Siempre Madrid

Can Dark Horses be Unicorns? - Part I

2009-10-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India.

Casual observers, more often than not, write off the Spanish Primera Liga as a two horse race, that between Real Madrid and Barcelona, with Valencia showing up once a while to spoil the party and the other sides serving up nothing more than fodder for the thoroughbreds.

While it is easy to take the write-off at face value (and why not, the two Spanish behemoths share an outstanding 50 Spanish Leagues and 13 UCLs between them, amongst a host of other domestic and international honors), a closer look back over the last decade makes one realize that though Liga has been more or less a two horse race in terms of the end of season result, every season there has been a dark horse that has threatened to topple the domination of the Twin Towers of Spanish football.

Super Depor

The start of the new millennium saw the advent of a great team called Super Depor, none other than Deportivo la Coruna (), a team though not quite as decorated as but nevertheless comparable to Barcelona’s Dream Team and Real Madrid’s Quinte de la Buitre. Though Real Madrid eventually went on to win the UEFA Champions League that season, it was Super Depor who won the 99-00 edition of Liga. The team included talents like Roy Makaay, Diego Tristan and Silva. However, the 99-00 La Liga being Depor’s 1^st ever title, was nothing compared to their whirlwind season of 03-04 which saw them beat Juventus in the UCL knockouts without conceding a goal. But even this dint beat the encounter that followed which saw Super Depor win 4-0 at The Riazor against an in form AC Milan, after having lost the 1^st leg 1-4 at San Siro. The Riazor is incidentally Real Madrid’s bogey stadium, where Madrid hasn’t been able to get a positive result for the past 18 years. Coming back to 03-04, Depor eventually went down fighting like lions to Jose Mourinho’s Porto FC, who eventually went on to become champions of Europe that season. Deportivo la Coruna hasn’t been the same team since, but they have always finished inside the top 10 every season, just shy of the top 5 slots.

Real Sociedad, the 1 season wonder

Following the whirlwind 99-00 season, Super Depor finished as runners up in the 00-01 edition of La Liga, second only to Valencia who finished as champions; the same Valencia who featured in the all Spanish final of the 99-00 edition of UCL in the Stade de France, Paris. The 02-03 season saw another dark horse shake its mane, rear up and gallop away with the title, well almost. Real Sociedad encapsulated the finest in Spain that season finishing just 2 points behind Florentino Perez’s Galacticos Part I. The key members of that Sociedad side included Darko Kovacevic, Nihat Kahveci and Xabi Alonso. This Sociedad side dominated the entire year round, sitting top of the table till match day 37, and finished the season unbeaten at home and 6 away defeats. Only the Galacticos conquered them, but only just and that too on the last day through Sociedad’s undoing when they lost to Celta Vigo. Great things were expected out of Sociedad the next season; however they failed to live up to their own standards and faded into obscurity in the next season itself. An honorable mention to Celta Vigo who challenged like champions in the 01-02 and 02-03 editions of La Liga.

Real Betis Balompie & Osasuna

The 03-04 season saw Valencia as the run away winners with 77 points, while 2 points separated the next 3 positions occupied by Barcelona (72), Depor (71) and Real Madrid (70) respectively. It was one of the closest battles fought for the runner up position in the Liga. The 04-05 season saw parity restored as the traditional power houses of Spain battled it out, with Barcelona emerging as winners. Two frog leaps behind a total of 5 points separated the next 4 positions with Valencia, Real Betis, Espanyol and Sevilla battling it out for the Champions League spot. Only Valencia and Real Betis made it. Real Betis had been perennial challengers since the turn of the century having finished inside the top 10. They sprung more than a fair share of surprises for the top clubs during their time. Real Betis got knocked out in the group stage itself.

The 05-06 edition of La Liga was a closely fought season with only 4 points separating the first 5 positions. Barcelona did the league double with 82 points while Real Madrid ended up runners up at 80. Valencia followed at 69, while Osasuna and Sevilla were tied on 68 points. Osasuna who until then had been finishing outside the top 10 and had even flirted with relegation for a couple of season suddenly found them in Europe’s top tier tournament. The pressure proved too much and they crashed out in the qualification round against Hamburg. However, they made it till the semi final in Europe’s 2^nd tier tournament leaving a string of upsets in their wake. Osasuna were never able to replicate that kind of form again. The following season they finished outside the top 10 again and in the 08-09 season they avoided relegation one of the last matches of the season thanks to a goal scored by a former merengue (Juanfran).

Sevilla FC

The 06-07 season dawned with Real Madrid having won zilch for 4 years in a row and Barcelona as hot favorites. The pressure was on Real Madrid’s new coach, Fabio Capello to deliver. The season started reasonably well for everyone, but the way it ended has become a story of legend. Real Madrid overcame a 5 point deficit over Barcelona in the last 13 games, winning most of them having gone a goal or two down. The title wasn’t settled after 38 games with Real Madrid and Barcelona tied on points. However Real Madrid were declared winners since they had the better head to head record. During this season, the only team that dared to challenge the two sides was Sevilla. Sevilla FC, the oldest club in Andalusia was relegated to Segunda at the turn of the century. Hence they did not take part in the 1^st edition of the Primera in the new millennium.

Sevilla however were promoted at the end of 2001 and came once again to top flight Spanish football in the 02-03 season, finishing 8^th in the table. From here on, Sevilla began a steady ascendency in the table finishing 3^rd in the 06-07 season. The Andalusians play slick free flowing football, and are known as a unit rather than individual talents. Sevilla’s resurrection began with the hiring of coach Juande Ramos in 2005. In 2005, Sevilla won the UEFA Cup, trumped the then European Champions Barcelona to win the 06-07 UEFA Super Cup and successfully defended its UEFA Cup title against Espanyol in an all Spanish final in 06-07. Sevilla qualified for the 07-08 edition of UCL, but couldn’t get past the first knockout round. They however managed to secure a place in the 09-10 UCL by finishing 3^rd in the table in the 08-09 season.

Villareal CF

The 07-08 season was dominated from the outset by Real Madrid and they went on to finish as runaway group leaders with a 12 point lead. Barcelona held on to 2^nd place for most of the season, but crashed out terribly at the season’s close allowing even Villareal to finish 10 points ahead of them.

Like Sevilla, even Villareal played the 99-00 edition of Liga in Segunda but secured promotion for next year finishing inside the top 10 in 00-01 in the Primera Liga. In the next 2 seasons Villareal battled relegation and finished just above the drop zone. In 03-04 Villareal reached the semi finals of the UEFA Cup, followed immediately by a quarter final crash-out in the 04-05 edition of the UEFA Cup. Manuel Pellegrini’s hiring as the coach in 2004 turned the team’s fortune. Villareal finished 3^rd in the 04-05 season qualifying for the 05-06 UCL. Villareal topped the group in Europe, a group which consisted of European veterans like Manchester United, holding out Man Utd to a 0-0 draw over 2 legs. They knocked out Internationazale Milan in the quarter finals, but narrowly lost out to Arsenal in the semi-finals. However, they earned a lot of praise during that season as an European newbie which played slick, attacking football and was not afraid to take the game to the big teams. The Yellow Submarine as Villareal are referred to, again drew Arsenal in the 08-09 season. They drew the 1^st leg but lost the 2^nd leg 3-0 to Arsenal.

…Spanish football has always emphasized on creativity over mundane strategies. It is this creativity which when nurtured properly gave rise to these so called Dark Horses. Spanish teams, as a rule, can boast of a strong youth foundation in all their teams. Combined with this youth foundation, shrewd signings of players with potential has enabled some teams over the year to churn out extraordinary results with what seemingly looks like an average squad of players.

The question that now arises is that with so much apparent talent, why do these so called dark horses find it hard to turn into unicorns, those elusive, mythical leaders of horses? Why does the Liga still seemingly look like a 2 horse race to people? I would like to know your views regarding these questions which I would compile to prepare the Part II of this article which deals with why these dark horses don’t turn into unicorn and what steps need to be taken to rectify this error.

CR7(9?) : A Curse Or A Boon?

2009-06-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Rahul Shankar, India.

It’s been over a week since the sensational news shook the entire footballing world right down to its roots. And at times, not even just the footballing world; a fine example being that even the Prime Minister of the UK, Gordon Brown, came out and commented on the mind-numbing move. A lot has been written and a lot has been said since. A lot of criticism has come the way of the club regarding the dizzying amount of money put into plucking the player. And the obvious question thus arises. Is the player worth this much? Does Cristiano Ronaldo really deserve the astronomical salary he is bound to get at Real Madrid? Does any footballer for that matter?

This will be painful, but let's just for a moment jog back our memory and look back at the season gone by. The season began well enough with the victory over Valencia in the Spanish Super Cup, a cup that often results in criticism when lost, and no joy when won. But nonetheless, won it was. The Liga season began with a loss. Some might call it ominous signs for the season ahead. Others might argue Barcelona started their season with a failure too and their season was anything but. The trouncing of Sporting Gijon was one of false hope, as the season, as well as Schuster's reign, started crumbling, with vital losses to Juventus, Getafe and Sevilla. He was quickly thrown out and replaced by Juande Ramos. The first Classico loss was not his fault, and eventually under him, our season started gaining remarkable momentum, with victories being notched up at an astounding rate. Liverpool was a catastrophe (understatement) but that was soon overlooked by the continuation of the robot-like victories in the Liga. The Classico came again, catastrophe happened again and the season thereafter spiraled down to a miserable and thoroughly forgettable mess. All this time of course, the football remained deplorable. Downright woeful, so much so that had I not been a Madridista, I would've been afraid to sit through 90 minutes of a Real game. The management was hardly helping. Under Calderon, we spent more than our fair share without recruiting the kind of quality that was fit to challenge at the very highest level. He lacked the tact, temperament and stature to broker the big deals; Canterano such as Roberto Soldado and Javi Garcia were wrongly recalled and subsequently neglected, while Juan Mata was allowed to leave; and one often unnoticed fact is that no Spanish players were purchased throughout his reign.

It was thus, no secret. Changes were needed. Immediately. Big changes to not only provide adequate results but to drastically improve the quality of the football being offered. To bring back the glory, the pride, the lure, of donning the famed white. Florentino Perez decided he must take the responsibility of trying to shape these changes.

Now we're Real Madrid. The biggest club in the footballing world, however you look at it. And we had to rebuild. To reconstruct, one makes changes. And when you're the biggest club in the world, the changes have to be big and only the biggest players can cause the required changes. It doesn't quite get bigger than Cristiano Ronaldo today.

Our right flank has been vacant and it has been screaming for someone to occupy it since Beckham's departure. Filling it up has been long overdue. As a right-winger, Ronaldo probably just about edges out Julien Faubert. He can play on either flank, possesses explosive pace, exceptional goalscoring ability and instinct, and aerial threat as a central striker. His crosses and wing-play are right up there with the best. He can take unique, effective and diabolical set-pieces. His skills, flair and the bag of tricks just add the sheen to a bulging repertoire. We have a player who, on the pitch, offers us everything we need in a manner that no one else - not even Kaka - could match. And in this instance, to add to all the multitude of talents, we have got only the most commercially viable footballer on the planet next to David Beckham. There's been a tremendous amount of hue and cry about the colossal amount paid to get him. But that's a very subjective, even pointless argument. We can afford it, that's why we paid it. Manchester United and Real Madrid obviously believe he's worth that much. We'll obviously make it all back and lots lots more in no time thanks to his hysteric pull. With of course the "added benefits" of having a tremendous quality footballer who can do almost whatever he wants on the pitch. And off it as well, and that's where the problems begin.

One thing Ramon Calderon can at least be credited with having overseen at Madrid, is the virtual elimination of the ego. The club performed beyond their means time after time, with thrilling come-backs being conjured at regular intervals, to collect back-to-back Liga titles over a Barcelona side that, on paper at least, remained markedly superior. Now surely even an illiterate football viewer will know that the only thing to denigrate Ronaldo by, is his attitude. His ego, which inflates with every step-over he performs, can be a serious cause for concern. His plea for praise can reach vulgar limits at times. His massive salary can be a genuine worry for the fans as it could lead to potential rifts within the dressing room. And if a strict disciplinarian like Alex Ferguson could not tame his temprament, there will be doubts if Pellegrini can. Although the Chilean did handle Riquelme's ego admirably while at Villareal and did not let it affect the team, Ronaldo is a completely different case altogether. But one heartening thing from all this is that his game on the pitch never deteriorated. His performances have remained remarkably consistent week-in week-out. In spite of the massive self-admiration, he does his business magnificently on the pitch.

He makes statements like "I am aware I'm already among the best of the best”. But in the same breath, he says things like “I don't like to relax. The fans want to see a great Cristiano Ronaldo so I try to never disappoint." Love him or hate him, he is undeniably an enigma. And he's on his way to Real Madrid. Will he eventually live up to all the hype, expectations and the price? Will he be a curse or a boon? I believe the age old saying goes something like, “Only time will tell...”

Fiesta, Siesta and Iniesta

2009-05-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

Posted by: A Spaniard in the works, India.

Okay. I have to tell the truth here. I have been hurt as much as every one of you here because of the match result. The blog had a very good preview for the El Classico, but the match report (more of a post mortem I guess) was conspicuously absent. I am still hurting from the loss. I will be even more honest here. I wanted to write an article that night itself about how we should learn from Barcelona and how I would not begrudge them a victory in the champions league and how Nadal's victory in Rome was an omen that a Spainsh team would triumph again. But, due to my fraility I waited. Why? All my words of praise and judgement would come crashing to the ground had Barca lost on the pitch in London yesterday. In a way, I was bothered about what my peers would think of me because of my actions. It is sometimes convenient to think of football clubs and managers as massive personalities. Some of the decisions taken about playing style and tactics is also about personalities and public perceptions. And that is why I believe it was a huge difference in the style of the match and also the result. Which one did you like?

......2-6- Game, Set, Match, Championship

It did indeed read like a tennis scoreline. I had a dilemma here. Our match was right in between the two legs (now, now lets all be adults here.) of the two champions league semi final fixture. Yet, here I will treat it as one event and deal with it later. In reality, there was much to learn from the way Chelsea played the game, atleast tactically. But again, did we go wrong so much? The two scenarios were very different. Chelsea were playing to get a result. We were looking for pride and probably dent our rivals' chances. In hindsight, Barcelona approached all the three games in the same fashion. Looked comfortable in possession and were not afraid to play one touch football even if it was to play out of trouble. It was another matter that Real had some baffling tactical stupidity behind some of its decisions. Juande Ramos has disappointed me tactically in all the big games this season. Let us take this game and dissect where we lost the game:

a) Extremely high backline- Juande thought that Real was a popular actress going to one of these red carpet events and used an exposed high backline. This is of no use against a team with extremely fast attackers like Messi, Henry and Eto. When a ball is played to a frontline, it is common knowledge that the attackers face the goal and defenders have their backs to goal. Beating the offside trap means that a forward has an advantage of not having to turn for the ball and hence has the edge. The problem is compounded if it is a fast forward scenario (pardon the pun!!). The goal being a game changing event, the offside rule was recently tweaked to protect a defender. Now, any part of the forward must not be ahead of the last defender when the forward pass is made for a non offside call. Earlier, the line used to be drawn at the feet. Leaning in would create a major advantage for the forward. Even then, when you are playing a very fast attacking team, you don't play a high backline unless you have very fast defenders who have the legs to recover the ball. We have Pepe and Ramos who are quick. The rest of them would not win a sprint for sure. In that scenario, how do you explain having a high backline? Most of the attacks were because of the lack of pace in defence. One more essential quality of a high backline is co operative forward movement to lay the offside trap. In the Classico, that was absent. The positioning of the fullbacks was abysmal. They lagged in pushing up and paid the price.

b) Absence of a central offense- All our attacks barring a couple of passes lacked invention in the centre. Most of it was directed through the wing. Higuain was left to dribble past three players multiple times and most of it was directed through the wing. If the wingbacks are busy in trying to cope with torrential rain, you are not going to receive much help from them either. I don't understand his reluctance to play Van der Vaart. I believe he has not got enough chances to play in his preferred position behind the strikers. In too many games he has played on the wing or come on too late. If I were Ramos, I would have played VDV alongside Lass. He is a a handy passer for the Netherlands. Raul was invisible except for two chances as a consequence of that.

c) Sergio Ramos- He has not been looking like himself of late. Looks jaded and surprisingly looks suspect defensively. I used to rate him alongside Maicon and Alves as one of the 3 best right backs in the world, but his form has been disappointing to say the least. And, to make things worse, we have no viable alternative in his position. Gabriel Heinze was worse.

I sympathise with Juande Ramos. He has done well in his spell but has failed in all the big matches. But we should not forget why we gave Barcelona this kind of space. We had to win the match. And if we had won it in Chelsea style, the fans at the stadium would have never forgiven us for playing soporific football. Even though they were vastly outnumbered in the Bernabeu, the strengh of (her)cules took them through. There was no necessity of Real yelling "Eto'o brute?". He did not show up, much to my delight. Barcelona could have scored more if Messi was more clinical and Iniesta not that unselfish.

Stamford Bridge has fallen down, my fair lady....

"As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal." -Jose Mourinho

It is sort of ironic that a former Chelsea manager came up with this iconic quote for occasions where lower teams played for not conceding against the big teams. This is the funny thing about the world. When lower teams do this men behind the ball approach, they are ridiculed for being afraid and very defensive. Yet, when a big team like Chelsea does it, it is tactical superiority and super commitment. It is not just in sports. I would like to highlight the power of perception in two other real world scenarios. I must warn a discerning reader that these are stereotypes and not necessarily true:

a) A rich guy drinks for culture. A poor guy who drinks is a wifebeater.

b) This is a question and answer scenario to a person X.

