Real Madrid vs. Al Ittihad Peace Cup 4:30pm Gol TV
By: Corey | July 26th, 2009
Real Madrid begins its involvement in the Peace Cup with a match against Saudi club Al Ittihad. For me to stand on a soap box and tell you the strengths and weaknesses of Al Ittihad’s team is like a Spanish man telling why the Buffalo Bills nickel defense could be dominant this year. Its not right. But it is a good tune up game, as it will provide more competition for Real than Shamrock did, and the heat of Spain will raise the conditioning of the players. With only 5 substitutions plus a keeper, some players are going to be left on the field for the entire game, so the squad should be prepared to run for the full 90.
The only problem with the game is that I have a conflict. A major conflict, in that the US is playing Mexico in the Gold Cup final at 3. I am torn between national team and club team allegiances, but when it comes down to it, you always watch your national team play first. Especially when they play Mexico. The rival team. So I will not be watching Real play until after that game is finished around 5. I do have a DVR now so I can record the game and watch it in its entirety which is nice, but no liveblog. I think I will keep the format for the review the same as the Shamrock game, since most everyone enjoyed my mid-game ramblings. Game is at 4:30pm on GolTV, and you can leave comments about the game here until I get that review up.
The game is at the Bernabeu, and will be the debut at the stadium for Cristiano and Benzema, while Granero returns home for the first time since 2007 (if we dont count when he played there for Geta). Should be a great game, and I have a feeling the attendance figures will be much better then the empty stands at La Romadera and the Nuevo Colombino for the earlier games of the tournament.
The squad that was called up for the game consists of: Dudek, Adan, Salgado, Marcelo, Metzelder, Torres, Garay, Agus, Gago, Lass, Sneijder Robben, Guti, Drenthe, Granero, Cristiano Ronaldo, Raul, Higuain, Benzema, Negredo
No Pepe who has a slight knock, but nothing to worry about. VDV, Huntelaar and the Castilla players minus Agus, and of course the Confed Cup crew.
Category: Team News
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Comments | Add your comment
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Didn’t this team beat us 4 – 1 in a friendly before ? Lol I hope its not gonna be anything like that this time or ill slap the person sitting next to me
And I’ve noticed that heinze has not been called up ,,,,,,,Yay I hope that this means he is on his way outThis is the line up I wanna see us starting with
Adan
Torres garay metz drenthe
Robben lass granero ronaldo
Benz. Pipita/negredoI know granero is an Attacking mid so what gago can’t defend anyways nor can he pass the ball
Posted from
United States
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What about MArcelo? Is he fit?
He is THE MOST underrated player on Madrid and maybe in the whole world…pure, pure class.
Where does he fit in this year?
Posted from
United States -
arghhh my internet is like used up i cant watch the game
Posted from
Australia -
took me 30 min to find a working link, can anyone tell me if anything noteworthy happened in the first 30 min? my impressions from the last quarter are quite similar to last game’s. raul is always anonymous, we should have kept parejo and sold gago, drenthe is NOT the next roberto carlos, if even the next heinze. seriously, if he’s getting beat time after time by al ithad’s wingers/strikers, what merit does he have in the classico against messi? i was always in favour of giving him a chance as a left winger, but now i just dont see the point of keeping him. nice play between benz and R9 towards the end
Posted from
Belgium -
too many balls being lost in midfield. Especially for a team that is trying to develop a tiki taka style. Garay off for cantera defender and Robben warming up to the delight of the punters. 11 missed balls or failed passes by Gago so far (counted by my 11 year old daughter admittedly!)
Posted from
Spain -
Granero’s come on…with van der Vaart’s number 23!
Posted from
Australia -
nice efforts from granero, his 15 minute appearance was one of the very few things i liked about today’s game. well taken goal from raul but i’d still rather higuain or negredo in his place. btw couldnt see it very clearly, was gago the one “covering” the goalscorer?
Posted from
Belgium -
Never make the mistake of thinking just cos you can´t pronounce the other team´s name they will be a walk over. Those guys played better that Madrid who were lucky that they just couldn´t finish as they had plenty of chances.
I guess these preseason shindigs are a win win situ – if RM win, they´re showing great promise, if they lose well they need more practice, confidence, understanding blah blah
Being able to pass the ball would help obviously……Posted from
Spain -
Ok, my impressions on the game…
1. Al Ittihad deserved the win, they created the best chances, too bad for them their finishing was off today.
2. Madrid played poorly, too many mistakes in midfield, didn’t create chances from wingplay, sloppy on defense, all in all a very poor showing, but this is preseason, so I won’t lose any sleep over this game.
