Deportivo Preview

By: Corey | January 22nd, 2009

Another week, another La Liga game to cover. Seems to be almost mundane until you sit down and watch the game and remember football as beautiful in so many ways. But enough of the poetry that I found myself writing, we have a match preview to dish out to the Madrid faithful out there. This Sunday at 3:00pm at the Santiago Bernabeu, in a rare double-home game occasion after last weeks much talked about “win” against Osasuna.

Deportivo come into this game on the heels of two heavy losses to Sevilla and Barcelona. Such is the stupidity of the La Liga schedule that Deportivo, like every other team, has to run the gauntlet against the five “best” teams in La Liga all in a row. It means that struggling teams can go five weeks without picking up a point, a huge blow to their league position. It also means that the stronger teams (well the first in the chain being the exception) face an opponent that is increasingly battered and beaten with each passing week.

As is the case with Deportivo, who face Real with two crushing loses, and no end in sight most likely, as they face Vilarreal next weekend. By the time they face Mallorca on February the 8th they could drop to 11th place! Right now they are 3 points away from jumping into a tie with Vilarreal, if Vilarreal looses points. They have had a decent season this year, after a great surge up the table last year that was somewhat unexpected. They again are working with a somewhat bare bones squad, considering their financial situation. A quick look at their squad list reveals a few things. 1. A few veterans of the Super Depor days, but even then, they were not the leading lights of that golden era of the club and 2. Alot of grizzled campaigners that have been around (either in years or in teams).

I personally miss Caparros as the coach of Depor. Not that I have anything against Miguel Angel Lotina, but Caparros is a bright coach, and Athletic have been improving slowly with him. The again, Depor’s greatest ever, Jaba Irureta, has been slumping as of late in his career, so I guess life away from Depor is a mixed bag for coaches. But I am getting side tracked on silly tangents. The current coach is Miguel Angel Lotina, who is not a man with revolutionary ideas, but he has kept teams competitive, even in relegation. That is really how Deportivo plays; very competitively. We should now, they gave us an exercise in hustle and persistence when we lost to them earlier in the season. Schuster’s lack of tactics were exposed…

Old School

This game will thus pit two of the more stodgy, conserv
conservative coaches of La Liga against one another. It will be an interesting battle between two tactical minds, who rarely like to see their team bounding forward, in free flow. The again, in Lotina’s case, he has never really had the talent to play such a game. And in Juande’s case, he has to start at the back with Real, working on defense before he gets the more lucid passing style and goal scoring circus fans unrealistically demand from the team every game.

Deportivo News:

The Depor squad has two huge losses. Aranzubia is suspended after a red in the Barca game and Guardado is injured. Those two are probably the best players in the Depor squad, so they will be huge losses. This complicates things a bit for Lotina as he had ushered out bad-boy keepers Dudu and Munua, who had a bit of a punch up last year. Munua is still with the squad, but I really dont see him playing, so Fabri, the 21 year old from the Depor academy will step in most likely. It wont be his first game for Depor, but the Bernabeu wont make it any easier from him.

At the back they have a statistically average defense, kind of like Real’s defense, with 27 goals conceded. Thats the same amount that Real has conceded. So you could look at it as the defense’s being equal. But when you think a little more constructively, you realize that 1. Real has conceded just 1 goal since the Camp Nou defeat. On the other hand, Deportivo has conceded 3 against Valladolid, 1 to Recreativo (even more goal shy at 17 for), 1 to Getafe, and 3 and 5 to Sevilla and Barcelona respectively. Sevilla also put 5 past them on aggregate in the Copa del Rey, as to further compound their defensive misery. Real has a great chance to take advantage.

Ze Castro, on loan from Atletico, started the season well, but he has since been in indifferent form. One would suspect that the reason he is on loan from Atletico is because he is rubbish, or close enough to it. But a club like Deportivo really has no options any more with their financial situation. In equally indifferent form is Alberto Lopo. A very reliable player, he scored against us in the win at the Riazor, and is known to pop up from corners now and then. His size and physical pay often put off strikers from dealing directly with him, although a player with pace like Etoo had little trouble burning by him last time out.

Out wide there is Filipe Kasmirski, an odd name for a Brazilian player, who was at one point on-loan at Castilla. He has had a good season, and it was rumored that Depor could cash in on him this summer. He attacks and defends well, so Robben may have more troubling jinking his way around him then most of his foes in La Liga. Sergio Ramos will also see a fair bit of him during the game, if Depor end up countering. On the right is Manuel Pablo, the Depor captain even though Lopo or Sergio takes over those duties when he is not playing, which is often. He is one of the survivors of the Super Depor days, but he was never a key player in those teams. He is a little older these days, so his pace may have left him a bit, meaning his long strides forward will almost always warrant a hole to exploit at the back.