Q: Why is the sky blue? A: I don't know.

Let us see our reactions for two cases who are the people who have given the answer.

X= Nobel prize winner= "Ooohhh..... he is so modest! He has an attitude of wanting to learn everyday".

X= Tenth standard student= " What? You don't know that? You are retarded, man!"

Unfortunately, the power of perception happens to be real and that is why life is so interesting so many times. Anyway, the matter of how we come across as a football club and philosophy is worthy of a lengthy article in itself.

I will not mince my words. I have massive respect for Guus Hiddink and Fabio Capello as I believe they have the ability to get the best out of even limited resources. Guus Hiddink has shown time and again that he can overachieve even with the most modest resources in the case of PSV, Australia, Russia and South Korea. In many of these cases, he had a job to do- to qualify. And it was obvious in the first minute with any of these sides that they were the weaker team when they slayed fancier opponents. So, it was almost second nature to him to ask his players to stay behind the ball and not give any space whatsoever. Chelsea actually defended in two lines- the midfield right in front of the penalty box and the backline was extremely deep to sweep any through balls. It also served another purpose; it negated all the movement and pace by Barcelona in the box. In my opinion, it was anti football. I don't like this approach. To be honest, I almost had an aneurysm at the end of the match. But, this approach exists solely because it is successful, even though a lot of fans might feel it is boring. Chelsea are not afraid to bruise their opponents in the EPL. But here, only Messi and Eto were marked heavily. They were happy as long as the ball did not come close to their box. They did not come snapping at the heels. Eric Abidal's sending off was a pivotal point in the game. For more than twenty minutes, Barcelona played without a defensive midfielder- just Xavi and Busquets- and Chelsea did not capitalize. They took off Drogba who could have caused some problems. Chelsea played only in the counter attack which was mostly off the wing. This signalled lack of intent to kill the game for me. Iniesta's goal was very good. Essien's goal was even better. Chelsea will feel hard done by. They have been to five semifinals in six years now and have not won the trophy even once. They have a set of talented players who will probably never lift the trophy- like the game's biggest bridesmaid- Michael Ballack. But this is a victory for the game of football. Barcelona have clearly been the best team in Europe and it would have been a shame not to watch them play in the finals. So, the decisions taken by managers are a product of their environment and their situations. I am sure SAF will not follow the same tactics as Hiddink. I personally believe that doing so gives an impression that you feel that you are a weaker team. Many might disagree with me, but I am interested to know which of the two approaches would any footballing fan prefer? I would love it if fellow madridistas gave me their opinions on this one.

32-26-36? Va Va Voom!

This is the vital statistic this season, with Barcelona playing sexy football in popular footballing parlance. These are the number of goals scored by Eto'o, Henry and Messi in all competitions this year. Even though this number looks humungous, it is easy to forget the under rated Andres Iniesta. Not too long ago, he was Ronaldinho's understudy. He has been instrumental in getting the ball moving on the pitch. His biggest weapon is his two footed dribble, which allows him to keep the ball not too far away from his body and that makes it very difficult to dispossess him. Due to this, he can move both inside and outside the fullback with equal ease. I will not forget the way he danced around Essien in both the legs. He is extremely unselfish as well. I have seen numerous occasions where he is happy to grab the assist. The Classico had two such examples. Against Valencia too, he had a chance and he passed to Messi. It is players like these who win matches. In fact, there is a legend that our own Ferenc Puskas was one such man. He made many goals for Di Stefano when the latter grew insecure about the top goalscorer status.

Iniesta the Redeemer.

Any resemblance to the statue in Rio is simply coinicidental. Here is to a man who I believe is one of the modern wonders of the world!

Barcelona's high possession, short pass football has been nice to watch. What is interesting is the unusually high pass percentage. A team with 60% has had a very good day. Yet, in all the three matches, it was more than 80%- something that would be associated with a defensive midfielder or defender. United are going to trouble them with set pieces. I feel that the balance has shifted slightly to United as Barca are going to miss their regular fullbacks and I just hope Barcelona's victory against Chelsea was not pyrrhic. I am hoping for one good football match. Hopefully, we can reach such a stage next year at home!

Hala Madrid!

A Spaniard in the works.

P.S: I kindly request those of you who have managed to read through the whole article and are somehow awake to give me feedback about what sort of tactics should Real have employed? Our attempt at attack failed. Should we have taken a Chelseaesque route? I don't think so. Let me know what you think!

Squad Analysis

2009-05-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Paulo Martin, Spain.

The bloody defeat to Barcelona on Saturday at the Santiago Bernabéu has provoked a veritable earthquake in Real Madrid. The history, philosophy and fighting spirit of the club has kept us fighting until the final whistle, but this time it has become clear that our chances of victory were not real. The club lived in a fantasy that Guardiola and his players woke us from as sharp and harsh as possible.

Now, just over a month for the election to the presidency Madrid, the club movements are accelerated. Regardless of who wins the election the Merengues demand and expect changes. Deep important changes. It has been made clear that the squad is not good enough and making a couple of signings will not be enough to strengthen it if the club wants to compete in all 3 competitions as is expected from it.

Before making additions to the squad some casualties will have to be made and among them could be some major players. It will be a long and difficult process, but at the start of next season, the squad could be very different from today.

Here is my analysis of the squad:

Casillas - Nontransferable: Although during Florentino`s first term at the club he was being questioned by the president, he has earned his right to stay and become a club and world icon. For many, Iker today is the real "galactico" of Real Madrid.

Dudek - Transferable: The Czech has not played, and when he has not had an outstanding performance to close the door to the youth keepers. His function could be carried out by Codina.

Codina - Nontransferable: The canterano has demonstrated a good level. Is able to replace Casillas, and until he plays he can continue learning to play from the worlds best keeper: Iker Casillas. If he wants to progress away from Madrid, youth team has alternatives.

Salgado - Transferable: The Galician is in the twilight of his exceptional career and looks set to pack his suitcases bound for Qatar. No longer is he able to dominate the right-back role. His character does not compensate his physical shortcomings.

Pepe - Nontransferable: Assault aside, the Portuguese is one of the best center backs in Europe. If he can control the outbursts he will once again be very important for the team.

Sergio Ramos - Nontransferable: The Andalusian has not had a good season. Was very confused throughout the season and has made grave mistakes, but if it regains his focus he will again become a great player.

Cannavaro - Transferable: The Italian central back has reached the end of the season at an average level, but you begin to notice the years on him. Furthermore, it appears that he has committed himself to Juve for the coming year. We shall miss his professionalism.

Marcelo - Nontransferable: Not very active in defense but in attack was great as is expected from the Brazilian. Has not shown that can be a regular starter as left back but looks like a good left winger, still young and has room for improvement.

Miguel Torres - Nontransferable: While not spectacular, always done well playing in either the right or the left. Great squad player for next year.

Heinze - Transferable: The Argentine is no longer the player he first was when he arrived at Madrid. Has gained strength in the dressing room because of his strong character but has lost strength on the pitch against rival forwards, no longer is his presence respected and feared and he is surpassed with ease.

Metzelder - Nontransferable: The German has been shown to be a great solid reliable central defender, he has made it clear that he has sufficient quality to play for Real Madrid.

Javi García - Transferable: Canterano. He has not played too much this year and when he has he had to switch between two different positions: centermidfelder and center back. It seems like he is not Real Madrid material.

Drenthe - Transferable: He arrived in Madrid as a diamond in the rough. He had room for improvement, but it is clear that there will be plenty of polishing to do before he becomes a diamond. Has not gone down well with the public of the Bernabeu and is considered not worthy of wearing the white shirt.

Diarra - Transferable: In past seasons he was the only players keeping our midfield together, but little more. Much of the balls that recovers he gives away again in the after a bad pass. Unable to launch the offense from our area.

Gago - Uncertain: The Argentine has quality to spare, and is great physically and is not afraid to fight for the ball. His problem is his irregularity. Has been "absent" in all the big game, the games where we expected the most from him.

Lass - Nontransferable: If Madrid wants to keep a midfielder that offers any containment then it should be him. Since his debut he has shown class and character and has become a key part of the team.

Guti - Transferable: An institution within the club, but is still questioned by his ever lasting problem: his irregularity. He is capable of best (while being marked can give an impossible assist) but also the worst.

Parejo - Nontransferable: This creative center midfielder has barely been able to demonstrate his quality. Alfredo Di Stefano`s favourite canterano has a lot to offer.

De La Red - Nontransferable: He is recovering from heart problems and should be important part of the squad in the future (if his medical condition allows it). His vision and his quality of play have never been questioned.

Sneijder - Uncertain: The player who struck it big in his first games with Real Madrid, his power and his class have been diluted over time. Only if he recovers and regains focus will he remain as part of the squad.

Robben - Uncertain: There is no doubt about the quality he has. However, a team as big as Madrid can not afford to have a player that plays only 45 percent of the matches of the season due to injuries.

Faubert - Transferable: No comment. The signing inexplicable. Has barely played.

Van der Vaart - Transferable: He arrived with the hype of being a "superclass", but perhaps having played far from his natural position or adjustment problems have resulted in him not delivering what was expected of him.

Raúl - Transferable: The captains time has come for him to pass the torch. Thanks to his intelligence and quality he continues to have good stats, but a young striker with more quality and pace will surely bring more and better things. Madrid would miss his winning mentality and his Madridismo.

Saviola - Transferable: He is not a striker for Real Madrid. Last season took the few opportunities he had coming out from the bench well, but when played full games hardly saw him at all.

Van Nistelrooy - Uncertain: The Dutchman is one of the worlds great goal scoring mahcines but is at the downhill of his career. Ensures goals, but maybe someone younger can bring more to the team.

Higuaín - Nontransferable: The Argentine grows and grows every day. Not world class yet, but a very good player. He has been improving his finishing and demonstrated being strong and having character and faith in his possibilities.

Huntelaar - Nontransferable: "The hunter" has shown he can score goals in the league. The Van Nistelrooy of the future.

El Clasico Special: Fan Vs Fan

2009-05-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India

Photo Credit: Saurabh (Cule)

So in line with the “El Clasico” preview, our blog team did a small “Fan vs Fan” bit on Orkut. We invited Cules and Madridistas from the Real Madrid vs Barcelona community on orkut to participate in a common questionnaire. We got some really interesting, some whacky and some spiteful answers. One thing cannot be ignored though; although the two sets of fans absolutely loathe and despise each other, there is a kind of grudging respect for the rival teams, if not for anything, then simply for what the rival club symbolizes.

So, we move on with the questionnaire and let the readers come to their own conclusions about the matter…

What do you think of your rival team’s squad?

Joan (Cule) put it straight and up front about Real Madrid: “They have little depth in certain areas of the squad. The squad is totally uncompensated. No right wingers, no quality reliable left backs; they only have 3 center backs, they lack pace in all departments but especially up front. They lack a consistent creative midfielder who dictates the pace of the game. And they have too many injury prone players”

Sachin Chandra (Cule) took a slightly diplomatic tone: “well they are a young squad with pretty good talent even though not world beating talent; they have excessive squad players who are not worthy enough to play in a club of such a big stature but still play. The squad lacks any kind of creative spark in its play”

Rai Krol (Madridista) was full of praise and gushingly commented: “I think they are the best technically gifted team i have seen play. They do not just play football; sometimes what they do is art”

King (Madridista) answered it limerick-ishly: “Youth, Flair, Speed, Skill, Possession, all summoned up by the brilliance of Pep can be summed up as Barcelona's style”

What do you think about the chances of your team?
Overall, the mood from the Cule camp seemed to be quite confident. Same cannot be said about the madridistas though.

Joan (Cule) answered confidently: “Pretty good chance of getting a positive result. Its do or die for Madrid but it isn't for us, so realistically an away draw would be an excellent result for us where as it would be a terrible result for Madrid”

Kunal (Cule) wasted no time in putting it mathematically: “75 % chances of winning and 15 % of drawing”. We assume the missing percentages to total it to 100 are the chances of losing according to him.

Pradeep (Madridista) was quite frank about his team’s chances: “It’s slightly less than that of our rivals. We have many injury problems and many of our key players are missing. Real Madrid need a win and any other result wont do for us which is a big advantage for our direct rivals!!”

Paulo Martin (Madridista) also tried his hand at being mathematical: “I think we’ll push very hard, especially at the start of the game and at the end again depending how close the game is. We have the advantage of playing at home and crowd carrying the team and the fact that Barça will be fatigued. I’d say its 60/40 in our favour”

What strategy do you think the coach of your team will employ in the clasico?

Saurabh (Cule) quipped: “Same as always: Attack, Attack & Attack, and a 4-3-3 formation. We'll play our usual passing game”

Karthik (Cule) had something different to say, other than the above mentioned (patented) answer: “I think we will be given a bit more physical strength in the midfield by adding Keita. I think the coach will let the team play just as they had played the season and he would ask the players to press for the ball a bit more so that the opposite team will get frustrated”

Paulo Martin (Spain) put it quite laconically: “Probably cautious counter attacking football but strategies tend to go out the window in a clasico.”

Pradeep (Madridista) sounded a bit apprehensive: “With many of our players missing, I dont think we will be attacking from the first minute! We may try to play defensively and will step up our play according to the score line at half time.”

What strategy do you think the coach of the opposite team will employ in the clasico?
There seemed to be a divide in the Cule camp about this. The madridistas seemed to have a common consensus.

Karthik (Cule) expects something out of the ordinary: “Well i think real madrid would come and attack us a lot. They have a very good holding midfielder in Lass and I think VDV will be up to the mark in the clasico since he is very intelligent on the ball. Their defence will be a bit weak but i think they will attack and defend together as a team. Higuain can cause lot of problem to our defence since he is doing spectacular and he has been an absolute revelation this season.”
Joan (Cule) is more in line with the feelings coming out of the camp nou: “I think they`ll be fairly cautious and try to counter attack us at all times. I don't think Madrid are capable of carrying the game and keeping the ball, they are much more comfortable giving the possession away and counter attacking.”

King (Madridista) commented: “The same strategy they have used all season; Pass, Pass & Pass till they find a hole. Keep possession and be wary of physical contact”

Rai Krol (Madridista) seconded: “Same as always; possession football at its best”

How confident are about your team winning this match?

Prashanth (Cule) had the disposition of taking whatever comes his way (except defeat, of course): “Would love Barca 2 complete the first double for us since 98-99 is it. But a draw would be fine with us as well!”

Kunal (Cule) was quite confident though: “I m a bit jittery keeping in mind that the team will travel to England, but then since it's the Classico our team will leave no stone unturned and will surely do a double on RM this season.”

Kashan (Madridista) was a bit philosophical: “I believe in destiny and Real Madrid is all about Winning”

King (Madridista) sounded a bit desperate: “It’s a do or die situation for us. We can only go for a win if we are to have any chance at the liga. But barcelona have always been a super stubborn side and defeating them will not be the same as defeating sevilla or the others. How ever if we lose or draw, we can say goodbye to la liga. Fans will play an important role in this fixture”

What is your match prediction for the clasico?
Most of the cules predicted a draw and their predictions do have a ring of truth about it. Barcelona hasn’t really done the double on Real Madrid for a long time. So the overall mood coming in from the cule camp is that of cautiousness.

Karthik (Cule): 2-2
Saurabh (Cule): 3-2 to Real Madrid (Probably the only cule in this whole world predicting a loss for Barcelona)
Sachin Chandra (Cule): 1-1
Kunal (Cule): I think Barcelona will win 2-3. Iniesta , Yaya Toure and Dani Alves will play a big role in it and perhaps Eto'o.
Kashan (Madridista): 3-1 to Real Madrid
Paulo Martin (Madridista): 2-1 to Real Madrid
Siddhant (Madridista): 2-0 to Real Madrid
Pradeep (Madridista): 2-1 to Real Madrid

We only hope that the predictions by Madridistas come true and they don’t end up like our current interim club president.

What does your rival club symbolize to you as a football club?

Prashanth (Cule) summed it up in a very short sentence: “Never say die attitude, determination ..fans who want attractive football !”

Joan (Cule) seconded: “Fighting spirit, grit, determination and its never give up attitude.”

Kunal (Cule) had a grudging tone about his reply: “They believe in : Hit, Hit, Hit, Hit; Keep on Hitting until the opponents die or they die themselves; But never say die.

Karthik (Cule) put it as neutrally as possible: “Madrid has a great history, a great captain, a great goal keeper. They are sure to bounce back soon enough to their glory days”

Rai Krol (Madridista) admitted he was a bit envious about Barcelona before going to reply: “Admirable footballing philosophy, excellent brand of football and excellent youth set up”

King (Madridista) didn’t hold anything back as he said: “They are our arch rivals and both sets of fans dont like each other at all, but I will be frank here. I think barcelona are a wonder ful team and they have a very good way of handling their youth, they play beautiful possession football and are among the best clubs in the world. I hope they keep playing the way they are and make spain proud by kicking those lazy english clubs (read here as Chelsea, Manchester Utd / Arsenal) out of our sight”

Paulo Martin (Madridista) put it as neutrally as possible: “Brilliant style of football, never vary their style or change their philosophy of football. Always look to the youth system as a solution and not a problem and I admire them for that.”