As for the players…
Dudek: Couldn’t do anything on the goal, but still he misjudged a couple of crosses, but nothing specila from him
Torres: Nothing special, didn’t contribute on offense, his defending was ok, but we need more out of him
Metzelder: IMO, one of the best players of the match; his positioning was perfect, he played the wall well from the back, and didn’t make any mistakes. Solid performance from the german, good for him.
Garay: I watched the game form the 24th minute, so I don’t know how he looked before that, but I didn’t see anything special from him, he still has to play more games.
Drenthe: played the whole game, seems pellegrini is making him a fulltime LB, he played well, his defending wasn’t bad, but as Torres, didn’t do much on offense, still a work in progress
Lass: Last season’s surprise is playing surprisingly bad IMO; lost one ball similar as the one he lost against Xavi in “that game”; his marking and tackling were ok, but his passing was poor.
Gago: The worst of all the players today, at least IMO; too many lost balls, bad passes, he couldn’t mark the player on the goal, just a terrible performance by Gago.
Ronaldo: Not too much, couple of flicks and bycicles here and there, had a nice give and go with Benzema that resulted on a left footed shot on goal, don’t know what he did in the first 24 min…
Sneijder: Played well IMO, he still has to take a little power from his passes, as he tends to send missiles to his teammates from 2 yards out, but he worked hard, had a couple of shots on goal, all in all a good performance for him.
Benzema: Played really well, assisted Raul on the goal, and had a couple of nice plays with CR9. Another strong performance from Karim.
Raul: What can I say??? I’m one of the people that wants to see less of him, but you really can’t ignore his goalscoring and leadership abilities. Scored a grat goal, reminiscent of his younger days, when he was the BEST PLAYER in the world when playing with his back to the opposing goal. Solid performance from the captain.
Substitutes…
Agus: The youngster played well, had a bad backpass to Dudek, but besides that, he was ok.
Guti: Mercurial, as ever: bad passes, no defense, custom Guti. Had a nice shot on goal, but that was it.
Robben: more of the same: get the ball, run like a headless chicken, leave all your team 50 yards behind you, start from the right, cut to the middle, the same old story; hey, manuel, why don’t you put him on the left and MAKE HIM CROSS THE BALL!!!
Granero: MAN CRUSH ALERT, MAN CRUSH ALERT!!!! (Corey, settle down man!!!) He played really well, had a cracker of a shot rejected by the post, was very active, took the corners (poorly though), but he energized the team and the crowd even chanted his name for a while, good for him.
Higuain: needs to be RUTHLESS AND DECISIVE on goal;, if not, he’ll be the odd man out on this team, and that’s sad, after the season he had. Played ok, was active, tried to crate for him and Raul, but nothing special from the argentine.
That’s all folks, as always, this is MY OPINION, remember everyone has their own view…
HALA MADRID!!!
Posted from
United States -
Well considering they beat us 4 – 1 before we did well didn’t we ? Lol seriously tho we didn’t play well some of the players were simply astrocious , I would really love to know what coaches see in players like gago , how he played so many minutes today is beyond me SHIP HIM ThE HELL OUT my goodness !
And although raul scored today he was his disappearing self for most of the game and should Not play 90 minutes of games anymore preseason or not give negredo some minutes if pellegrini does like ramos and schuster before him and play raul every game this coming season it will be his downfall
Granero should have started alongside that guy who had lass jersey on today (they look identical but I don’t think it was him it couldn’t be )
Also I thought not calling up vdv was a mistake he ws on fire against shamrock but I guess it is because he is on way outPosted from
United States -
Andres, totally agree with you on Gago and Raul, but the latter makes it difficult for every coach, just when you think he’s down he scores 2 goals, or something like that…
Why negredo wasn’t called for this game is beyond me; maybe because Pellegrini wanted to see more of other players (robben), but he should be given minutes in this preseason; IT WOULD BE A HUGE MISTAKE IF WE SELL NEGREDO!!!
Posted from
United States -
Negredo was dropped of the list because he was sick
Posted from
United States -
Gago is a steaming pile of shite.
Posted from
United States -
o thanx for the info madridista4
for those of you who missed the beginning of the game here is the full the match http://www.mysoccerplace.net/video/real-madrid-vs-al-ittihad-fullPosted from
United States -
in the post-game press conference, Pellegrini said Van der Vaart would not play at all the entire Peace Cup, that’s why Granero had #23.
Does anyone know if it is because he is injured, sick, or just simply on his way out? I hope it’s not the last option.
Posted from
United States -
man marcelo is the most over-ratted piece of shit-he cant tackle hard n isnt good at going upfront either
Posted from
Canada
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