Real Madrid 3-2 Atletico Madrid A Game Of Passion

By: Corey | November 8th, 2009

Atletico Madrid 2-3 Real Madrid
El Derbi Madrileno
Jornada 10
Vicente Calderon Stadium
11/07/2009

Another classic derbi encounter at the Calderon preserved Real Madrid’s winning streak at Atletico’s ground in a 3-2 win. But despite dominating play for most of the match, a nervous final 20 minutes meant that Real made the scoreline flattering for Atletico, and the blood pressure of Real Madrid fans spike. The collapse of the defense to Atletico’ pressure was the telling take away from this match, when it should have been the dominant midfield presence and excellent individual goals from Kaka, Marcelo and Higuain. A win is a win, and one in the derbi is gratifying to say the least, but it pained me to see the Jeykle and Hyde faces of Real Madrid in this game.

Lineups

At. Madrid
Sergio Asenjo
Ujfalusi
Perea
Antonio López
Pablo
sub Sinama Pongolle 90′
Cléber Santana
Raúl García
Simao
Reyes
sub Maxi Rodríguez 60′
Jurado
sub Agüero 47′ Goal 82′
Forlán Goal 80′

Real Madrid
Casillas
Pepe
Garay
Arbeloa
Marcelo Goal 25′
Sergio Ramos
Lass
Xabi Alonso
Kaká Goal 5′
sub Van der Vaart 86′
Higuaín Goal 66′
sub Raúl 67′
Benzema
sub Gago 70′

What a match, and its worth discussing this game in terms of the first half and the second half, because we saw polar opposite performances from both teams.

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The first half we were superb, it was the best football we have played so far sans Cristiano, and you might think that is not saying much considering how poor our form has been, but it was a very dominant and impressive performance. Kaka was getting the ball often, Xabi and Lass were bossing the midfield as I had predicted, Benzema was drifting all over the field and Marcelo was causing problems with his pace and trickery. It was reticent of the AC Milan game before the dubious penalty decision, we really were in control of the game and besides two dangerous moments where Garay gave Forlan to much space, Atletico offered little going forward.

Kaka’s goal was exceptional, not only for his heads up play to actually shoot, but because watching it on replay, the keeper was unable to pick up the ball until it was to late. Smart use of a shield to guide the ball around and in to the net, and thats why we pay him the big bucks. The Marcelo goal was a little weird to be honest, because it looked like the play would break down any second, but a smart if a tad lucky finish did the trick. Marcelo has done well in midfield, and that might be the final nail in his left back career coffin. He did not do very well when he was moved back after the Ramos expulsion anyways, so his position may be up for permanent revision.

I was going to discuss the remainder of the match, but to be honest it was hard for me to say something better then what Bassam came up with. So I will just post his post-match comments as reflection of my thoughts on the match:

think we played well the first 65 minutes until the red card followed by wrong substitutions followed by marcelo at left back. Other than the obvious, we created good chances the first half, although that was thanks for the shitty Atletico defense that offered our players too much space especially outside the area. When we tried to go down the middle and breach the defense, we couldnt find any space. Why is that? the answer is simple, too many people in the middle. Marcelo was playing as a attacking midfielder rather than a left winger, which over lapped with Kaka who couldn’t find space (the only time he did find space, he slot the ball into the back of the net). Benzema, who had in improved game than before, still wandered around a lot. You should be upfront not floating around the field. If this gets solved, i think we can be even better.

Wrong substitutions. Horrific choice of players to bring into the game. Even with one man down, you cant defend starting from the 68th minute. The best defenses will crumble under 22 minutes of pressure. VDV instead of Gago would have made a huge difference, as it would have been a player who has some talents in the attacking sense and can help defensively. The taking off of Benzema and Higuain left the team with absolutely no pace what so ever. This allowed Atletico to attack freely. I hope M. diarra is injured and not just dropped from the squad, bcz Pelligirini could have just slotted Lass at right back, Diarra at the center, and kept Arbeloa at left back and kept marcelo in the midfld maybe with instruction to drop back more and keep Benzema. Raul could have been asked to drop back more too (like he usually does even if we are not 1 man down).