A CLASICOL Encounter

2009-04-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India

December 13, 2008
Barcelona:

“The runaway league leaders beat Madrid 2-0 at the Camp Nou. Every cule tonight is proud of this team. This team is comparable to the legendary Dream Team or Rijkaard’s 05-06 team, for the sheer quality of football they play, even though they haven’t won anything till now.”

“Real Madrid played ugly football with systematic tactical fouling on Messi.”

“We proved we are not in any kind of pressure from any team. Our 12 point advantage proves that”

“We have one hand on the league with this kind of a lead. Real Madrid is not good enough to win it this time.”

Real Madrid:

“We played well given the circumstances. We did what was necessary to contain Barcelona and we almost succeeded. The world will remember that Madrid dint throw in the towel and instead tried to make a game out of a forgone conclusion.”

“We will fight and win the league. The race is still on.”

…That was some months ago. As we arrive at the eve of probably the biggest football match on the planet, known for the intense rivalry between both sets of fans and players, it’s only logical to go back and revisit the post match comments and compare them with the pre match comments of the upcoming El Clasico.

Present Day
Barcelona:

“Even if we lose to Real Madrid, we’ll still be 1 point ahead and also remember that Real Madrid have more difficult upcoming fixtures than Barcelona”

Real Madrid:

“We will fight and win the league. The race is still on”

…The difference in the tone of the comments is very perceptible. From self-proclaimed winners back to title contenders under serious pressure, the mood of Barcelona has been akin to that of having a saving account of pressure, where more and more pressure has been deposited by their friendly neighborhood rivals since the dawn of the new quarter. On the other hand, for Real Madrid, the journey has been pretty much stable. No one expects them to win anyway, and yet winning is probably the only thing they’ve been doing amidst healthy doses of Capello now and then.

Twelve points in December 2008. Four points in April 2009. The ferocious tenacity shown by Madrid in chipping away the huge point deficit has been really commendable, even though their style of play hasn’t. Games like this, the one against Sevilla, the one against Getafe define how a season ends and Madrid has surely come out tops over Barcelona in that aspect.

The Tactician vs The Prodigy

Juande Ramos has a lot of plaudits under his belt. He’s one of the reputed coaches around, inspite of his disaster of a season with Spurs. His achievements in Spain cannot be forgotten though. He is the coach responsible for taking a modest Sevilla outfit to one of the potential title contenders grabbing two consecutive UEFA Cups on the way, making them a force to be reckoned with in Europe as well. What counts against him is the fact that the injury prone Madrid squad is also not balanced with too many reinforcements in one area and none in the other.

On the other hand, Pep Guardiola is the rookie having no silverware under his belt. What he has on his side though is a motivated squad with all the players having hit top form simultaneously; not to mention the fat cash incentives that the Barca management has promised him in his contract for each of the silverware he wins.

The last time these two went head to head was on December 13 last year. Ramos had barely one training session to assess his team before rolling the players out in Camp Nou. On the other hand, Pep had a team which was demolishing every team they played in excess of 3 goals scored and none conceded. On May 2, Ramos will go into the Clasico on the back of a record breaking unbeaten streak for Real Madrid. Pep will go into the Clasico having a highly motivated and treble dreaming, albeit fatigued squad. It would be interesting to see how these two lay out their pawns on the green chess set of the Bernabeu.

Barbarians vs Ballerinas?

Real Madrid received a lot of criticism from Catalunya and football purists for their ultra conservative approach towards the match they last played. Some sects of fans in Barcelona went as far as labeling them as “Barbarians” for marking Xavi out of the game and the tactical fouling on Messi. Madridista retaliated by branding Barcelona as “Ballerinas”, for being so delicate that they took offence to physical contact in a contact sport. And they did have a case. A footballer knows how to get a player injured and set back home. But all the fouls on Messi were directed at his shins where there is protection. It was a desperate tactic; albeit a very ugly one, employed by a team clutching at straws to try and disrupt the Barca attacking flow and their mentality so that their concentration was disturbed. The tactic did pay dividends as Barca was unable to score till the 83rd minute with Iker Casillas grinding out one of his best performances in a Madrid jersey.

Only days ago, Valencia demonstrated that the mighty Barca can be halted by using a modified version of the tactic Madrid employed and last night Chelsea used the tactic to hold Barca to a goalless draw at the Camp Nou. That is evidence to show that Barcelona are indeed the Ballerinas of football. Exquisite, attractive, but shy at physical contact. Pep doesn’t seem to have too much tactical initiative when posed with a team which disrupts their normal style of play, and this chink in armor could b exploited to devastating effect by Madrid. On the other hand, Madrid with their defensive frailities in big matches (2 goals against Athletico, 5 against Liverpool, 2 against Sevilla) could be exploited if they allow Barcelona into the game.

The key to this encounter for both teams would be to simply continue what they’ve been doing and how they’ve been playing. Any deviation from the normal would spell doom. So, its back to Barbarians vs Ballerinas? That remains to be seen.

A Distinct Madridismo

Madrid have an advantage of playing the reverse leg at their fortress, the Santiago Bernabeu, where in inspite of their disaster of a seaon, they can boast of the best win record of this season for any club, and the better win record against Barcelona.

To make matters worse for Barcelona, only 800 tickets have been granted to Barcelona to be distributed amongst their travelling fans. And if this was not enough, a giant white mosaic has been prepared by the club fans to intimidate Barcelona. Each fan will find posters on their seat, which when raised simultaneously will blanket the stadium white.

The expected attendance at the Bernabeu is 80,000 which means a sell-out. Barbarians or Ballerinas, this colossal event guarantees to be a sell-out worldwide; something every football fan will tune into for.

Hala Madrid!

A “7EGENDARY” Comeback

2009-04-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India.

Real Madrid is a brand name. But in this team, every player is a brand name in his own right. The 06-07 season saw the team branded quite differently from the usual Los Blancos, Los Galacticos to “Capello’s Boys”. Capello symbolizes an abstract for the Madrid faithful (players, fans and management) rather than a person. Capello is determination, grit, pride, the “never say die” attitude for a madridista.

“Jonarda 33: Sevilla – Real Madrid” saw yet another chapter written into the scripted comeback that only Real Madrid with their “Capello” can orchestrate.

Rewind the clock to December 13, 2008. Juande Ramos had landed in Madrid 48 hours before and proclaimed that the back 4 of Real Madrid (S. Ramos, Cannavaro, Pepe, Heinze) – until then the leakiest defence in La Liga – could grace any top team in the world and was one of the best. Pretty strong claim, if one considers the last season, but not this one. Real Madrid played one of most defensive games in their entire career as a professional football club to stem the Barca juggernaut. And they almost succeeded. Drenthe spurned a one-on-one chance with Valdes, Casills wared off an Etoo penalty kick at the other end and the goal, when it came in the 81st minute, came from a corner (that ever reliant scrappiest source of goals). Real Madrid lost 0-2 to Barcelona at the Camp Nou and the point gap widened to 12 points, but it silenced those who were expecting a manita. A team which was going to be doubtful to make it to the Champions League next term went down fighting like lions, fighting for pride. There were flashes of Capello in that match; but not enough Capello. We declared the next day that we would fight for the league and win it. Everyone in Barcelona had a patronizing grin on their face and the so called football pundits had the disposition towards Madrid which a father has towards an errant child.

Fast forward the clock to Present Day. Real Madrid has been unbeaten on the trot since that fateful encounter with Barca. We have won 17 out of the last 18 matches. We have one of the meanest defence in the league since the turn of the new year but our play lacks the necessary eye candy element, which is still fine given that there are no extra points for attractive football There’s enough of Capello in our squad though and we’ve clawed our way back from a 12 point deficit to just 4 after being virtually written out of contention for the league; which all brings us down to the last concluded match.

Barcelona had a lucky draw against a resurgent Valencia at the Mestalla on the previous day and got 1 point out of an encounter that was destined to hand them none. This was the chance for Madrid to shorten the now 7 point gap to 4, provided they won against Sevilla at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan; a venue where they hadn’t won for the past 6 years. Unlikely? Very Much. But the team, especially El Capitan had other ideas.

Juande-Dollars and Judas Chants

The Andulasian crowd greeted Real Madrid on the back of a 4-0 defeat to Barcelona with dollar bills having Juande Ramos’ mugshot on them and chants of “Judas” directed at Juande Ramos and Sergio Ramos. Ironically, it was Juande Ramos who led Sevilla from being a mediocre mid-table club to European glory before departing for his disaster of a season with Tottenham Spurs. The Andulasians seemd to echo a distinct anti-madrid feeling by whistling at the two Ramoses, though they dint seem to take any offence to Dani Alves, who had departed for exactly the same reason as the former two did, but to Barcelona.

Referee Alfonso Burull (the awarder of the infamous decisions in Madrid’s favor against Osasuna) kicked off the match in front of a 45,000 attendance and Sevilla immediately hit top gear. Sevilla had the lion’s share of possession in the opening 10 minutes. Adriano, Renato, Kanoute, Perotti, Jesus Navas dominated the midfield and kept the ball moving around the park through Romaric and Duscher. Quite predictably, Sevilla had all the initial chances. Romaric and Renato blasted in early chances which were saved by San Iker. Sevilla kept up the pressure with Madrid really struggling to string passes together. Sergio Ramos, in particular was having a very poor game (by his own high standards) and soon, Perotti wrong footed Ramos and unleashed a beautiful cross. Torres was caught napping as Renato nodded a free header into the back of the net. Sevilla were one goal up in 15 minutes and showed no chances of relenting as Kanoute sprayed an easy effort wide of the goal. Barely a minute later, Perotti broke free of the offside trap and bounded down the park. But his left-footed shot was tame and easily parried away by Casillas.

As the time wore on and the initial exuberance faded, Madrid slowly started getting into the match. Marcelo had a half hearted shot which was well wide of the goal. Higuain slowly started getting into the groove and had two back to back chances, one which Palop parried and the other which could only make the side netting at the near post. The match soon disintegrated into a midfield tussle with destroyers taking precedence. Lass was having yet another of his best games as he ran all over the park, working tirelessly to cut down openings and nip attacks in the bud. At the other end Duscher received a yellow card for a bad foul on Guti and nothing came out the ensuing free kick. The ball continued to bob around in the air as the Madrid defenders started tracking back after the non-productive free kick. All of a sudden it landed at Ramos’ feet who backheeled it to a back tracking Metzelder. Metzelder beat Navarro to the ball and accelerated down towards the end of the pitch before unleashing a dangerous, low cross into the middle of the box. All of a sudden, Raul beat Prieto to the ball and flicked it away into the far post from 3 yards out, past an onrushing Palop.

The Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan went silent just as the clock read 45 minutes and the scoreboard read 1-1. Real Madrid was back into the game. The stage was set for the next 45 minutes, which promised to be much more entertaining than the first.

“Raul” Madrid

As soon as the teams came out of the tunnel, each had shots at either end. Marcelo had a brilliant run into the box and he laid off the ball for Higuain to finish it, but the in-form striker’s 1st time shot with his left foot (and incidentally the same foot which helped Madrid win against Getafe) let him down as the ball went harmlessly wide. On the other end, Jesus Navas drilled a low, power strike to the bottom right corner which Casillas spilled initially but gathered later before Kanoute latched on to it.

Sixty-three minutes into the game, Higuain combined with Torres who sent in a tame cross into the box which took a deflection off Escude. Almost against the direction of play, Raul came in from behind Prieto and volleyed the ball into the far post at his right. Palop was absolutely clueless and so was Prieto. It was one of those touches which only Raul can manage. Suddenly Real Madrid was leading 2-1 and the Pizjuan went silent once more. Only 3 minutes later, Palop made a criminal error in spilling Higuain’s low cross. Raul, on the prowl, darted forward and guided the ball into an empty net. Its times like these which make one to never count Raul out of the game. El Siete took just 3 chances to score only his third hat-trick in La Liga, and it was more to do with the fact that Sevilla had got their tactics horribly wrong. They had labeled Raul as a “has been” and concentrated on marking Higuain out of the game. But this strong reminder from El Capitan would always serve the Andulasians to remember that one never under estimates Raul.

The game dragged on with Madrid enjoying more possession, and substitutions happening at regular intervals. Almost at the death, as the clock struck 82 minutes, Jesus Navas sent in a tempting cross and Ramos completely miscued it to allow Diego Capel to strike it home at the near post. The Pizjuan came back to life as Sevilla announced that they would not go without a fight. Madrid then closed up shop and chose to defend and hit on counters. Sevilla could not penetrate Real Madrid and though they tried their best, their attack simply lacked enough conviction. In injury time, Madrid made a slick counter attacking move which saw Huntelaar (on for Raul) and Marcelo up front with two defenders to beat. Huntelaar drew away one defender and sent in a pass to the surging Marcelo who went one-on-one with Palop. 1..2..3 fakes and still Palop dint go down; but Marcelo having had enough of the little game slot the ball past Palop beautifully for the 4th goal and final nail in the coffin for Sevilla.

Madridistas world round were celebrating the further reduction in the point deficit. Things, as they stand now, Real Madrid are 4 points behind leaders Barcelona with El Clasico coming up next week. Should Real go on to win the Clasico, the gap would close down to 1 point; a very realistic chance there on of winning the league. The way Barcelona is playing, no one expects Madrid to win against them. But in Madrid, they believe in miracles. An abundance of Capello is what drives this miracle team. At Madrid they have a right to dream…

Of Pandemonium,Pain,Panenka and Pipita

2009-04-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

Posted by Shibarjun Ghosh, India

Some moments are special. Special enough to write about them even if it is 4 in the morning and you have work to attend to early next day. Jornada 32: Real Madrid Vs Getafe was surely one such match. “Game of Three Thirds” as Terry Gibson stated. It certainly was one... Like Marc Anthony’s rendition in the motion picture “The Mask of Zorro” …

”heroes rise, heroes fall and they rise again with it all…”

The game tonight followed a somewhat similar note.Just as an autobiographical synopsis of any great legend.

1.The Rise(min 0 to min 9)-The first of the three thirds.The shortest of the three. Spanned for little more than 9 minutes. Real Madrid pushed along the wings through Higuain and van der Vaart. The crowd was on a high and the audience experienced some crisp passing, attaking football. Surging runs, floating crosses and tiki taka at its best The party came to a grinding halt when old cantera boys Granero and Soldado combined to silence the bernabeu crowd. Against the run of play Granero collected a pass on the right wing and crossed it to Soldado who suddenly found himself in free space enough to build a parking lot, made no mistake and headed it past a hapless Iker Casillas. Certainly making amends for the miss he has had barely 6 minutes ago and making a statement to the sporting director for a year that he wasted in oblivion.

2.The Fall(min10 to min84)- Ceratinly not as beautiful as the American “Fall” if u are a madrisimo. The 74mins were long. The only silver lining was the Higuain’s goal in the injury time of the first half. The attacking front seemed to have been cut off from the rest of the squad. There was very little activity around Getafe’s goal. An out of touch Huntelaar, an out of position van der Vaart, a confused Guti and an invisible Raul seemed late for the prom night. Lass’s presence was deeply felt as Guti and Gago failed to provide a productive midfield pairing. The modest Getafe was taking the game to their more illustrious neighbours. Playing matadors in the bernabeu is not something that many clubs can afford to do ,but Getafe surely had come to spoil the party. Attacking along the flanks, they nipped any attack that came their way in the bud. Marcelo and Cannavaro seemed wanting against the darting runs of Granero and Gavilan .

Then came the Arjen Robben cameo,who by Juande Ramos’s own admission “has had a problem or two when he plays back to back matches”. 17 minutes, four long “Forrest Gump” runs later the “man of glass” was out. Canna followed shortly after and in came Drenthe and Javi Garcia and a slew of tactical blunders. Gago as centre half and Drenthe on the wings seemed to do precious little in their positions. Uche and Albin then did what seemed at the moment to be hammering in the final nail in the coffin of real madrid’s title ambitions. On a wild run on a counter attack Uche crossed on to Casquero whose header found Albin ,and the hit man from Uruguy did what he had already done twice in the season i.e fire the ball past Iker Casillas . Victor Munoz’s super sub had thrown the spanner to real madrid’s title ambitions and there was silence in the crowd and the only sound was that of crashing dreams. That was min 84.

“Picture abhi baki hain mere dost…(the film has not ended yet my friend…)” as the Bollywood thespians like to put it.

3.The Rise Again (min 85 to min 93)- He has attitude problem, he is any coaches’s nightmare, he is the bad boy of the media, he is past his prime, he is the prodigal son of the Bernabeu, he throws tantrums, make fiery comments and he score stunners from freekick when his team needs it the most…He is JOSE MARIA GUTI.

Min 86- Guti curled the ball from the edge of the box into the top left corner of Stojkovic’s goal. Two minutes is all it took to bring Madrid into the game. The silence of dejection suddenly changed to roars of jubiliation. “Stuff of genius”, “sheer brilliance”, “scintillating” .. the commentators can go on…but for us Madrisimos its was an important equalizer from one of our favourite sons and there was little time to waste on platitudes at this juncture of the game (and the league).Compliments can wait...we have a league to win.

Min 88- Pepe pushed Casquero in the box and then mistook him for the ball which made Pepe see red.(pun intended).

Min 89-Casquero took the kick himself with one eye on the morning newspaper headlines reading out his name in bold letters applauding him as Getafe’s hero who made a fool of the world’s best goalkeeper to give his team a most unlikely victory. The other eye on the ball and the goal seemed not enough. He took a penalty kick which would certainly put him on the tabloids but most probably in the “jokes” section. A weak spot kick which even a ten year old could stop was certainly not good enough to test San Iker.

