The Coach or The Players?
By: Corey | March 25th, 2008
With yet another loss (although a better performance then previous losses), my question to the readers is who is to blame. With an improved performance its hard to blame the players, but then again looking at who the coach selects for certain games I remain puzzled. I hate to point the finger are a sole player or just the coach, but even though the title is still a distinct possibility, the season has become disappointing very quickly.
There has been alot of talk on this very page of the players not having the same fire and drive they had under Capello to pull a game out of their asses in the final 20 minutes. This is true, they seem to not be as motivated and almost hostile when it comes to playing. They lack a killer instinct and that ability to overcome, which could be attributed to Schuster’s managerial style. Or it could be that Capello was an extremist, generally disliked by his players because of his strong and dominant style and defensive and efficient tactics. Schuster is the opposite, a Vicente del Bosque type character of laid back training and easy going player relationships. Although dear Bernadine is still not as laid back as Del Bosque, he does seem to be well liked by the squad. But is he respected?
It has to be said that Del Bosque’s teams rarely needed to muster a comeback, such was their prowess in scoring early and/or often. But when they did need to pull out a win late on, the CL semi to Juventus comes to mind, they also did not. Does this mean further success is on the way for Schuster if we stay patient with him at the helm? Or his he going to be the latest victim of a trigger happy president and board who are growing desperate for European success on the level of AC Milan? Time will tell on that.
Whats clear, Bernadine has a certain jai no couise about him, whether it be his brash and brief answers to the press, his almost arrogant stance towards the rest of the La Liga teams or his ability to infuriate fans with h is lack of tactical/selection flexibility. But he is still well liked despite these major flaws.
There is also a certain “curse” that I was aware of but which was covered well on goal.com, you can read the article here http://www.goal.com/en-US/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=634573 . The case has been made that when the it gets to the nitty gritty, his teams always falter, as if there is some sort of pyschological block on Schuster winning throughout the season. It is true his Xerez, Levante and Getafe teams all started strong out of the gate, but all eventually fell back by seasons end to a less the positive finish with certain goals in sight. Is this to be the case with Real this season?
With Jose Mourinho lurking in the background (eek, I do not like Messr Mourinho one bit), Schuster must be feeling a little bit of heat, where in December he was on top of the world and looked set for continuation into next season.
The players must be questioned as well. While our capitan Raul has returned to his great form of the Del Bosque era, other players have struggled, specifically Mamadou Diarra and Fernando Gago who cannot put together a string of good performances, while players like Robben, Pepe, Heinze and Metzelder, all Schuster reqruites, cannot stay healthy. Lack of form in players like Soldado, Saviola, Baptista, Torres and Sneijder could be attributed mainly to lack of playing time or playing out of position most of the season due to injuries. And then there are the young players, Higuain, Drenthe, Balboa, and Sergio Ramos who have not impressed like they were expected to (isnt it funny that Sergio Ramos is a wiley vet but he is still so young).
It has to be said that Raul has been great, Ruud as well, while Robinho, Canna, Marcelo, and Guti have been great in spurts. But with the injury to Ruud showing the cracks in our offense (the over reliance on his play) and the constant defensive position merry go round to compensate ofr injuries/suspensions, are the players unknowingl letting their manager down? Or is Schuster under utilizing some players that could be great covered for injured squad memebers? Balboa, Drenthe, Gago, Saviola, Soldado, Torres and Metz (although out the season now) were rarely played in the beginning of the season as the first team was never tampered with. And now that the first team is wornd down, some of these players still are not getting their chance because they lack any form because they didnt play all year.
My opinion is Schuster has not used his big squad wisely, and is to blame for the form of the team at all times, not necessarily them winning or loosing, as he doesnt get out their and kick the ball himself. if the team lies does down in defeat several games in a row, it is Schuster’s fault. If the team goes down swinging (think Valencia), then its the players fault but a credit to Schuster that he has the team playing well anyways. What is your opinion of our teams lack of form in the second half of the season?