Aside from marcelo’s mistakes that i decided to not even mention any more (whats the use? you guys have memorized them by now!). Our central defensive pair have made some mistakes. Pepe was mostly at fault here. Out muscled by aguero is unacceptable! And the lack of tracking down shows a lack of concentration and will to follow Forlan for the first goal. Even in the first half, the defense showed a big hole in the middle, and I’m hoping that’s only because Pepe and Garay haven’t had a lot of time to play together.

Great game for lass, didn’t get tired all game. I expected Raul to be running at the back four, even if he didnt get support, but that wasn’t happening. With the form they were in, they would have lost the ball. Great persistence from Higuain to open chances for him when he wasn’t getting supply.

This brings me to my other point. As much as it was seen that higuain wasn’t getting touches on the ball, i think he is not fully to blame. Unlike Benzema who was roaming all round, Higuain was sticking to his position of attacking the right flank. At many times, i noticed that Higuain would be in open space and just needs the pass to get into a one on one situation with the goalie, but Benzema or Kaka or Marcelo opts for another pass rather than sending the ball to him. That was mostly evident in the situation in the second half, were Higuain was in empty space on the right of the penalty area, but Kaka sent the pass to Benzema who was covered by 2 defenders and in an offside situation. Luckily right after Higuain did brilliantly to force Perrea into a mistake, and then turned away from the Perrea, and slotted home with an amazing finish.

Shame Ramos is going to miss the el clasico! He is finally getting back to form, wouldn’t want to lose him. He has been bombing the right flank the past couple of games, and is really getting along well with Higuain there with the absence of CR.
I hope Pelligirini realizes that we can’t defend for 25 mins. Raul should stay on the bench, and Gago should stay home. Why not try RVN!
That’s all i had to say. Hala Madrid!

I could not agree more, so I didnt bother trying to! Congrats to Bassam for some very good analysis of the game. Maybe I should turn this in to some sort of contest, where the best insight in a comment gets posted so others can appreciate it. It would probably up the stakes in terms of the comments that we get here daily.

Cesar and I conversed several times during the game about a few issues, but besides Cesar’s distaste for Raul and my anger at seeing Gago, I thought it worth highlighting Pellegrini’s role in the match.

The poor man was struck in the side of the face by a rock one of the colchonero scum threw at him from the stands. But like a man he rubbed his face a bit and continued on with the game. I like that, he did not want sympathy for the incident and kept focusing on the match. Atletico should be looking at a stadium ban and a fine for this incident, but the Spanish FA is so ass backwards that who knows what will happen.

Unfortunately for Pellegrini, I have to tear in to him a bit. He lost control of this match in the second half due to a few occurrences that he did not react to properly. The introduction of Kun Aguero helped Atletico in the attack immensely, and instead of putting Lass on Kun to try and keep him out of the game, he left the central defenders to try and deal with him. Is it me or has man marking almost disappeared from the modern game? Zonal marking is effective, and cover II may work occasionally, but a good man marking job would have done the trick there. But I can not necessarily be angry with Pellegrini for not doing something of that nature.

After the introduction of Maxi though, we should have made our own substitutions. After the Ramos red card, we should have made a substitution, but instead we waited. Pellegrini moved Arbeloa to the right and dropped Marcelo to left back, with disastrous consequences as we saw. Marcelo was partially at fault for the first goal, as he let a simple cross in to the box. The lack of urgency in snuffing out crossing opportunities is one of the major flaws in Marcelo’s left back game. Pellegrini should have kept Arbeloa at left back as to watch the dangerous Maxi and not throw Arbeloa off his game by having to switch sides mid-game. He then should have used Lass at right back, as he would have been able to contain Simao in a similar fashion as Ramos was, with pace and aggressive tackling.

The use of Raul and Gago meant we loss any counter attacking threat that Benzema could provide, and Gago did little in terms of winning back possession. He gave away some needless fouls for free kicks and although he pressed players, he did not have the desired effect we needed. We needed ball possession to counter the obvious Atletico storm in the last 20 minutes (use Granero for possession), but Pellegrini decided to retreat in to our own box. I hate that. I would attack them on the counter to keep them from pressing to far forward, and push their lines back a bit. Maintaining a higher line then our penalty area would have kept them from scoring the first goal, and the second goal was just poor play from Pepe.