Still score was 2-2. Time was ticking on.

Min (90+3)- Breaking in through the crowd Gonzalo Higuain shoots and it’s a GOOOAL. A thunderous left footer from the edge of the box went roaring into the top left corner of the Getafe goal. Jubilation turned to delirium and it blew the lid of the Bernabeu .

Real Madrid 3-2 Getafe.

Title chase continues

GAME ON.

Hala Madrid.

The pepper at the gates of dawn

2009-04-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Posted by A Spaniard in the works, Bangalore

Real have missed many tricks once again. It is that time of the season when a fan looks back and sees if the optimism and excitement at the start of the season was worth all the trouble. Time and again, we have fallen due to the same set of weaknesses and have ended up looking like a bland dish served cold. It is time that we admit our shortcomings and work towards spicing things up so that it leaves a taste in our imagination. Hence the weird title. I also hope that next season can be the start of a new beginning.

Us and Them
Football is like no other game in the world. It has an unparalleled worldwide audience due to an air of approachability. Most sports are very inward looking- i.e. they believe that people who have played the game at the highest level are only fit to be involved with it. For example, in cricket, some of the old timers (my uncles in my family) have a problem with, say, when someone like a Ravi Shastri has something to say about technique. They ridicule him for not having been a player worth his salt in his day and now having the nerve to talk about players who are much better than him. I must warn a reader that Ravi Shastri is just a placeholder in the previous sentence. It could apply to any pundit. Cricket is very inward looking and it is cultured that way. Many sports have such attitudes. In fact, cricket is finding it very difficult to get commentators that will be taken seriously by armchair critics around the world. There are no new faces to fill the voids left by giants like Richie Benaud. On the other hand, football is a unique game. The manager is also a very important element in the game. What is surprising to note is that football does not have such pretentiousness. There are very few world class managers (a handful) in the game who have been the world's best players in their era. Good players do not necessarily make good managers. This is an important as it draws more fans to the game and also leads to unnecessary clashes with rival fans who claim they are more knowledgeable. The other side of the coin, as one may call it. Football is the perfect blend of individual artistry and team ethic. This has also agreed with many political philosophies and also contributed to its widespread popularity. A capitalist nation would identify with individual talent- it only seems natural that they believe in a pecking order; the communist nations respected the team ethic as it represented proletarian values- the backbone of their system.

Since there are multiple ways of looking at the same picture, there are variations as to how the game is played in various countries and how the fans approach it. In Spain, we see showboating on a regular basis. Spain as a nation respects individual ability. The fans have to be won over before they start cheering for a home team. A rival player with a good move would be appreciated and very often, we have seen jeering of our own players and also cheering for the opposition team. Teams are a bit slow to close down. A good goal is necessary to get the crowd moving- mazy runs and no recollection of where the play started in the first place- much like the plot of Memento. On the other hand, in England, the teams follow a team approach. The fans are behind the team from the first minute. The football is very direct and played at a frenetic pace- reliant on long balls. Every home attempt is cheered- even a misplaced cross to row Z! I am not a huge fan of this method, but it does have its own advantages. It helps the team to settle quickly. I have lost count of the number of times that English supporters have egged their teams for a response and that percolates to even small time clubs like Barnsley. That is the sort of romanticism that is associated with the FA cup. The reason why I raised this point is that it might be worth considering what attitude we fans must take towards our own players. The Santiago Bernabeu was a fortress in its time and now in the past few years it has resembled an incontinent elderly person- leaking at the first sign of pressure. The first task that Juande Ramos has to do is to get back the respect of the Bernabeu (with the help of the fans, of course). During his time at Sevilla, he did make the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan a scary place to visit. Sevilla three seasons ago were a free wheeling team that would throw the kitchen sink at the opposition in their backyard.

Run like hell or Learning to fly?
Football is cyclic in nature and the various tactics have been slow to evolve. Earlier, the leagues had a lot of local players and as a result, the continental competitions had a bit of nationalism attached to it. Today's football clubs are more like corporations- Liverpool had more Spanish players playing compared to Real. But, it is one of the major advantages of exposure nowadays. In the old times, Latin American teams were known for technical ability and European teams were known for physical ability. Nowadays, the gap has gone down. The clubs are more multicultural nowadays and it exposes players to different conditions. The Brazilian team today is a lot more physical than what it was sometime back. They are not afraid to bring down a player- tactical fouling. Players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Kaka, Tevez, Messi all have bulked up in terms of physique to handle the physical conditions of Europe. So, for Real's own benefit, we need players like Higuain and Gago to be able to compete physically with some of the best players in the world. Like it or not, today's game is played with a lot more pace and power compared to the older days. The average football player in an average football game runs around six to eight kilometres today, compared to around three to five twenty five years back. As a result, we see athletes peaking a lot earlier. The Spanish league was known to get players from Latin American countries due to language, cultural and climatic similarities and hence had a distinctly technical flavour to it. But, the game has changed in ten years time. The English league has come a long way from being a joke in the late nineties. It was a matter of ridicule that nobody had won the World player of the year until Ronaldo did last year. The English league is more open to foreigners. It is without a doubt, the most diverse league in the world. But, it does have its own pitfalls. One reason that was attributed for the failure of English and Spanish teams to win any major international competition was that the players were too fussy to move abroad. With the exception of Steve McMananam, David Beckham and Owen Hargreaves, no other English player plied his trade outside his country when he could still offer a lot to the game in the last ten years. Is it surprising that Spain winning the Euro has come at the same time that many Spaniards have moved over to greener pastures at the EPL? It also helps that there are successful managers of different nationalities which can be a factor in getting overseas players.The English league has a lot of money due to investments from foreigners and this has been channelled to get players from different nations, more so at the cost of promoting their own players. This matter is worth another debate.

One more approach that has resulted due to the English league is the heavy work rate. Players with pace have an inherent advantage in that league & players who are no more in their physical peak like Deco or Shevchenko have little to offer. Andrei Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko had expressed their reactions about the frightening pace of the English premier league. Closing down by everybody is mandatory and also, creative freedom is a luxury. It is this high tempo direct approach that has set the ball rolling for the EPL now. Skill and technique come into the game once it is slowed down. The EPL teams are now dominating the apparent skill deficiency with increasing the tempo. This is something that the continental teams are yet to come to grips with. Football, despite all the arguments of it being a team sport, it is still the players ahead of defence that claim most of the headlines- as there is no other statistic in the game itself that can compete with a goal in terms of importance and outcome of the match. But, of late, the anchorman in midfield has been given the spotlight. This position being one of the most ridiculed positions in world football for being least technical is now, in my opinion, the most game changing due to the high work rate. Players like Mascherano, Lass, Essien, Gattuso are all respected for their abilities to heckle the opposition players into giving the ball. This has crept into other positions as well. One of the casualties of this tactic is that very few players have creative freedom. The role of a winger is almost erased from the books of football. WIngers are viewed as luxury elements as they do not necessarily defend. Even if a team plays with them, it is more of a 4-5-1 approach like the Netherlands or with false wingers like Barcelona with a safety first approach. The width is more or less brought by a fullback. Wide midfielders are expected to track back and defend and clog the centre of the pitch rather than go down the line, outside a fullack and pull in one of the most dangerous passes in the game. How many genuine world class wingers are there in the game today? Just make a list of them and you know exactly why this has happened.

Maybe Real need to approach the game in a way that Barcelona does- use wide midfielders who play as false wingers. These are players who play off the wrong foot and essential cut inside for a pass. We have tried it before. Just that our approach fails as Robben and Higuain, Sneijder are not as comfortable with the ball like Messi and Iniesta. They are equally adept at going outside and inside of a full back. On the other hand, Robben has a heavy bias towards his left foot. It makes it that much easier to defend against him. Figo was the last true winger whom we had. Robben is yet to learn crossing in the air and he does not have much reason to! This brings us to the next point- we have never been a threat in the air. Morientes, RVN and now KJH are three people who could head the ball in. This has been a major weakness with Real. The long ball has almost never been used and we seem to keep buying people who are quick on the ground. That might be ok when you have people like Ronaldo who are exceptional talents, but it will not work when you have back ups like Saviola. We as a team need to challenge airtime. Juve has three strikers- Amauri, Trezeguet and Iaquinta who are all amazing in the air. Milan has Pippo, Shevchenko and even Gilardino sometime back. If we have to compete globally, we cannot continue to ignore one aspect of the game. KJH is a step in the right direction. He is a perfect striker except that he is slower than many. This is not such a major handicap as long as he has a partner who can do all the running.

The show must go on
What must be our approach to the game then? We are no longer able to attract the best players on the planet like we used to sometime back. More on why it might be so in a later post. Clearly, we have no system in place to identify and procure talent. Or, the one we have is not working the way we want to. How do we modify our game then? I am all for a gung ho approach in every match. But, would we prefer attractive football without the results? I don't think so. As long as we have the ability to win a game by bulldozing opponents, we can do so. But, we are not able to play to potential more often than not. It might be worth trying a safety first approach when we are no longer at the peak of our abilities. In the last eight years, there have been only three teams that have won using their virtues of pure attack alone- Real and two Barca squads. Even these sides which were blessed with talent came to a stop when they faced some defensive teams. Even though I am not a fan of defensive football, I feel we may have to consider it as it is a successful tactic. Knowing when your number is up and adapting is a hallmark of any champion and I feel swallowing our pride and plaiyng for a win is better of a larger picture. It is not that we do not know these things. Our attitude towards Capello showed that. We clearly stood in line when we needed a dose of bitter medicine both times and got rid of the doctor with the first signs of recovery.

We have a decent squad depth and I propose that we must play different teams home and away- the midfield, especially. I have said this before and I say it again- we are in dire need of a central midfielder. I was hoping for DLR to step up and Gago to do something or Sneijder do what he does for the Netherlands, but we seem to be missing a tempo setting midfielder in away games. Sneijder did a decent job of being a box to box midfielder last season, but he has not been the same ever since his injury. I feel we need to play:
Home games- Lass/ Gago+ VDV/ Guti+ Marcelo at left back
Away games- Lass+ DLR/ Sneijder+ Heinze at left back.
The biggest problem is that we do not have a decent left back for sometime now. Torres might be worth a try. This way, we can battle fatigue as well. The attitude of learning to scrape when you cannot milk the opposition is what is costing us dearly in knockout competitions, not to mention the Copa del Rey being an embarassment. This way, we can use the squad depth and clearly assign roles to players in order to achieve the results that we want. Teams like Croatia, Turkey, Germany have an excellent work ethic and we must be able to pick fringe players from there who will fit into our system.

The Dark side of the Goon
In the last segment, I hope to address our "big bully" attitude. We have been guilty in the past of unsettling people by using the media. Most recently, the Cristiano Ronaldo saga comes to mind. While such an attitude is deplorable in my opinion, I have to agree that it has yielded results in the past. I am happy to say that we, as a club, have no double standards in this respect. For example, Manchester United did the same in the case of Berbatov, Rooney and Rio Ferdinand. But, they had a problem when we kept pursuing Cristiano Ronaldo using the same tactics. We were also on the receiving end in the Robinho case. We did take offence to it only when Chelsea sold some away jerseys bearing his name. We also have a big reputation for getting referee decisions in our favour, rescinding of punishments and all dirty attempts to change the rules. Some of these charges are common to other champion clubs, but, these don't look good on any of them. We need to make sincere attempts to reduce such "pants down" scenarios as perceptions in the eyes of the world is very important. "Too big to fail" is an attitude associated with some of the biggest empires. One actually wonders what the magnitude of a punishment might have been if the culprit were to be someone more hapless. For example, big companies get tax cuts and extremely favourable lending rates for big projects as compared to an ordinary person who might actually benefit more with a fraction of the money. The bailout plan for the multiple US companies also highlights the "above the system" image that some of them flaunt. Muralitharan's suspect bowling action had implications in the interpretation as to what a legal delivery in cricket was. We need to take more responsibilities for our actions on and off the field as we are the people who can make a difference. With great power, comes great responsibilities! Hopefully, our club should use the power to set right the club vs country debate, foreign player issue, protection of youth team products (ironically!) and so on.

Hala Madrid!
A Spaniard in the works

BOCA JUNIORS, VALDEBEBAS 2 ?

2009-04-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

Posted by Paulo Martin,Spain
Real Madrid has a preferential option over five of Boca Juniors brightest youth products.

The Argentines broke an agreement which Real Madrid had with the club over a preferential option on Ever Banega when Boca sold the player to Valencia. Real Madrid decided not to take the matter of breach of contract any further if Boca Juniors gave Real Madrid a preferential option on Florin, Muñoz, Araujo, Cabrera and Fragapane.

It seems like Real Madrid want to make Boca Juniors some sorts of extension of Valdebebas in Buenos Aires. The whites have demonstrated a excellent following of the Argentine market in recent years having secured the likes of Fernando Gago and Gonzalo Higuain and want to keep their grasp in that market by securing a preferential option on five of Boca Juniors most promising youngsters.

The five players are Juan Forlin, Ezequiel Muñoz, Sergio Araujo, Nicolas Cabrera and Franco Fragapane. The scouts at Real Madrid have been following these players for some time and have no doubt of there ability and expect all of them to have a bright future in European football.

Real Madrid`s preferential option on these players was signed little over a month ago when Carlos Bianchi who was Boca Juniors ex manager and now is a director at the club came to Madrid to meet with Carlos Bucero and reach an agreement to end a conflict between the clubs that could have ended up in the CAS and would have ended up with Boca Juniors receiving a hefty fine.

In that meeting, Real Madrid claimed that Boca Juniors had broken a contract clause included int he signing of Fernando Gago, the clause stipulated that Real Madrid had a preferential option over three other Boca Juniors players; Mathias Cahais, Jonathan Maidana and Ever Banega. BoCA Juniors sold Ever Banega last winter to Valencia without honoring the preferential option that Real Madrid had signed with the club. Real Madrid then negotiated the option of the five players mentioned above in exchange for not taking Boca Juniors to the CAS.

Jorge Amor Ameal, Boca Juniors president is convinced that Real Madrid has made an excellent deal. " These kids have an enormous future ahead of them and i am confident that they will make it, various big European clubs have been keeping tabs on them". Real Madrid got a great deal from a problematic situation and both parties seem happy that the matter is resolved.

Those who have seen the players in action claim that they will form a new generation similar to that of Messi`s and Aguero`s. Folrin and Muñoz are already regular first team players for Boca Juniors and Forlin has already been named as part of the squad for the Argentinian national team that will face Venezuela and Bolivia question remains if he will be short listed or not.

But not only Real Madrid have shown interest in Forlin, also Barcelona have taken an interest in the player with Barça sporting director Txiqui Beguiristain scouting the player on several occasions. This young center back already had a very brief encounter with Real Madrid when he was at Real Madrid B in 2007 but a complication in his passport and visa forced him to return to Argentina.

FIVE STARS:

JUAN FORLIN: (Reconquista,Sta.Fe, 10-01-1988) He`s 21 years old, He plays as a center back and starts on a regular basis for Boca Juniors and was one of the stars of his team that won the Apertura 2008 coached by Carlos Isquia. He is technically gifted, he can play on the left or right, He`s very quick, and his formidable conditions has seduced even the great Maradona.

EZEQUIEL MUÑOZ: (Pergamio, Province of Buenos Aires, 08-10-1990) Considered by the great Carlos Bianchi as the future center back for the national team. He has a strong physical presence (1`85 and 82 kg), he`s strong int he air, he has a strong personality
and a great character. He made his debut int he past South American Cup against Quito. His footballing mirror is Roberto Ayala.

SERGIO ARAUJO: At just 17 years old he is considered one of the great Argentine talents. He is a striker who is extremely quick, an authentic product of baby football, he is technically very gifted and is very habile with the ball at his feet, has great
ability to take on players in small areas and has good mobility and drops to either wing. He first started playing at Club Parque under Ramon Maddoni the same person who groomed Fernando Gago. Muñoz is constantly being compared to a young Kun Aguero.

GONZALO CABRERA: (Buenos Aires 15-01-1989) He is an attacking midfielder who can play as a creative midfielder or as an attacking midfielder. A similar player to Pablo Aimar. His preferred foot is his right but can easily switch to his left considering he is ambidextrous. He has a strong physical presence (1`89) and is good in the air.

FRANCO FRANGAPANE: (Mendoza, 06-02-1993) He is the youngest of the five and is only 16 years old. He is a very fast striker but his preferred position is on the right wing. Very talented on the ball and lethal on one-on-ones. Because of his mobility and pace
he is compared to Rodrigo Palacio. Very habile in taking on players and shooting on goal.

Hala Madrid

View from the kop to the bottom

2009-03-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

Posted by A Spaniard in the works,Bangalore
Warning: Long post.

It is time Real took a step to being counted in Europe. It has been alarming to see the team which boasts itself as the owner of the competition stumble at the first knockout hurdle like a well choreographed move every year. It is, therefore, our immediate concern to come up with policy decisions that will ensure the welfare of our beloved club. By means of this article, I hope to shift attention to some of the issues that I had mentioned in an earlier post.