Lotina’s midfield against Barcelona, at least on paper, looked like it was doomed to fail from the start. Juan Rodriguez, once a Malaga man, was used instead of De Guzman, and Sergio and Verdu were used as very deep central midfielders. Valeron did not start, and his ability to intelligently distribute was missing. Valeron is, or at least was a great player before his knee injuries. I am sure he still has the same vision and touch, but is a notch slower, and his fitness will probably never be what it was. I would suppose we could see him as a sub. Its to bad too, because Valeron, De la Pena, Guti and Mendieta were all a great generation of enterprising, and highly talented midfielder maestro’s that have suffered from inconsistency, indifference, or a lack of appreciation of their talents.

De Guzman is a pretty good defensive midfielder, he is tenacious in the tackle, but is not as refined a player as say Lass has shown himself to be. De Guzman looks like he is trying hard to win the ball, and he labors alot to pass the ball where he wants it. He is a free agent this summer, so I suspect his mind is elsewhere and Lotina may be keeping him on the bench for a reason. Verdu is a cule, but a tidy central midfielder in that. He kind of reminds of Albert Rivera. Unheralded but effective. He really does not concern Real as an offensive weapon, but he can spread the ball around pretty well. Sergio is a veteran, nothing more to say there. He may return to Espanyol in the summer, so again, Depor has midfielders who are swirled up in transfer speculation. Not that it would effect Sergio much.

Guardado will be missing on the left so Lafita will definitely start there, and he should, he is Depor’s top scorer with 5 goals. He also has some transfer buzz around him, but its mostly unfounded because he is a streaky player, like Monaco’s Alex Licata in many ways. Lafita will provide a challenge for Heinze as he will cut in often and look for shooting opportunities, which Heinze is miserable at closing down, often choosing to throw his body at the ball instead of staying on his feet and simply charging the ball down or putting the shooter off. On the right, Christian, another cule, is okay I guess. I really dont have much of an opinion of him to be honest.

Up top Bodipo is a dangerous player. Since his days with Santander way back when, he has popped up to score goals that his team would never deserve. He has alot of pace and some tricks to use when in full flight. Pepe will have a tough deal with the lad, as it will be like for like in a speed race most often. Riki will offer a more physical option of the bench, but he, like many Depor strikers before him, seems to be in and out of form more times then an old man goes to the john. Riki reminds me of Diego Tristan, the bad Diego Tristan, not the guy who scored two incredible goals against Barcelona in 02 or the guy who scored for Spain against Italy in a friendly. The Mallorca Diego Tristan. Utter rubbish.

A 4-3-2-1 is the formation we should see on Sunday, and it will be imperative to as usual with the Spanish game, get a handle on the central midfield area which is always crowded at the Bernabeu. Bypassing the midfield early on with the width of Robben will be helpful, and Sneijder or Van der Vaart will need to exploit the space between the three man midfield and the outside backs in order destabilize the formation.

Real Madrid News:

Deportivo had one shot all game against Barcelona, and it was off target. They do not exactly possess a potent attacking force, which may prompt Juande into a more lax center midfield pairing, although my money is still on Gago and Diarra to combat the three man midfield. It seems a little cautious, but Juande likes a solid platform to build the attack from. Gago’s vast improvement means he helps out the best he can, but we need to see much better build up play fro Sneijder or Van der Vaart. Sneijder has been limited somewhat in his tactical instructions and positioning by Juande. Maybe the shackles come off a bit in this game, after Osasuna was nothing short of a labored (some say unjust) win.

There has been some talk of Parejo possibly making his debut this weekend. I dont see how thats possible given that Parejo is still training in the gym with Guti and Dudek and seems another week away from a possible return. If he was to make his debut that would be great, but I dont see it. Playing Javi Garcia just seems impossible these days, as there is little trust in the player. The possibility of leaving Drenthe out of the squad again is high considering Marcelo played well in his cameo despite the boos.

Raul should continue to pair Higuain, and will be hoping he could at least equal Don Stefano’s goal tally with a brace. The usual substitute appearance for Huntelaar should be expected, although against a shaky defense it might make sense to give Hunter the start and see what he can do and give Raul a rest. We all know he will break the record, so we should not worry about it.

An unchanged defense, and come to think of it the team will probably stay the same for some time until Juande is either forced to change through and injury or suspension or things start to reverse.

Gametime is 3pm, should be on GolTV. I do not know if we will get a live blog from Steve, if not I will have a comments post up for while I watch the game.