it’s only preseason, but…) only heightened my acute feeling that the man is in over his head. He simply knew how to repeat the words “attractive football” “attacking football” “give the fans what they want.”
And despite liking the move towards promising youths rather than 30 year megastars, I won’t aplaud his offseason acumen. We have yet to find a left footed player on the pitch. The players appear to have no idea where they’re positions are. Frow what I could tell they looked to be using a 4-6 formation in a lot of their games - four nervous defenders in back watching six men up front running into eachother. Schuster sitting on the sideline looking like a lobster in the pot. And yes, two central defenders despite obvious gaps in positions needing to be filled.
I am embarrassed by the revolving coach door at Madrid, and don’t want the trend to continue, but I really doubt Schuster will stick. My hope is that we get new haunchos and a new coach soon, and I’ll even drop this little conspiracy tract. The move, as mentioned above, from picking up veteran allstars to seeking young promise might look particularly attractive to a certain beak nosed frenchman coaching in the Premeirship presently, one whose contract ends after this season. Hmm?
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United States -
Saviola is a pretty consistent goal scorer and he’s a hard worker. It’s like being stranded in the desert rejecting a bottle of water in favor of some Kool-aid
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United States -
No blog for two days?
any links for watching madrid-sevilla match live? I live in the US. thanks!
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As a Barcelona fan i can certainly say that i enjoy watching Real Madrid shoot themselves in the foot continuously. Firstly, firing one of the best managers in the world after a vaastly overachieving season. Capello won the league with one of Real Madrid’s worst squads in recent years. Then bringing in a totally unproven manager who has won nothing.
It’s funny speding €30m on a centre back who has never been capped. Signing an outcast from Barcelona just for the sake of it when Soldado is deserving of a place in the squad.
As a Cule i’m going to really enjoy this season, methinksPosted from
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I have to agree with a lot of what has already been said, Calderon and Mijatovic have to go, they simply are not good enough to be the executive leadership of the greatest football club in the world. Their negotiation skills are so pathetic they have to rely on playing media games to forcefully get what they want, and even then they vastly overpay, and frequently miss the mark on signings, as was mentioned about Saviola (really Soldado should be filling that role, and doing a better job) I also have doubts about Schuster and feel he might be over his head. The truth is that Real has the potential to be a powerhouse and roll all the way to another league title and a run at the champions league title, but they have a long way to go, mostly on the coaching home front. Real actually had a fairly good chance of winning the Supercopa, especially at the half. The team was starting to gel, and spirits were high after the Drenthe and Cannavaro goals. But what does Schuster do, in an effort to appease the fans, he puts Guti in (who actually should have been in from the start) and moves Drenthe back (the lone destablizing force for Madrid at mid-field). Rookie Mistake. So he basically takes the steam out of the Madrid attack by moving Drenthe, and at the same time weakens the defense because now Drenthe is being forced to play “naranja mechanica” football, and be at two places at once, not to mention on the Dani Alves end. The results, Seville picked them apart on the counter attack, and Dani Alves was the player of the match, consistently taking advantage of that weakness Stupid mistakes by a shortsighted coach. You can’t make those mistakes at Real and he better learn quickly. Another mistake, but this one is coming from the execs is insisting on Raul starting. He is…was a great captain, but he simply doesn’t give the team the kind of fluidity, speed and strength on attack that they need to compete with the likes of Man U, Chelsea, Barca or Sevilla for that matter. He needs to go. You take Raul out from the get go, Move Robinho (or Higuain when he returns) up to a roving striker position, move Sneijder over and stick Guti right in the middle. Sneijder still takes free kicks, as you can see his skill on the cannavaro goal. With Guti there from the get go, he’ll relax and feel more confident and actually perform to his capacity, unfortunately though, when you leave him out, his sensitivity takes over and he starts acting like a little brat, but the truth is he has sparks of genius and can lead a very powerful offense if he wants to. Again, bad coaching. Drenthe stays in the middle, and if anything you take Diarra out (who kept slowing down the pace and giving the ball up), move Pepe up a bit since still has a powerful shot and as you can see is not afraid of moving the ball up himself quite a bit, and replace him with Metzelder (thats why we bought him, no?). Anyway, Schuster could have done many things differently and still had a very good shot, but he he simply hasn’t learned the difference between coaching at Getafe and Real Madrid, where ego’s, politics, and expectations come into play, and where he success will depend on his ability to move the pieces just right.
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What a fuckin load of shit was yesterday’s match. You spend the summer strengthening the defense and you leak 5 goals? There’s no point in blaming Pepe (he looked more than capable of going forward) alone for the goals. Cannavaro never really organised the defense and the midfield provided no protection. Diarra, Sneijder, Drenthe were just out muscled in the midfield. Drenthe looked good in the middle and in the hole though. As a LB though, very often he left gaping holes and was too far to back track too. Both Drenthe and Robinho kept cutting in, not once did they manage to send in a cross from the left. I’m increasingly becoming impatient with Raul, it was really sad to see him give away balls so easily. I lost it when he couldn’t control an air pass on the left when he was all alone. Even though it was a good save from the keeper, Raul should’ve really out putthat in the netin the 70th min, he should’ve left the keeper with no chance when he had so much time n space. Will Schuster at least have the guts to bench him? passing game? BS! They couldn’t string together more than 5 passes. and it is funny that all our chances were from set pieces. Even though Sneijder kept sending in good balls into the box, there was absolutely no inventive or imaginative play up front. Pleassssseeeeee dont play Robinho on the left, play him in the hole. When Diarra first came, I thought we would finally have a good physical presence along with some good feet in the midfield after the wasteful Gravesen and Diogo. But he’s been very ordinary. He’s just too slow to track back and in going forward. You cant expect Guti to play a cameo everytime he comes on as a substitute.
I think we first lost the plot when we fired Del Bosque and then again when we sold Makelele. Oh… dear.. see how many we’ve tried after that? Gravesen, Diogo, Pablo Garcia, Diarra, Emerson! Diarra looked to be settling in, but he way too inconsistent and sometimes it’s frustrating when he lazily gives the ball away and not even try to get it back. It would’ve done a world of good to us if we had got Mascherano before he went to liverpool.
The only positive that I could take was Drenthe’s and Sneijder’s performace. But still 27m for Sneijder? Ramos was good but for a couple of mistakes.
PS: no blog for 3 days?????
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United States -
The silence from the 12 or whatever of you that write this blog is pretty intense, not that I blame you. Hopefully much more of this in the future…
Posted from
United States
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