Show me the money.
Real have been sitting on the top of the money league for quite some time now and it is a nice sight to see that we do have the muscle power to compete with the deepest pockets in the game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richest_football_clubs and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League). But really, one has to sift through the piles of accounting files to see what creates the biggest waves and what does not. One look at the money leagues and the income levels with what the clubs operate every year becomes clear. Transfer spending is of the order of maybe one tenth of this figure- 50 million pounds in a wholly extravagant case. That is the biggest chunk of how money is spent. Player wages is of course an issue, but in the case of Real which has shifted from the Galactico system, we don't have the astronomical wage bill that we had five years back. So, transfer fees and player wages are the largest expenditures. How about incomes? Players sales is something that we are not good at (more on that later). That leaves us with two more sources- Prize money from competitions is one of them. Winning the UCL would typically make us richer by 20 million pounds. Five for winning the Liga. So... that's what it is coming to. Prize money is literally chicken feed when we spend a crazy sum of money every year. Did someone say gate recepits? That is a decent sum, but on a good European night against marquee oppposition, we stand to make about 3 million pounds on a matchnight. But that might happen two times a season. The answer my friends, as many of you might have guessed, is TV rights. That is the single largest deal. It puts sponsorship deals into the shade. For example, I remember a huge sum being quoted as Real's deal for the next five years or so ( Something in the neighbourhood of a billion). For people who are interested in the kind of money involved in the English Premier League, here is a good read:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=618019&sec=england&root=england&cc=3888

This is how teams in England have been able to close the gap with the rest of the continent. They have courted sugar daddies from outside (Called selling their soul in the continent) and more importantly, thrived because of the language which made their foray into the Asian market easier. TV rights are sold in a group mentality. It is extremely perception based and often intangible and difficult to gauge as to why something is worth so much. When something is doing very well, everybody wants a slice of it. The Premier league was a bold step by the English almost twenty years back and almost nobody remembers it today. Dennis Begkamp was the first real international superstar who called England home. The power of perception is another story altogether, which will be discussed in more detail some other time.

Why so serious?
It is particularly disheartening to see how we have degenerated from being Ringmasters/ The Joker to a cheap clown whose pants are pulled down in a trapeze act in the yearly transfer circus. First of all, I am at odds with our transfer policy. While I admire Perez for having grand vision in getting the world's best players to play for our clubs and then end up making more money by merchandising, I cannot but think aloud whether that was the system that brought us our downfall. For one, we bought players for astrononmical sums at the height of their powers only to see that they were on a slippery slope two years later- we were stuck with (pardon the phrase) a load of White elephants. Don't get me wrong. I do want only the best players playing for Real. But, I am selfish too. I want those players to be discovered here- that is, I want their best phase of their careers to be spent at Real. The galactico policy, unfortunately did not ensure that. Ever wonder if we had bought Cristiano Ronaldo after the 2006 World cup? We would have benefitted the most by getting more goals by paying lesser money. We make a habit of buying stars. We have to be the temple of talent- people must be discovered and celebrated here. Right now, we come across like a pampered kid at the supermarket- crying to daddy for the most expensive and fancy toy in the aisle. If I have to put our transfer shenanigans figuratively and literally, this picture should sum it up the best.
(Note: the heights of the fingers indicate the market value and the ability of the footballer with time).

These are the five stages that we have been showing with almost everybody:
1) Little finger- The player shows some promise with some second rung club, but we are quick to ignore the poor fella as a piece of piss.
2) Ring finger- A couple of seasons later, the lad has made it big. We start openly courting the player.
3) Middle finger- We buy him at the maximum ability and market price after showing the middle finger to the selling club.
4) Forefinger- We watch many performances and then start pointing fingers at him when his form starts dipping.
5) Thumb- We have kept the (now clearly fat and unfit) player way beyond the sell by date. We torment him, then sell him at a ridiculous price and the poor fellow has to pack his bags and hitchhike a ride out of the club.

For a club of Real Madrid's stature, we need to have majority of the players close to the peak of their careers. So, in this case, we need to buy players at phase 2 and sell them at phase 4. But a consequence of the Galactico policy meant that we bought players at 28 and then were not able to sell them for a reasonable sum when their abilities went down the hill. Look at how we sold Ronaldo, Carlos and Figo. Did they have the farewell they deserved? We have problems in dealing with the "autumn" phases of players. In other words, we are not a selling club. We are a buying club. On the other hand, we are not a good buying club as well! When was the last time we got a serious bargain on a deal? In the recent past, only RVN counts as a good return on investment. Let us have a look at the last three signings that we made- Lass, Huntelaar and Van der Vaart, all of whom were panic signings. This does not augur well for a club which prides itself as one of the best (If not the best) in the world. On the other hand, here is a look at the kind of players whom we were linked to in the past few years, but we did not end up buying them.(Warning: There are obviously other players whom we were linked to and did not end up doing well, so this list is not representative, but only done to prove a point):

1) Xabi Alonso- was almost done deal. He is a fixture in the Liverpool side now. We miss a player of his type in away games.
2) Zlatan Ibrahimovic- We had two chances to get him- at the time Juve got him for 11 million pounds and then when he moved to Inter, both times on a small fee considering his talent.
3)Cristiano Ronaldo- I am stirring a hornet's nest here. The best time to buy him would have been immediately after the 2006 World cup.
4) Frank Ribery- We missed him at the time Bayern got him. In 2007.
5) Ronaldinho- He was a big star at the 2002 world cup, but we did not go for him. The cruel irony in this player's transfer was that both him and Beckham were linked to us and Barcelona. Both clubs wanted Beckham. Barcelona had to settle for Gaucho. We went on a downward spiral since. Was it a case of the ugly duckling turning into the beautiful swan later on?
6) David Villa- The time to buy him was when he moved to Valencia from Zaragoza. Now, he is 27 and we run the risk of repeating our mistakes by overpaying for him.

The bottom line is that we are not necessarily the number one destination for some of football's top talents anymore.

I hope I am driving the point here. Perhaps our buying attitude is best summed at the line the old woman utters in this iconic scene from the eighties (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaezeUyVOBs). Wait for the line at the very end! We try to chase stars when we they have a couple of headline making seasons. Truth be told, we must actually kick ourselves as to why we had not signed them in the first place so that they could have taken us to greater things in our club. Of course, I have the advantage of hindsight and hence there is no glory in the armchair critic role that I am playing!

Which clubs transfer policy do I idolize in that case? I have three in my mind. They don't necessarily compete with us at our level, but what they have achieved is commendable- Sevilla, Arsenal and Lyon.

Sevilla and Lyon are similar clubs- most of the week in week out players are people who they have bought in an extremely shrewd manner- bargain buys. They end up playing hardball when they sell them to bigger clubs- Dani Alves, Kanoute, Poulsen, Baptista, Essien, Diarra, Malouda. Arsenal is a different matter altogether. It is a club which I worship for their transfer policy. Arsene Wenger's penchant for young lads is probably as much as Micheal Jackson's (Supposed to be a joke. No offence meant to the fans). Along with that Wenger also got some bargain buys like Sol Campbell, Toure, Vieira and others. What is to be learnt from Wenger is his estimate of what a particular player can offer to the club- how much a player still has in reserve. Wenger has sold every player at the right time, that is, after extracting everything from them. It is the rule rather than the exception. I would go on to say never buy from Arsenal! It is no sheer coincidence that Sol Campbell, Vieira, Henry, Pires, Hleb and others have never managed to hit the same level. This is exactly where the Galactico policy envisioned by Perez has failed. It is not a long term strategy and it is highly unlikely that we would remain lucky in terms of big name signings. It makes better finanacial sense to diversify risk- to buy three players for lesser sums of money compared to one signing for an amount that would sell the club's kidney and end up not being able to flush out the waste at a later stage. It is this policy that has hurt us when the stars are no longer being able to perform at the level we want them to. The ability to estimate reserve capacity is something that we must learn from Arsenal.
The point to be noted is that we must learn to bargain like Lyon and Sevilla and to estimate talent and ability like Arsenal.

Our decomposition due to team composition
The Liga and UCL have certain rules that we have to abide with and hence attribute our success/ failure based on them. The extremely popular orkut community has a couple of links to what the team composition should be. The Liga allows registration of 25 players for a year, but only 3 non EU nationals are allowed to play on a match day. In the case of UCL squad registration of 25, a minimum of
4 players trained by the club- Raul, Guti, Dani Pajero, DLR, Miguel Torres
4 players trained by Spanish clubs- Salgado, Ramos. Extra players from first list can fit in here. Total of 8 players.
One look at this list reveals that we have hardly any quality to show in terms of endorsing players from the club/ country. That has been beautifully described in article on how we must rely on domestic powers. So, one third of our squad is not upto the mark when we register them for UCL. It is going to be even worse in the future as Raul and Guti will retire. For years now, we have neglected home made food.

What should be other criteria while signing players? Age is very important. Worldover, the age at which players are peaking in various sports has gone down by two or three years. Traditionally, it was thought that the best years of a footballer's life were between 26-30. That figure has gone down due to increasing the pace of the game. Now, the game is ruled by people on the other side of 25. The schedule is also extremely punishing for a footballer. A top level footballer has to play around 60 to 70 games for both club and country level. Squad rotation is absolutely necessary. Lets us remember the last time when a person performed for both club and country with equal elan? Have a look at EURO 2008 and you will find that none of the club stars showed up at the continental competition. This is a dangerous trend and FIFA has to look into that. The same thing happened at 2002 and 2006 with Zidane and Ronaldinho. They had minimal impact due to a crowded club calendar. We also need to buy in a phased manner so that the overall quality is more or less the same. That is the way Manchester United operates. Having a nucleus with similarly aged players is dangerous- they end up peaking at the same time- Los Galacticos, AC Milan recently, followed by a slump. Thankfully, we have a good age distribution. We need to have two players for each position- ideally separated by age as one can be the starter and the other a substitute based on how they grow old together. Just like Higuain and RVN when both are fit.

How do we stack up now?
A world class team which has to compete for many trophies has to have these many players, based on the variety of tactics we can play atleast:
3 Goalkeepers- We are well covered. We need to replace Dudek if he leaves.
8 Defenders- Two in each position. A couple of utility men. Left back is shaky. Cannavaro has to be replaced also.
3 Defensive midfielders- Well covered.
3 Central midfielders- We need them to step up to the level.
3 Wide players- We have one. Ideally, we need people who can play on either wing.
5 Forwards- RVN and Raul are getting old. Higuain and KJH are the two long term prospects.

Add the age distribution and our criteria for UCL/ Liga, our headache is complete! Also, we need to differentiate between a long term and short term signing- based on how much we can get back from them. For example RVN was an short term signing. Higuain was long term. The amount of money spent on them should be tied to how much they can contribute.

One swallow does not make a summer
I hope I have made my point clear as to how we are risking too much by buying one superstar for an insane amount of money. Instead, a better transfer strategy in the summer would be better for the club both financially and tactically. After much deliberation, I have come up with a list of players whom I believe we can get. Valencia seems to be a good place to raid. Here are some of the players that interest me:
1) David Villa- It will be a tug of war with other clubs. In any case, he will be competing with Raul for a starting place.
2) Silva- Not necessary in my opinion. We need to play more often with four in midfield.
3)Raul Albiol- Good buy, handy man in defence. Should be gettable.
4) Miguel- Backup for Ramos. Good replacement for Salgado.
5) Joaquin- Short term wide player. Moody though. Has to be a sub most of the time if we get Ribery.

The players from other clubs:
1)Backup keeper- This is in case Dudek leaves. I wanted to sign Cudicini as he must be the most unambitious player of all time. But Spurs stole him. Kameni and Asenjo come to my mind from the Liga. I also have another keeper suggestion in mind with super potential who has been rotting in Getafe. Oscar Ustari.
2) Centre back- None other than Chiellini from Juventus. He can play at left back also which is an added bonus. Extremely solid. Daniel Agger sounds ok too.
3) Right winger- Ribery. No other choice. CR7 will not be worth the money.
4) Utility player- Dario Srna. Super free kick taker and crosser of the ball. Can play at right back and right wing.
5) Young defenders- Three names come to my mind- Cristian Zapata from Udinese, Fabiano Santacroce from Brescia and Mamadou Sakho from PSG.
5) Forwards- Benzema seems like a good long term prospect, but I would rather go for Villa as I feel he will not go to City. It will be easier to land him.
6) Left back- Zhirkov seems to be a crowd favourite. To be honest, I don't have any choice to make here.

In my dream scenario, I would like to get all of them!
But realistically speaking, this is what I hope will happen.
Out- Salgado, Heinze, Cannavaro, Drenthe (loan), Saviola, RVN, Javi Garcia
In- Villa, Ribery, Srna, Chiellini, Ustari, Zapata, Raul Albiol. Replacements from the Valencia list if these are not available.

I hope we have early elections so that we will be able to complete our signings early. It is to our advantage that we have no major competitions this year. It is a regular feature that price inflation happens for a player who has done very well in an international tournament. This year, the Confederations cup will be held, but I don't expect any major excitement due to the low density of top quality players. This tournament is also optional for Copa America and EURO winners. The top teams might also send weakened teams.

Hoping for a good summer,
Hala Madrid!

P.S: RVN might look like a harsh choice. I absolutely admire him as a player. The problem is that he has been getting injured too often of late. Real were interested in keeping him until 2009 but he wanted to sign for one more year. If he can stay injury free for one more year (which I doubt), he still will have a lot to offer. But, keeping him and Raul on the bench will be a major headache. So, we might as well make some money by selling him to Milan (my guess). Again, it is a call that I don't want to take, but if it is my opinion alone and I don't expect many of you to agree with me. In fact, I am hating myself for writing this line!

A Great Man Called “Santiago Bernabeu Yeste”

2009-03-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

Posted by Suresh J.V,India

Santiago Bernabeu” is the two words which are synonymous with Real Madrid. Santiago Bernabeu the stadium is the battle field of many great victories of Real Madrid. It’s the Mecca for club football and a coliseum of sorts, however many of us don’t know or have forgotten about a equally gigantic figure of “Santiago Bernabeu Yeste”, after whom the club stadium was named. Santiago was everything of true Madrismo and even more. He was a player, coach, a manager & president of Real Madrid. Everyone loved him for his passion and commitment for football in Real Madrid. Even Real Madrid with it’s glorious past was second best with out Santi and his work (People called Bernabeu as Santi affectionately). Santiago Bernabeu took over the reigns of Real Madrid presidency by divine intervention, when the government re appointed the presidents of Real Madrid and Barcelona after a Fan violence in one of the el classico matches. The time Santiago took over, as the president there was only one Madrid team which was popular and that wasn’t Real Madrid, but the cross town rivals Atletico Madrid. Along with Barcelona & Atletico Bilbao they were most dominating in Spain.

Santiago Bernabeu was loved by the fans and neutrals alike because of his commitment & loyalty towards football in Real Madrid. He single handedly grafted the glorious history on which our club stands today. Santiago took over as the president in year 1943 and he remained the president till death separated him and Real Madrid in 1978. During all these years our club didn’t need a president vote out because Santi’s loyalty, commitment & his vision for the club was unparalleled. It was Santiago Bernabeu’s vision to see elite clubs of the continent play each other to decide the best and their Champions league was born.

After the glorious years of our great president our team started loosing it’s glory not because we didn’t have great players, we had some of the modern day greats like Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Hierro, Raul, Owen, & other play for our team with pride but we didn’t have a president who had the passion and vision to take Real Madrid to new heights. Of late we have had presidents who were construction magnets, very successful businessmen, extremely popular lawyers, but none of them could compensate the loss of a true Madrismo in Santiago Bernabeu. Our club doesn’t need president’s who can work to fill the coffers of the club, but true and loyal Madrista’s who can work to fill those gaps in trophy cabinets. It’s about time that we get a president re incarnated with the qualities of Santiago Bernabeu. Is the god listening???

Hala Madrid

Institutional Crisis

2009-03-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Posted by Timo Grandovec,Slovenia

Once, there was a Real Madrid. Royal Madrid. Under the leadership of Santiago Bernabeu Yeste and the likes such as Mendoza, Real Madrid became the most successful club of the XX Century. This Club, this Madrid was the best, a Club worth all of the respect, valued by all universal worlds. We had the generation of Di Stefano, then the Ye-Yes, in the 80s were dominating La Quinta del Buitre. Those were the times, when the this original Madrid had identity, values and consecutive successes. The players in Madrid were players with soul, they were aware of the identity of the Club and it true meaning. Those golden times lasted till La Nonata, till the 9th European Cup.