His brain farts spoiled a very strong display against Atletico, but he was at fault for both goals and we must wonder why he has such trouble with man marking? In the tackle he is brilliant, but he still needs some positional awareness. Garay, for lack of a better term, was average for most of the game. He did not make a mistake persay, but he also had spacing problems, letting Forlan get two great chances in the first that he should have put away. Garay is not as noticeable in his defensive posturing as Pepe is, but he and Pepe clearly could not deal with Aguero. Messi will be much more problematic I am sure. The addition of Metzelder would have helped those two since Pellegrini was so intent on sitting back after the red card. His mid-game changes often lack any inspiration, as do his substitutes, that are often late in the game and disrupt the team. Gago and VdV have come of the substitutes bench so many times this season, but to what effect?

I was interested to see what Pellegrini had to say about the loss of control of the game, but he did not reveal much by way of what he thought had happened in his interview after the match.

Pellegrini Post Match Comments:

“We had a good first half and Atletico did not cause us any danger in this period. We scored two goals and we had more clear opportunities.”

“In the second half we had the game under control quite well until the sending-off. That event made the match tough for us and Atleti were able to score two goals in a minute and got a scoreline they didn’t deserve.”

“At 3-2, with Atletico throwing everything forward, and in any attack could have scored, we went through some very difficult moments in the last few minutes of the match.

“Atletico have players who can decide a game at any time, but a draw would have been unjust because it wouldn’t have reflected at all the superiority that we had throughout the game.”

“It was a stone that hit me on the side of the face. The referee asked if I was okay and I told him that there was no problem.”

“We have to come back from our defeat in Alcorcon,” added Pellegrini, who was under intense pressure following the humiliating first-leg result, but looks to have weathered that storm now.”

“I’m happy with the work we’ve done since the start of the season. We’ve earned important victories and I expected some ups and downs to happen. We’ve sorted out our drawn matches, our defeat in Seville… We’re doing pretty well in the Champions League and we hope to make it to the next round,”

Pellegrini did not elude to the stuff I wanted him to talk about, namely the collapse of the final 25 minutes. We can be hyper critical of him, but let us not forget that he got the team to dominate the first half and put on a good display for the fans. Maybe his changes did not react to the expulsion well, but Ramos needed to be smarter than that, and it was not Pellegrini’s fault that the red card was shown. I still have confidence in the man, and when Ronaldo returns from injury and the team is clicking like it was in the first half, we will start to look like that fearsome beast of attack that we knew we could shape in to.

Quique on the match here.

Iker on the shoddy defending here.

Ujfalusi on the match and Atletico’s form here.

This one you definitely want to check out. Valdano speaks about Portugal calling up Cristiano Ronaldo despite him being injured. He is obviously opposed to the idea, but Carlos Quieroz went ahead and called him up anyway.

AS has a video describing the incident where Pellegrini was hit with an object, believed to be a rock, and the crowd trouble the Atletico fans were causing before and after the match.

Castilla won 4-2 this weekend. Check out the box score here.

Good win, lets hope for a little more nerve when we do face a surge like that late on, but we must remember, this is a work in progress and even one half like that should be a huge positive. And we will need more of that if we want to get through to the next round of the Copa del Rey on Wednesday against Alcorcon. If you are not up on your Real Madrid history, a remontada occurs when Real overturns a deficit, usually substantial, in the Bernabeu to advance in a cup competition. So many glorious European nights, and a few Copa del Rey, occurred in the past with the home crowd helping Real over come goal deficits for victory. They became quite popular in the late 80s during the Quinta days, but with the change in European Cup and the later entrance into the Copa del Rey, the chance for that to happen has decreased as of late.

If anyone believes in the remontada, we can have a little pow wow on Wednesday and hope for another one of these. More heads up play from Bassam on the link to the Zaragoza game, which was the last time we had a ‘overcome’ in the Bernabeu believe it or not. If you do not remember, we got thrashed by Zaragoza 6-1 but when we came back to the Bernabeu, we won it 4-0. This was awhile ago too, with Zidane, Roberto Carlos, Beckham etc. still playing for us and Lopez Caro in charge at the time. Amazing stuff, all four goals were superb, and I remember getting the chills when I watched that match. But do the math and you will see we did not end up advancing in the end. So not a complete remontada, but you get the point. Lets hope for that same spirt on Wednesday, and a 4-0 scoreline. Its Madrisimo we are talking about here.