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Comments
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i think its a mixture of arrogance from the team and bad rotation from Schuster. With their explosive start to the campaign and the morale/ego boosting win at Barca’s home i think some of the players believed that they could relax. Secondly, Schuster has a tendency to overuse players and not rotate unless circumstances obligate. This overuse of key-players/ game-changing players leads to fatigue and a continuous run of under performance. And now his key-players are injured, and with this lack of rotation - it also leads to an over reliance on them.
Posted from
Australia
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Wat ive never gotten round to understanding is that you real madrid people talk about your playing style so much you fired a coach for it but wat exatly is your style. Is it an attacking game,coz apart from the fact that(i do admit) you have the quickest players going forward Barca and Man U are still the best attacking teams. Then you say you play possession play but what of the balls people like Diarra give away so often even your most inventive passer Guti losses possession like crazy then makes one move to cover for it all. Your coach claims to love plays starting from the back so whats with the desparate pumeling forward of the ball now and again,then he is said to be a pioneer of entertaining football but every smaall team you play against seems to be the more entertaining team,or does it just rub off b4 the first whistle,or is it a passing game cause you guys are still way behind teams like arsenal,i wonder but id appreciate as much info on wats Real madrids style of football as much as possible.
Posted from
United States -
Well you need to improve your English greatly, but if you have ever watched Real play before 2003, you would understand what our style of football is. There are so many great examples of our posession attacking stlye, watch a game from 1980s-2003 and you will see it.
It is true we have fallen behind and Schuster has hardly delivered his promise of beautiful football, but it will take time, the Florentino Perez era of coaching and player changes really damaged the club to the core, so while Capello was brought in to make the team win, Schuster was brought in for winning and style of play, but he is doing little of either right now. I say he continues on, as rumors of Mourninho signing are vastly overspeculated. The truth is the club needs to have time to settle down again, and some continuity with a coach to play beautiful football. If you look at the big teams who play well, they have had coaches for longer then 2 years and this leads to stability and attractive football.
Give it time, despite all the gripes we Real fans have, it should be commonly agreed that we need a coach to stay in power for longer then a year to play attractive football. Whether that is Schuster or not remains to be seen…
Posted from
United States -
Also, the arrogance comment continues to confuse me. Isnt Manchester United arrogant in the way they manipulate ref’s in the EPL, or Milan in the way they put more emphasis on a meaningless trophy in Japan then their own league, or Bayern Munich when their players speak to the press about how Aberdeen are a no good rotten stinkin team but almost end up loosing to them?
When do Real players ever come off as arrogant, if their capitans main comment after every match is the team needs to work harder to achieve its goals. This arrogance you speak of is found only in the minds of people who are anti-Real for whatever reason.
Posted from
United States -
Fuckin’ Huzzah, Corey - way to defend Real against the whole ‘arrogant’ tick. I think the arrogance that outsiders tend to reference is the fans’ insistance of the best from the squad, and no doubt there are asshole supporters out there that give Madrid a bad name, but name a team, religion, country, powder puff football team that that’s not true of.
I think you covered all of the things maligning our club this year extrememly well, and Raji made some very good points to. I still think the big factors are our relience on Ruud and Raul, our crippled defense, and Schuster’s failure to lift the team up and organize them when things start falling apart (also the continued lack of real formation is beginning to infuriate me).
The other point you made that I think to be especially true is that of the coach - the team has constantly been forced to adapt to different styles, both playing and coaching. Okay, if there’s one big difference between Capello’s tactics and Schuster’s it’s that the defense attempts to press (sometimes all the way to the midfield line). Suprise suprise then, that we’ve been struggling to cover the counter attacks: we just started doing it this season. Not one of the defensive players has experience with that style of defense, except for Ramos (who’s gotten the least complaints for his defending). The team is still learning the technique, and they’re understandably bad at it. That’s not an excuse, but it helps to understand.
Posted from
United States
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