Then, Florentino Perez brought Madrid under the dark clouds. Figo, Zidane were great, then suddenly number of unnecessary signings started to flow. Beckham, Owen,… and on the other side great players had to leave such as Hierro, McMannaman, Solari, Morientes, players who played for the golden generation under Del Bosque, who sadly had to leave too. Del Bosque, the personification of madridismo is a tragic figure of the mess that is surrounding my Madrid. Everytime I wonder, why did he have to leave? He could be the Madrid’s Ferguson, even more!
Of course, Madrid went through the times of Galacticos, which were disastrous. The years of drought went on from 2003 till 2007. And the coaches were also changing faster like I change my underwear. From gulls like Queiroz, Luxemburgo, to the homeguys like Ramon, Caro, and Camacho. Boneheads or not, none of them were given a chance. Either you dominate like a lion, or you go. That was the policy. No trust, no long-term project, no nothing. Just buying stars and changing coaches. This Madrid was a shame to Madrid from the XX Century. What happened with Santiago Bernabeu? The place who was a place to support your team, became a social meeting point, where you can eat peanuts. Too much armanis dolcesgabannas, to little sweatshirts. The true shame for men were Liverpool fans who totally overcame the madridistas at Santiago Bernabeu in 1/8 CL finals. Shame…
When Calderon came to power it all got even worse. Clownderon and Peja. Stupid clowns, I can’t be calm when I think about them. They were the men, who sold the last piece of reputation. No plan, no long-term project, neglecting the home-grown powers… Still only Capello and nobody else gave us the trophy. Glory to him. He confronted the clowns and even managed to win something. Still Real Madrid was driving to the institutional crisis tirelessly, where the old man in Junta and establishment are defending their own piece of garden. That is the institutional crisis that we are finding ourselves now, only without Clownderon. A bunch of old, elitist, senile men are the cause for such a big crisis that Madrid has managed.
Now I see that Perez would take almost all the votes of madridistas in summer elections. Stupidity, shame. The man who started all this shit, who started a policy without a plan and long-term project, will again rule in Grada Blanca. I am greatly disappointed. I am confused, how all the madridistas are blind that it is not the world stars like Ronaldo and Kaka who bring you successes, but good policy, projects and most of all… Madridismo (!). Signing stars are the symptom of headless planning…
Yeah.. this is today’s Madrid. Madrid of forgotten glory and forgotten spirit. And most of all, Madrid has became Crazy Circus Madrid.

hala madrid

Renovating a Coliseum

2009-03-20T03:45:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India
When a certain Andrea Dossena struck a final nail in the coffin of Real Madrid in the form of Liverpool’s 4th goal and his first goal for Liverpool (and 6th overall), everyone knew that things are very wrong at Real Madrid and a major restructuring needs to be done, so that we can have some semblance in Europe.

But having a semblance is not enough, we are Real Madrid. We need to reclaim our right, and what would be better than lifting La Decima at the Bernabeu in front of 85,000 rapturous Madridistas and over a million worldwide. Sounds Impossible? Maybe. But our kit makers have always stressed “Impossible is Nothing”, and we have to believe it is possible. It is possible, provided we make the right changes at the right time. The Coliseum (read Santiago Bernabeu) is in a state of neglect and we need to renovate it.

A new Caesar

Where the club needs to start is at the top level and then work its way down the bottom. And all this needs to be accomplished in 2-3 months of pre-season. When the season resumes, we need to have things and a game plan in place, else we can be sure of traversing the same road of indignity once more.

Since the last 7 years we’ve had Caesars the likes of Commodus who are responsible for the downfall of our empire and advisors like Rasputin, responsible for advising an empire into extinction. What we need now are not politicians but real socios; someone who bleeds Merengue through and through. Someone who understands Real Madrid and feels for Real Madrid with the least possible political leanings. A good thing is that our election dates have been pre-poned to May, which gives us ample time to select a real leader, one who can carry the brunt of turning things around for our club. The leaders contesting for elections should have all their plans of renovation in place which they exhibit to the socios as part of their election campaign. The socios should then take a realistic call on the possible candidates, choosing only that person who has the club’s best interests at heart with a solid and realistic plan to back it up.

Marca polls indicate that Florentino Perez has 91% chances of succeeding at the election campaign and I feel this is where socios take a big chance without understanding the risks involved. Even other presidential candidates are now wary of running in for the campaign. After all, why fight a battle, which is already lost? We don’t even know of Perez’s plans for renovation. He has never approached the media directly and most of the newsbytes making the rounds is pure speculation. Yet, fuelled by this speculation, most of us are ready to believe the “make-believe”.

Marca has always been labeled as a Madrid bIased daily. But for all the bias, Marca has been instrumental in spoiling many things at the club and the interim club management should take pro-active steps to curb the Madrid based daily’s outlandish claims which hurt the image of the club and condition the perception of its readers and presidential contenders ahead of the election campaign.

Exodus of Mercenaries

Football, over the years, has undergone a significant change and is now as much of a business as it is sport and entertainment. With all the big bucks pouring into the game from various avenues, the new breed of players tends to be mercenaries, ready to go to battle for the highest bidder. In this age and time, it’s necessary to recognize the mercenaries from real players. We do not need mercenaries playing for us. Real Madrid has always been about passion, grit and determination and mercenaries have none.

We have players pocketing 5 million salaries and content to sit out on bench. We have players who joined Real Madrid because of the brand, but have done little to do justice to their inclusions. At a club like Real Madrid, you get 1-2 chances to cut it, and if you’re good enough you take those. If you’re not, you don’t. We have old horses, which simply don’t have it in them to play at the highest level anymore. Then again, we have players, who have become the crowds’ enemies and get constantly booed out. If this was not enough and if latest reports are to be believed, we have a rift of sorts in our dressing room, which doesn’t bode well with the rest of the team in the best of times. And the time is as worst as it can get.

An immediate solution would be that every presidential candidate has his own realistic shortlist of players they want out, players they want to stay and players they want to get in, all subject to the coach’s final word on the matter. A useful premise for the last goal would be to look inwards first (at home talent) and then extrapolate outside, if the requisite talent cannot be sought. The other important question that candidates need to ask themselves before making their respective shortlist is, “Do we have players of world class quality, capable of turning a match?” If not (and the answer currently is a resounding NO), then we should identify the existing players who have potential to be world class, dismiss the rest who don’t and have a realistic wish list of players fitting the bill.

Painting the Coliseum White

Finally we move down to the granular level, where the problem is the most critical and glaringly apparent. The problem with Real Madrid is that years of lack of consistency, lack of planning, abundance of mismanagement, and neglect of the Castilla have made the club lose its sense of identity and thereby fall from grace down into Pot 2 of UCL with Villareal overtaking us in UEFA Rankings. The cause of all these problems is quite simple if you ask me. I feel that the reason that Real Madrid is where it is today, because we have lost the white from Madrid. The white is present only as a jersey color. There is no madridismo left today. Gone are the days when individuals like the great Santiago Bernabeu poured their own sweat and blood and money into the club. Instead we have individuals like Calderon who use money earned from the sweat and blood of others for their personal gains.

We, at Real Madrid, need to start looking inwards if we are to right our flaws. Every single person in our club establishment should be a self confessed Madridista. We should promote our Castilla over everything else, because players bred in the Castilla are better players at Real Madrid than foreigners of the same caliber. We need to have madridistas at helms of different enabling functions like our talent scouting team, the medics’ team and the club administration. We need to have stability when it comes to coaches. As a club, Real Madrid has seen more coaches in the last 7 years than some clubs have done since their inception. We need to stop this “win something or get out” mentality. It is not possible for anyone to win every single time, how much ever we try and aspire to win. We need to get our identity back and a footballing philosophy to call our own. We need to get rid of the fanatical, radical, racist Ultra Sur from the Santiago Bernabeu. They are nothing but a bunch of fascist fanatics and we, along with football in general, can certainly do without them.

Lastly, we as Madridistas need to be patient and realistic. There’s no harm in dreaming of winning, but we have to be realistic in recognizing our shortcomings and keeping our expectations realistic. We cannot allow ourselves to boo our own players in our own home ground. We cannot allow away fans to raise more clamour than us in our own stadium. Things like these undermine a team’s morale. It is the right of a fan to expect good football every single time from the team that they support, but what we should understand that it is the right of a player to expect his home crowd to cheer for the team even when all hope seems lost.

Hope

The only trivial human emotion which is sustaining a million fans clamouring for improvement.

Juande Ramos???....

2009-03-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

Posted by Paulo Martin,Spain

As all managers Juande Ramos has his pros and cons, here are a few of each to try and help you make up your mind if he is the right man for the job or if Real Madrid should yet again search for a new manager.

PROS:

Unbeaten
Juande has managed to make Real Madrid the only team in primera who hasn't lost a game 2009.

Reduced
He took over at the club when it was 9 points away from Barça. After losing in the Camp Nou Real Madrid was 12 points away, since then the team has managed to claw its way within 4 points of Barça and is now only 6 points away.

Winning Run
Real Madrid has managed to close the gap between Barça thanks to a phenomenal run of 10 straight wins.

Defensive Capacity
One of Juande`s great achievement's was making the team defensively strong again. Real Madrid has only let in 12 goals since Juande arrived between Liga and Champions League games.

CONS:

Unattractive Play
One of the things that Juande receives most criticism for is that the team fails to play to the football the fans want.

Big Game Failure
Since his arrival Juande has managed the club against 4 big teams; against Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and the two matches against Liverpool in the Champions League.
All of which the team has failed to win.

Substitutions & Tactical Errors
He has given the team certain consistency but some of his substitution's are questionable such as limiting Van Der Vaart's playing time and playing with 2 defensive minded players midfielders. Also that he made some questionable tactical changes such as playing with Lass as a right back against Atletico.

Eliminated From Europe
The main reason why Juande was bought in was for his experience in Europe. The club had high expectations for the Champions League yet the team was unable to beat Liverpool over two legs.

The Departed

2009-03-19T05:45:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India.

There was a time when the famous white shirts used to inspire fear in the hearts of the opposite team. Ironically, white symbolized Peace back then, but the whites at the Santiago Bernabeu symbolized anything but. White still symbolizes Peace, we’re at Peace as well; which is all very good had it not been for the fact that we’ve been eliminated early on in the Copa Del Rey (again!) and have been eliminated in the round of 16 in UCL (again!) for the 5th consecutive time conceding 5 goals over 2 legs in what amounts to as our worst exit from the UCL for some years.

Was this expected? I yet have to meet a single madridista who answered “no” with complete vehemence to this question. We all expected this to happen, because we all knew of the problems brewing just under the surface. We kept telling ourselves “If it aint broke, don’t fix it”. What we conveniently tried to ignore that we were indeed broken all this while. La Pelicula, without wings; and we expected it to fly. The loss to Liverpool, as labeled by the press “was on the worst shock defeats for Real Madrid”.

Worst? Yes. Shock? No.

We always took all the negative newsbytes with a pinch of salt, laughing some of them off with arrogance. And by God, we did have the right to be arrogant. We were the Royal Madrid. An epitome of grandeur and that which symbolized the best there ever is. We ignored the trouble and mismanagement brewing up. We chose not to do anything about the twisted agendas of people managing the club for the past 5 years. We chose to ignore our youth and lose our footballing philosophy. Until that 4-0 loss against Liverpool. It was the jolt that Real Madrid needed, has needed since a long time. A blessing in disguise? Who knows. But one thing is for certain. We have woken up. We have realized that we are collectively responsible for the loss of our identity as a club. We’ve seen it ourselves and seen that coliseum called Santiago Bernabeu has degenerated. We’ve fallen down from that hallowed pedestal that we’ve always considered a birthright. Words from a song come to mind...

“My black backpack's stuffed with broken dreams,

20 bucks should get me through the week.

Never said a word of discontentment;

Fought it a thousand times but now

I'm coming home”

…How fittingly appropriate in the meaning they convey.

Lost Blancos

2009-03-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

Posted by Shibarjun Ghosh,India

Yet again we have are a laughing stock of European football. Humiliated, mutilated, battered ,torn apart and the worst of all… laughed at. A day of ignominy, shame and infamy for the great institution that this club once used to be. Our prestige has been hurt, our pride has been dented and yet again we have been reduced to a laughing stock . Outplayed, outdone outmaneuvered and outshone by an outstanding Liverpool side who had the Kops making themselves count unlike the Madrid faithfuls in the Bernabeu who were present in almost twice their no but their decibels really did not help to suggest their numerical superiority…..may be it could spring from an inherent mentality that their club is obligated to win. Wake up time may be.

Yet again our official website may post an article stating the 4-0 thumping by Liverpool as just another “minor setback” and may draw some incredulous positives out of it…..may be like…we didn’t have the worst result on the match day….Sporting Lisbon were thumped 12-1 (on agg) by Bayren Munich…we were much better ..just a 5-0.

Its time to sit up and shrug off any feeling of superiority that we may still have due to our past laurels if we don’t want our future generations to use the word “Real Madrid” as a phrase describing something that used to be great. Six years in a row…twice to English(Liverpool and Arsenal) and once each to French (Monaco),Italian(Roma) and German(Bayren) opposition…we have let ourselves to be toyed with in the prestigious Champions league. Five seasons have passed and we are still where we were five seasons back…ie still trying to push through the round of 16s.

We have lost the prestige we once used to command in Europe and clubs are seeing us as easy pushovers…certainly not exactly the vision that the Santiago Bernabeus and the Alfredo Di Stefanos had envisioned for the club. Our expensive foreign imports are failing to perform at the big stage and former cantera discards Benitez and Arbeloa are staring back into our eyes with a wry smile on their lips and a gleam in their eyes and a victory in their bag .. making us realize what we have let go off. Something that Eto’o, Morientes,Pedro Munitis and a host of other players have done over the years.

Now what???....sack a coach whom we have given a six month contract and who have given us ten la liga wins on the trot??? Or may be sack the Sporting Director who made a mockery of the club and its prestige in the summer transfer market .. something which led to a lot of complications previously in the season???? Or sell some of our promising youngsters to get our hands on some hyped and expensive foreign imports ..only for them to come back and haunt us yet again????...or may be pull back our socks and do enough soul searching so that when in 2010 in the last week of May the Champions League finals is played at the Bernabeu…80,000 madrisimos get to see their home team lift the trophy for the tenth time .

PERFECT 10

2009-03-10T17:14:00.001-07:00

Posted by Rai Krol,India

Third best consecutive win`s run in the history of Real Madrid.

With its win on Saturday Real Madrid equaled the run of 10 consecutively wins that Barcelona had this same season and that was broken, precisely, ironically with a loss to Espanyol.

But, also, the White`s are also forcing to re-right the history books. In 1960-1961 season, with the legendary Miguel Munoz as manager, Real Madrid effectuated a run of 15 consecutive wins. A record that to this day is history in the liga and remains unbeaten.

The season after that, Real Madrid again reached an incredible figure of 11 consecutive wins, also with Miguel Munoz as the manager.

So, Saturday, in the derby, Juande Ramos has the great opportunity of matching the historical 11 consecutive wins record from 1961. The truth be told Juande Ramos is reaching certain league statistics that nobody had imagined. He lost his first game against Barcelona, when he had only been working with the team for 5 days and since then he hasn't lost a single point.

The consequences of all this is the substantial reduction of points between Real Madrid and Barcelona. From 12 to 4 and counting ...

Real Madrid Vs Liverpool (post match review)

2009-02-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

Posted by Paulo Martin,Spain

BACK TO THE CRUEL REALITY

Real Madrid returned to cruel reality. Europe rejects us.We are on the verge of yet another early elimination from the champions league, the teams favorite competition, a team that came out of the Liverpool clash hurt and wounded mentally. The optimistic signs from our last few matches vanished in a heartbeat. Real Madrid didn't play well, and it didn't have its recent epic heroic attitude either. We were overcome by our adversary that was correct and played by the book: they were well positioned, they played with serenity and waited for there moment. They had a plan. Real Madrid didn't.

The insulting superiority of Xabi Alonso & Mascherano in the midfield was decisive. Each one in his element, they played with authority, the authority that Gago and Lass lacked. Liverpool's advantage in that department was obvious, but Juande Ramos failed to see it. After half time he changed Marcelo for Guti and he never looked to the bench again. The team needed something else, an intrepid moment, an epic heroic moment, anything that would change the dynamic of the match. But nothing. Real Madrid continued the same, which was in mediocrity, doing nothing.

Nobody after the match felt that they had seen a great brilliant Liverpool, in fact at times it felt like Liverpool were only playing at 60% of there capacity. They done what they set out to do, without any brilliance or showing off, with hard work and the firm conviction that they would get a result, the conviction that Real Madrid lacked. It was a professional job, without Gerrard in the team and with a defisient Torres who was clearly not pysically fit to keep playing. All those circumstances add more motives to be worried for Real Madrid. The loss was poor, the play was dishearting. The possibility of yet another early elimination in 1/8 looks close. It look slike we are only capable of competing at a domestic level and nothing more.

A CLASSIC

The Bernabeu looked fantastic with a full house, a typical european night game. Two classic teams that faced each other for the first time in Madrid. All the ingredients were there for an intense european classic. The reality however was totally different. Liverpool closed down the match and cooled the game off, the Bernabeu seemed to be mesmerized by this and slowly feel into the same trap as the team did and wasnt the Bernabeu that the team and everyone else expected. The fans were almost silent all match and the atmosphere of yesteryears was sorely missed. They seemed locked in melacholy and quickly realised that the team had no real chance. The defensive work by Liverpool was very efficient. Nobody comitted any errors, they were very comfortable, so comfortable that Reina seemed to have a very easy night. The only real threat for him all night was a long range shot by Robben. That was pretty much all of Real Madrid`s offensive display yesterday night. The team nearly entered Liverpool`s box. But thats very hard to do when you dont have a player to feed balls to the strikers. The only thing left was the epic herioic victory. Sometimes there isnt anything you can do except try for the epic heroic win. But that didnt happen either. The team was riggid and stuck and it needed something to break that state. But we didnt find anything to do that. We were a bland team from the get go.

It was surprising to see Juande Ramos`s defensive side. Especially in a match which was the most important of all since his arrival. A match that could have made of broke his career at the club. If Real Madrid is finally knocked out of europe in the 1/8 finals then he`ll have no chance of staying on as manager next year. He kept Heinze on despite the objections of the fans, he persisted with the Lass and Gago tandem in the midfield when they didnt offer any rigor defensively nor offensively. Its one or the other. Neither of them offer what the team needs in the midfield and least of all in europe. Just like the fans the manager also was infected by a certain air of melancholy.

The match was ran by Xabi Alonso and Mascherano. One beacuse he plays like all great center midfielders and dominates all aspects of hid craft. The other is like a human vacum that sucks up all the lost balls and wins all the challenges. They left no doubt over there superiority and authority in the match. Xabi Alonso played like someone who is clearly at the top of his game and in the prime of his career. He consegrated his epic game with a magnificent 55 yard shot that came very close to surprising Casillas. The keeper had to pull off a wonder save to what would have been the goal of the season in the champions league. Only Casillas and Pepe were there usual selves. One making epic saves and the other putting out fires all over the back line and keeping a weak Torres in his pocket all game. Both areas seemed vetoed by the defenders and Raul and Higuain passed almost testimonially in the game. Robben was below par and only offered a few sparks of greatness but he never shwed real conviction in what he was doing.

INFURIATING

The fans were infuriated int he second half. And they ended up being more infuriated when Liverpool scored. Heinze commited an unnesiseray foul near the edge of the box.
Benayoun, who was alone and has never been a good headerer of the ball or good in the air anticipated himself and scored the only goal of the night. The markings in the corner were not clear and Higuain and Gago were left confused and not marking anyone. A big error for two of the clubs young stars. There was almost 10 minutes left.The English fans erupted in estacy after tha goal. The Fondo Sur where the Ultra Sur are acomodated started misbehaving as always and had various incidents with the clubs security and with one another fighting between each other. The Ultra Sur who the ex president Calderon defended on many ocassions and still inexplicably allowed to enter the club and are still reciving preferential treatment by Boluda. The police had to intervine and more fights broke out but luckly it didnt not escelate more and from then on nobody payed much more attention to the game. There was nothing else to see or tell. Real Madrid had once again sunk in europe.

The Year of Dramas & Emotions in UCL

2009-02-24T22:20:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Suresh J V, India

Every year even the most ardent League fans await the start of Champions League Knockout stages. In the end of December the men are separated from boys and the real men start fighting it out in February for the top honors and opportunity to climb to the summit of footballing pinnacle. Champion’s league knockout stage comes with its own oomph factor and usual razzmatazz; however this year certain personal conflicts & reasons will upstage the usual glamor. Let us look at a couple of those here.

Return of the Bogey Man
The match between Manchester United & Inter Milan is not just about two league leaders from Serie A & BPL are trying to deliver a knock out punch to the other. It’s not even about the defending champs and wanna be champs trying to muscle the other into submission. This year’s knock fixture is more than mere football; it’s all about clash of two personalities who set the footballing stage on fire every time when they faced each other. Yes it’s a clash between “Sir Alex Ferguson” & the “Special One – Jose Mourinho”. If Alex has to pick out one manager whom he wouldn’t like to face off in this UCL at least not in the first knock stage, it has to be Jose. Guess what! It’s Alex Vs Jose yet again. Jose has been Alex’s nemesis and bogey man from his coaching days dating way back to FC Porto. Jose is one of the very managers who enjoy’s a better head to head record over Alex. This is going to be one humdinger of a contest from the touch line to watch.

Return of the Prodigies
Real Madrid & Liverpool have the most enviable history in the European club football. They are two most successful European clubs in the history. Among themselves they share a mind numbing 14 European crowns. The last time these two clubs’s met was in 1981 European cup finals which Liverpool won and broke many hearts in the city of Madrid. However this year’s tie is not all about these two titans facing off against each other, but also the return of two prodigies back to city of Madrid.
Rafael Benitez the coach of Liverpool has brought glory back to Liverpool. He has managed to take Liverpool into the finals of champion’s league twice in the last few years and managing to win one in the most dramatic fashion. Benitez is considered as one of the best active football manager and no one will doubt his credentials. Liverpool has always been able to pull more weight under Rafa while playing in UCL. As every story has a start, Rafa story starts in Real Madrid. Rafa was a player and started learning the tricks of coaching with Real Madrid Youth team. Since then Rafa has gone on to achieve bigger things, however he still cherishes and fondly remembers his days in Real Madrid. He still sees himself coaching Real Madrid, if the opportunity presents itself. This is a home coming for Rafa and he surely wants to make this one count.
In Fernando Torres, the Kops have one of the most lethal striker in Europe. The “El Nino – Torres” is capable of turning any defense upside down. He is one of the very few players who Real Madrid would have loved to see playing for them instead of the other Madrid team. Fernando Torres started with Atletico Madrid and soon he established himself as the best striker in La Liga. Even with all his reputation and achievements till date, Torres still feels sad for not being able to have a telling impact against his old cross town rival Real Madrid. He seems to be heart broken for not being able to produce his best in Santiago Bernabeu the “Mecca of Club Football”. Now Torres has the opportunity to put his demons to rest when he tee’s off against Real Madrid. Will he let his demons ride him once again or will he conquer them is a contest worth watching, if you are not interested in the history of these clubs.

Pay Back Time
Chelsea Vs Juventus is not just about the clash between two footballing giants but it’s also a homecoming of sorts to Juve’s coach Claudio Ranneri. It’s was who started the Chelsea revolution with the bankrolling from Roman Abramovich. After a season working with Ranneri the club owner Abramovich thought Ranneri isn’t exactly kind of person who will be able to take Chelsea to the pinnacle and this resulted in Ranneri getting booted out and rest as we say is history. Now as head coach of Juventus, Ranneri has the opportunity to pay back to his past employer Roman Abramovich. With Chelsea in tatters after the sacking of Scolari, Ranneri may not find a better opportunity to extract his revenge. Will Ranneri earn his redemption? Only time will tell.

Buy Me Babe!!!
Karim Benzema is one of the hottest young talents in Europe. Many consider Karim Benzema’s decision to stay with Lyon for one more season was a miracle of sorts performed by Lyon president, when so many big European clubs were fighting for his service. Barcelona was one of the top club’s trying to sign him at the end of last season and Benzema will not have a better opportunity to show his talent and argue the case in his favor, when he faces Barcelona in Nou Camp. Will this match be a prelude of what this guy is capable off?

This season with all these showdowns, their are many who are in verge of a home coming, seeking redemption, trying to settle scores & or simply trying being the best. With all these emotions and reasons, we as spectators are really spoilt for choice.

Hala Madrid

Goals galore on a SIXY night

2009-02-23T03:21:00.000-08:00

Posted by Shibarjun Ghosh, India

Quite a hectic day it was shuttling between two rooms. Real Madrid vs Betis on my PC and on the other room the Barcelona derby being shown on  the TV. Story of two halves I should say…the first one being a typical exhibition of Real Madrid's attacking flair football in which six goals were scored but in the other half the happenings at the Camp Nou took precedence. Former Barca discard Ivan de la Pena scored twice against 10 men Barca to send the 80,000 strong Bernabeu faithfuls into ruptures and silencing their more illustrious cross town rivals. Tables were starting to turn and memories from the past were coming to haunt them when two years earlier Raul Tamudo scored very late in the Catalunian derby to spoil Barca's chances of catching up with Real when the latter drew 2-2 at the La Romereda against the now relegated Zaragoza as the Capello led Real Madrid turned around the league on its head and completed the most incredible comebacks in the history of La Liga.

A lead of 12 points have been cut to 7 in a space of two weeks as Real Madrid surge forward in their quest for their 32^nd la liga title.There is no denying the fact that Madrid has been in their hottest streaks ever in their recent history,winning 10 games out of the 11 played under the new manager Junade Ramos.
The floodgates opened at the 7^th min when Argentinian hitman Higuain danced his way around Betis defense to put the ball in the back of the net. Huntelaar  followed suit with two goals of his own, although both were from rebounds .. but it was a Klass act to say the least.

Ricardo Oliviera did something which he could not do last year with Zaragoza…ie beat San Iker at the Bernabeu. Pulling back one for the Balompies didn't help their cause much because 35 mins into the clock started The Raul Gonzalez Show. Two goals in the space of 7 mins for El Siete brought the Bernabeu to their feet and Paco Chaparro at his wits end. The first one being a scorcher for which Ricardo had no answer and the second one being his typical trademark which had Raul Gonzalez written all over it. Collecting a pass from Gago, El Capitan showed immense cool that would even put a refrigerator to shame and lobbed the ball safely home much to the dismay of Ricardo and the entire Betis backline.

Sergio Ramos was not to be left behind. After assisting hunter for his second , this time it was his own turn to find a mention on the score sheet. A flying header from a Heinze free kick did it for him .It wasn't even half time and Real Betis had been hit for a six .

The second half had no more of the free scoring flair run that had resulted in six goals in the first half.Guti,Snjeider and Robben all got minutes under their belt ahead of the Liverpool match as Juande Ramos decided to consolidate the defence. But by then news had started filtering in that de la Pena had struck against 10 man Barca. Madrisimos on Orkut chat room forums went beserk .Just as when we thought it cant get better …the improbable happened again…de la Pena scored again. YES…lightning did strike twice. The Bernabeu blew its lid. It was a double treat for all of us. The 80,000 Madrisimos  at the Bernabeu and a million more all across the world. Delirium turned to nervousness when Yayah Toure leveled one back for the Balugranas . but Sergio Sanchez and co held the backline very well and saw Espanyol through the rest of the match.

The once untouchables Barcelona are just 7 points ahead with the El Classico still to be played at the Bernabeu….but for now its not about  Barcelona…….Bring on Liverpool.

White or Red - who is going to join the whine club?

2009-02-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

Posted by A Spaniard in the works,India

I must admit this is a preemptive strike on something that we have all been waiting for. As a teetotaler, I have no authority as my article's title would suggest, but I could not resist the temptation of a cheesy opening line. My apologies. The game is question is the one between us, Real Madrid and Liverpool- a double head to head fought over two legs ( similarities of the phrase with the game of football is purely intentional). I would like to draw attention to one of the most significant historical events and its rammifications in my motherland, India. This happened in 1805. For the people who slept through history class just like me, I am referring to the Battle of Trafalgar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_trafalgar). More on why this significant later.

Real's tryst with the unreal tournament:
Real have been the fastest off the starting blocks with respect to the European cup. Five consecutive cups in the 50's with a team comprising of perhaps football's first international superstar, Alfredo di Stefano meant that the rolling trophy gathered plenty of moss in our cabinet. Unfortunately, we have been doing badly of late. Our problem lies in our inability to get past scrappy teams. In 2004 season, the teams shifted to a knockout phase after the initial group phases which reduced the number of matches by four. And that's where a mercurial side like Real Madrid has problems. If we have a look at our history, it is common knowledge that we have never been relegated and our worst position in the Liga has been 11th out of 14 teams in a particular season. If we have a look at knockout competitions, it is where the smaller teams have a better chance of beating the big guns. A league phase tends to normalize results week in week out and it just is an indicator of a team's cumulative performance throughout a season. That is why you see how small teams end up upsatging fancy rivals in the FA cup. And that's precisely how it is romanticized in England. A neutral would always support an underdog. In the last five years, we have been very unlucky. We have faced Bayern twice, Arsenal, Juventus and Roma. We have never had the luck of the draw like how Milan has had plenty of times ( I have lost count of the number of times they played Celtic). But as the cliche goes, if we have to win a competition, we have to beat everybody. Thankfully, this year has not been a typical one after a winter break where we have shown holiday hangovers. A defeat at this stage of the competition and that too with a depleted squad would only mean adding insult to injury. We have been flirting with the lower end of the UEFA coefficients for quite a while and also, Spanish clubs not doing to well only compounds the problem (It is also dependent on how other teams from your league do in the continental competition). I am not a fan of this knockout garbage because it only lets in a below par team to the quarters (Fen vs Chelsea last year) due to them typically benefitting from the draw. If it were upto me, I would form a superleague with Europe's elite, but we all know pigs would fly on the day this happens. We need to do well in the competition so that we are atleast the top seeds in our pot in the following years. I will be happy if we can make it to the semifinals on a consistent basis.

Our honourable opponents:
I am not a fan of Liverpool. They did set the stage on fire in the late 80's but that's about it. They have only challenged for the EPL ever since and done decently in the UCL (much better than us in the last four years) in the recent history of the tournament. I don't like it that most English commentators have grown up watching Liverpool play in that victorious era and that they have to heap that upon us with biased commentary. Atleast that is the image that I get sitting in my sofa in front of my TV. One look at the UCL telecast preferences only reinforces this. I have got tired of listening to trivia about "You'll never walk alone" or the more abused "Kop end" phrase. Especially when all these years they have been drawing at home to teams like Stoke. They have done much better this year. They were in the reckoning for the league and now, like us have to lick their wounds and hope that Europe turns out to be a happy hunting ground. They have two world class players in Torres and Gerrard and some good first team players as well. They play a long ball game more often than not and I have no idea as to how the headless chicken Kuyt finds his way into the team on a consistent basis. Why am I getting into a fistfight with them? I'll concentrate on the task in hand. Demanding football schedules have meant that teams have pretty much taken their foot off the pedal domestically. In the last few years, only Barcelona and Manchester United have won UCL the way it should be won- after winning the league. It hurts me when I see teams comfortably finishing fourth in the league and then pocketing the UCL. Something has to be done in this regard.

How do we succeed in Europe?
Pure attack rarely wins titles in Europe. More often than not, when a scrappy team faces a attack minded team, it is the defensive one that goes through as we have learnt the hard way. In a low scoring game like football, tactics and strategy are of utmost importance. Even when the marauding Barcelona did the grind after they went past Chelsea in 2006.

Why did I choose to drop in a reference to the battle of Trafalgar earlier? The Spanish armada were one of the most feared navy forces in Europe. In fact, their defeat by the English navy paved the way for the East India company to establish a huge Indian base. One look at the TV programming in India just shows the step motherly treatment that the La Liga gets compared to the "greatest show on earth". TV revenues dwarf all other sources of income by sheer volume. In a way, this match is our opportunity to showcase our superiority over them on a global stage. This would only make the foray of Spanish la Liga into India/ Asia much easier- much like how the European forefathers wanted to establish a base a long time ago. Admiral Nelson did the improbable by not being orthodox in tactics. And that is where we have to learn from history. Liverpool fight as a team and this is where we have to break them. We have been experimenting with the long ball for some time now and what we seemed to have improved upon is effective counter attacking. Instead of an all out assault on Liverpool, we have to keep the ball away from their midfield. We have to reorganize our team into an offensive and defensive units- we attack in fours and defend in sixes- these must be our mininum numbers. As they are going to play Kuyt, we have to play Marcelo in the left back position as Kuyt will not be a major threat. The moment Liverpool splits as a team, they struggle to start attacks and resort to long balls- a tactic that will play into our hands. Capello had masterminded an offside trap with the forwards two seasons back. Essentially, then, one of the three- RVN, Raul and Robinho would stray offside but would not be involved in the passage of play. The defence would switch off and what was sold was a dummy with the offside character coming as a guest star later on to provide a deadly touch/ pass when onside. If you were the opposition team, it was like watching a horror movie- you think its all over and then a hand comes out of the ground! This is something that we have to resort to unsettle the defence- especially which is not too quick. If not anything, it will draw a couple of them out of their positions and only confuse them more. Defending set pieces have always been our weakest link and special attention has to be paid to that. I expect Torres to fail and Gerrard will not be in full fitness. I expect Benitez to field a 4-5-1 for both the legs. A score of two nil or more would be ideal. In the reverse fixture, we have to hold nerve- something that we have failed to do so for quite some time. This is our key to success. Hopefully, it does not cost us an arm and a leg, like Admiral Nelson.

Parting shot:
Here is my suggestion to neutralize the crowd in the second leg. I hope somebody sees this and uses it.

YOU GUYS SHOULD KNOW BETTER ENGLISH!

Hala Madrid

Wine Women and Raul

2009-02-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

Posted by Shibarjun Ghosh,India

"Its Raul and its goallllllllllllll…."shouts Andy Gray in his typically enthusiastic way for the 309^thtime.

A record breaker just 15 minutes into the match and 76 minutes into the clock he is a record maker….welcome the new all time highest goal scorer for Real Madrid..Raul Gonzales Blanco. Overtaking Don Alfredo di Stefano's record is a monumental task…and special tasks calls for special men….the son of Madrid, the paragon of the club and a beacon of hope for all Madrid enthusiasts for 15 years. Raul has been a true ambassador for the club since the tender age of 17, ever since he broke into the first team from real Madrid C after a flurry of 16 goals in 7 matches and a recommendation from a certain Rafael Benitez..

It all started at the La Romareda on 29^th October 1994,Jorge Valdano (the then Real Madrid manager) brought on the young Raul infront of 35,000 hostile Zaragoza fans. He surely did have baptism with fire on his first night out with the first team. He did not score until his next match in the fiery Madrid derby against cross town rivals Athletico Madrid, but since then goals have been coming in plenty for him.15 years, 2 Pchichi, 6 la Liga , 4 super copa, 3 champions league, 2 inter continnental cups and 1 uefa Super Cup later he still have enough fire in his belly to match the hunger in his eyes.

A true gentelman to the core he embodies every value that the club is known for…hard work, commitment, team spirit, resilience, determination, professionalism, loyalty, passion and honesty. If u don't love him u surely have to respect him.. there are no two ways about that, something even hardcore Camp Nou faithfuls in Catalunya heartland won't contradict.

"Who ever wears the "el siete" will play on winged feet" is said among the Bernabeu faithfuls….and Raul certainly have lived up to the standard set by the former greats who had donned the famous shirt.

Only the fourth player in 40 years after the legendary Amancio , Juanito and Butragueno to wear the magical "el siete" no 7 shirt….Raul certainly has not only lived up to their reputation but has also raised the bar for future generations to follow. The living legend and a part of the Madrid folklore La Quinta del Butir,Emilo Butragueno says "Raul is an obvious example of what a Real Madrid player should be.He is an exemplary sportsman who upholds many values of Alfredo di Stefano..he is fighter who never gives up...these are qualities which are attibuted to Real Madrid."

15 years on, at the age of 31 years he certainly is not at the prime of his form but he has the truckloads of dedication to make up for it. From spending hours in specially installed oxygen chambers in his room to working out late hours in the Veldabebas , he does it all to stay fit and not being injured in the last two years is enough testimony to his dedication and resilience. Just as when he has been written off he has come on and scored goals, won matches, won trophies and conquered frontiers…a habit he is finding hard to shake off.

Raul has been a perfect ambassador not only of Real Madrid club but also Spanish and World football. Along with Ryan Giggs ,Paul Scholes , Paulo Maldini, Francesco Totti , Raul has been a rare specie of the "One man one club" group…something that is very hard to come by across in the cash rich football business where mercenaries rules the roost and loyalties change overnight over sacks of money. A role model for every youngster aspiring to make it big in the footballing world Raul is dignity and dedication personified.

Thank you Raul Gonzalez Blanco…you're the true mascot of not only Real Madrid football club or Castilla or Spain or world football but also of hardwork, dedication, dignity, resilience and character.And with time you are simply getting better.

"Wine and women get better with age"...they say.Its time we add Raul Gonzalo Blanco's name to that list.

Vamos El Capitan.

hala madrid

Vision for a SurReal Madrid

2009-02-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Posted by A Spaniard in the works,India

What sequence would describe our team right this season? A sudden purple patch (Violet and Indigo)? A case of the blues when Schuster was on the way out? Green with envy at how our eternal rivals Barcelona are doing right now? Or is it a case of the necessary evil- yellow journalism - that keeps us hooked all year long? An orange contingent that is ever expanding? Or is it being red faced that our sporting director does not have an IQ of an igneous rock? The answer my friends, lies in the combination of all of them. Please forgive my geeky reference to VIBGYOR [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIBGYOR]. As I am a research student by profession, this fetish for comparision is almost an occupational hazard. As my friends in the highly active Orkut community might have found out the hard way, this is an indication of a really long post. I apologize in advance. As I said, the answer is in the combination of all of them- White- hopefully thats the colour of our opponent's flag at Rome at the end of the season. This post is going to deal with a lot of issues that are very close to our hearts- the short and long term plans of our beloved club.

I have been a fan of Real right from 1998, the season that we reclaimed the Champions league after such a long wait. I started off as any fan would, reading newspapers and memorizing popular players' names and of course, I won't forget the lack of TV and newspaper coverage for non cricket sports in India. The internet was still in its diapers. Football came as a breath of fresh air to me as it seemed as the perfect amalgam of the individual and team talents. I was still the fan who used to pronounce Julio with a "J" and Sevilla with the "L" just like some of the sport reporters do in many Indian news channels today! That was the time when English clubs (with the exception of Manchester United) were being massacred by continental oppostion and jokes like:
Q: What is common to Arsenal (or any other English club) and a 3 pin plug?
A: They are both useless in Europe!
were doing the rounds. It is quite natural for a teenager growing up to lap up a winning team. And that's exactly what I did. My team were Real Madrid. The lord of all creation. Hell, watching one of their matches was equivalent of foreplay. The basic notion of "I will win by scoring one goal more than you" seemed perfectly fine. Staying up late night to watch these wonderful footballers play supreme football seemed totally worth it. And that, battling against rules of the house. It was a crime to be nocturnal. And, "Did you check that goal scored by ....." did not make pretty classroom conversation either. Atleast not the kind that seemed to be cool at that point of time.

Fast forward to four years down the road, Real were at the pinnacle in 2002. We had the maximum number of UCL titles, Ligas and a lot of players were winning the world player of the year as well. We were doing not too bad in terms of the money scenario. We were also called the Club of the 20th century by an overwhelming margin. This is our legacy. But, if we have to be called the club team of the 21st century as well, we are behind many teams. We have won a handful of competitions and one look at the UEFA coefficients show that we have been living in the glory of the past. It is time for introspection and effort to ensure that Real will be spoken of and remembered in a way that we fans believe would be most appropriate for our club.

These are the topics that I feel should be up for discussion. Of course, they are by no means exhaustive. I believe that these should hog the blog (another tabloid headline!) for some time:

1) Financial vision- where is the money coming from? Transfer policy and signings for the next season
2) The power of perception- what the club should represent in terms of vibes, attitude and footballing philosophies
3) Competitions and our approach to them, Football strategies and playing by the rules.
4) The heavy weight clashbetween Real and Liverpool.
5) How to introduce and popularize the game in India.

I will make a sincere attempt to address some of these issues in the days to come. I also invite fellow madridistas to contribute.

Hala Madrid!

Castilla blues

2009-02-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

Posted by Paulo Martin,Spain

A shot to the heart
The recent signing of the unknown french player for Real Madrid is a shot to the heart for the clubs youth system and it produces more perplexity than satisfaction.

Real Madrid has signed Julien Faubert. We know he`s french, he`s 25 years old, he plays down the right and he comes on loan from West Ham. It used to be the opposite. A young player, someone who was dis-satisfied would arrive at a bottom of the table team, or a team that was playing in second division looking to be promoted. But Real Madrid has forgotten the priorities that define the club a long time ago. Its world renowned prestige, its obligation to sign the worlds best players, and its necessity to protect and groom its youth system. Fauberts arrival venerates all those basic priorities.

In the last two years, various ex Real Madrid players have become indispensable key players in their respective teams. Few times has the world of football seen such a monumental cock-up and such an absence of precision to calibrate the talent of our youth players.
De La Red had become an international player and was called up for the EURO`s while playing at Getafe after we had sold him. Now Mata and Negredo, look like having the same destiny, both players were sold/left the club and are being seriously considered for international duty also. Two players that force one to ask himself what sort of value system does our youth system have ? Lets say there places are occupied by Drenthe & Huntelaar, who`s collective price is 40m euros. One of them we already now what he has offered, nothing, the other looks like going the same way.

Real Madrid is determined in working for other clubs and buying poorly and expensively. In the last two and half years, the club has spent 300m euros,
an amount that is just astonishing and scary. The actual administration seems determined to lower the clubs prestige. As hard as this sounds to the fans,
the clubs actual position in world football isn't what it used to be.

Faubert is a symptom of all this absurdity. He hasn't been a regular starting player in his club, a mediocre club. The glory days of West Ham are well behind them, at least 40 years behind them when the likes of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters left the club. Since then its been a club with a fantastic youth system producing such players as Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Michael Carrick among others.Faubert belongs among the large list of almost anonymous players who have done nothing at West Ham. Despite all that we have decided to accommodate him.

THE CONTRADICTION Fauberts case touches a sensitive nerve in the institution and among the fans. The youth system has received a devastating message from the club. In few teams does such a distance produce its self between the reality of whats happened and the signals the clubs emits.Real Madrid`s youth system is the most generous in Spain, in terms of forming and developing quality players as well as their form after in other clubs. Despite all this the perception inside the club seems that none of the players are ready to play for Real Madrid.

The fans assist perplexed at this massive contradiction. They don't understand how we can spend a fortune on players like Van Der Vaart, Drenthe or Huntelaar and how we can ignore our youth on temporary players such as Faubert. Its a shot to the heart for the youth system and possibly to a team that's core are players such as Raul, Casillas and Guti. Far from promoting its closeness and identity through its factory of youth players, Real Madrid is hellbent in signing expensive mediocre players who will never leave there mark at the club.
Its a way of asking yourself, what does this Ream Madrid want ?. Nobody knows.

Negredo,Granero,de la Red.......where did it all go wrong?

Jonarda 22:Real Madrid Vs Racing Santander( Match Preview )

2009-02-07T00:11:00.000-08:00

Posted by Paulo Martin,Spain

IF`S AND BUT`S

Crucial game ?

So we play Racing this weekend, a game that could prove to be more important than you may think. FC Barcelona have various defenders missing and played an important cup match midweek which could cause them to drop points, ok its unexpected especially at the Camp Nou but its possible and especially against such a tricky team as Sporting Gijon who don't know how to play for a draw.

We on the other hand have almost a full squad except for Gago who will miss this match against Racing. Racing also have Pedro Munitis missing due to 5 yellows. Munitis is a key player for Racing seeing as he`s the captain and motivates the team to the full, also he forms a great partnership with Zigic and Jonatan Perreria. His electric runs will surely be missed by the Racing faithfuls. Our defence will have to keep a close eye on Zigic, the big man is on form as of late and is really starting to look like the great Zigic of yesteryear. Knowing how much our defence suffers against tall men we should maintain ourselves fully alert. I assume Pepe will keep tabs on Zigic not letting him receive a ball, especially not in the box. He`ll be a constant threat in area balls also. We shouldn't ignore Jonathan Perreria either, he may be small but he`s certainly talented and extremely fast so Cannavaro will have to have his wits about him.

Racing is a very quick team on the counter and has two great wide-men like Oscar Serrano and the previously mentioned Munitis who both have pace and more importantly great crossing ability.

Lass`s partner

Also interesting will be who Jaunde pairs Lass with in the midfield. I assume Gago`s replacement will be Sneijder playing deeper than normal (if Juande continues with his flat 4-4-2) and coming into more contact with the ball, just he needs really to boost his level of confidence. Juande could also play a 4-4-2 diamond formation with Lass playing the holding role on his own and having an attacking midfielder just behind the strikers but knowing Juande i don't see him doing this, he`ll stick with whats been working and we`ll see Sneijder playing deeper. Another option would be to field Parejo as Lass is partner but i think Dani isnt fully fit to play from the start and he not make the cut.

Faubert

Another question is weather Faubert will make his debut on the right wing or would Juande opt for playing Van Der Vaar in the team either as an attacking mid with Sneijder on the left or with Sneijder int he middle and as Van Der Vaart as a winger. Personally id like to see Juande stick with his flat 4-4-2 and play with Faubert - Lass - Sneijder - Robben. All this is providing Robben actually starts considering the poor guy has had the flu all week, it`ll go down to the wire i think. Everything changes if Robben doesnt start, we could see Higuain on the right and Huntelaar upfront, or Faubert on the right, Van Der Vaart on the left and Sneijder in the middle or visa-versa. I think it would be interesting to see how we fair without Robben playing, at least not from the start. Id like to see the teams offensive capacity without the flying dutchman.

Garay

Will the Bernabeu get to see Garay ? Your guess is as good as mine considering Muñiz hasn't really been counting much with Garay this season for reasons which escape me.

The Raul factor

On another note can the great Raul score his 308 th goal and beat the great Alfredo Di Stefano`s record ?

An Atletico Man who chased a REAL Dream

2009-02-06T23:24:00.000-08:00

posted by-suresh J V,India

Raul Gonzalez Blanco, This is one name which immediately touches chord with millions of Madridista's all around the world. This is one name which single handedly bought pride and spot light like back to Real Madrid at start of this century. This is one name which always get's spoken along with the greats like De Stefano, Puskas, Gento's and others who played there best for Real Madrid. Raul Gonzalez Blanco who has been revered, as icon and pride of Real Madrid would not have been one, if he did not join Real Madrid after certain Jesus Gil the once president of Atletico Madrid decided to scrap Atletico's youth system where Raul was getting ready to dawn the colors of Rojiblancos. Atletico later found out that arguably this was their greatest gift ever to their cross town rival's.

Raul was born into a humble working class family, whose head was a passionate supporter of Atletico Madrid. His father might have felt the pain rip through his heart, when he saw his son play for Real Madrid and not for his beloved Atletico, but such was the passion and dedication, Raul had for Real Madrid that no one ever mentioned or questioned his Atletico roots with cynicism. Raul was a boy when he first played for Real Madrid. Playing along with the idols like Butragueño, Michel, Zamorano, Redondo, Sanchis and Buyo would have overwhelmed many, but not Raul. In fact playing along with his idols spurred him and made him the legend he is today. Raul true to his commitment has reminded a single club man even though he commanded the highest transfer fee's in peak of his powers. Raul's commitment to the club was unparalleled even when he was chased and haunted by many multi million transfer offers, that no one in the club lost sleep even for a day with the prospect of loosing there most prized asset looming large.

Raul is respected all around the world not just for his footballing skills, but for his passion, commitment and outstanding behavior. Raul stands as a beacon in the world of football which is losing its sheen and slowly been taken over by football playing thugs, who don't mind slugging it out in a pub after their day's game. Not receiving a single red card in entire professional career spanning over 14 years is a feat which deserves the highest accolade and a benchmark which any self respecting footballer needs to strive to achieve.

Many love Real Madrid because they love football, but there are many more who love football because they love Real Madrid. For those many more supporters Raul is not just a top scorer, a great and a legend, but an identity which they will ever be proud to associate themselves with. Let the history etch his name in footballing folklore for many million youngsters who will not be fortunate to see this legend playing.

Long live the king. Long live his kingdom.

amen

Congrats Rafa

2009-02-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

Posted by:Shibarjun Ghosh,India
Incredible, determined, hard-working, amazing, fast, persistent, graceful, elegant,phenomenal, aggressive,Wimbledon open,french open winner ,olympic gold medalist,World no 1, now Australian open champion,the only fourth player to have won grand slams on three different surface,the first spaniard to conquer Melbourne and of course a Madrisimo to the core.....that is Rafael Nadal.

Congrats Rafa on your winning the Australian Open.
from everyone at SiempreMadrid.

New Maradona v New Pele- A Tale of Two Talents

2009-01-29T20:32:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Suresh, India.

Since the time these two greats graced the footballing arena, the footballing crowd has been spoiled for quality. Before and along with these two south American talents were many great footballers like Alfred De Stefano, Puskas, Johan Cruff, Franz Beckenbauer,Michel Platini, Eusebio, Gerd Muller, Bobby Carlton and etc; however no one were ever spoken about in the same vein as these two were. Even though the destiny of greatness united these two (in a way), they were distinctly separated by their temperament. Pele was always considered a perfect professional & a perfect role model because of his on field and off field behavior; however Diego was always the most mercurial player surrounded with controversy and bad press linked to his behavior and personal problems.

Over the years, impostors of many shapes and sizes from Argentina and Brazil have been compared to these two greats and none of them were able to fill up the vacuum left by these two in the hearts of football lovers. However off late, the emergence of Messi and Robinho has triggered the talk of the New Maradona and the New Pele again. In many ways Robinho and Messi share there masters’ class, vision and prodigious talent, but this is where the similarities end.

Since the time Messi started playing with Barca’s first team, he has lived up to all the comparisons to the Argentinean legend. In fact, Messi has gone from strength to strength and even drawn comparison from no other than Maradona himself, but having said, that Messi reminds us of Maradona in all aspects except his temperament, where surprisingly he reminds us of Pele and not Maradona. Messi's ascend to the top has been built on strong foundation with the right mix of commitment, maturity, hard work and professionalism. Many clubs have tried to lure him away from Barcelona, however Messi's commitment to the club, has made the club's decision easy and simple. It was not a surprise to most people, when Messi performed the same miracles as his predecessor, scoring goals that Maradona did in a similar fashion. Consequently, it won't be a surprise if Messi surpasses Maradona’s talents with some of his own and sets examples for future Messis to follow.

On the contrary Robinho with his mercurial talent has set the world stage on fire, and of late it is not because of football that he is in the news. He showed glimpses of his talent when he was playing in Santos and was tipped for bigger things when he signed for Real Madrid, however surprisingly he does not have the temperament of his master, but surprisingly that of Maradona. During his three years stint for Los Blancos he promised but failed to deliver when it came to talent on the pitch. He was so unprofessional that he drew comments from the sporting director of the club who had complained about Robinho smelling of booze in the dressing room. To add to his expanding list of unprofessional acts, his transfer saga drew a lot of criticism from even the unexpected quarters, with Pele condoning his move to Manchester (City). It's difficult not to be tempted with big money in the offing, however considering the fact that Robinho's desire was to be the best in the world, it would have been a easy choice to make. It would have been the right choice if he had chose to on at Real Madrid and continue in his quest to achieve greatness. And the Bernabeu faithful absolutely loved and adored Robinho. Instead Robinho chose not to confront the problems that he was facing and decided to be the big fish in the small pond by accepting a backdoor exit move to Manchester City. He allowed his lust for money to kill his footballing soul. From a very promising career and possible greatness, Robinho is now all set to confront his worst fear, with demons of relegation lurking in the shadows. His temperament, has time and time again, put his master to shame and has pushed Pele to the extent of recommending professional counseling for his off field behavior.

It is almost certain that Messi will perform just to the expectations, but it would be foolish to write Robinho off because he still has a long career ahead of him. But it would hardly be a surprise for most, if Robinho turns out to be a gaffer and does nothing to fulfill his potential. We will wait for the future to answer this question.

Debate: The Ball Winner or The Goal Scorer?

2009-01-27T23:50:00.001-08:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India

Now that UEFA.com has confirmed that Real Madrid has withdrawn the appeal filed with CAS, it’s only logical to think over who we are to nominate for the UEFA Champions League. The two available contenders are Lassan Diarra and Jaan Klass Huntelaar. So let us analyze their performances so far, compare their skillsets to the team requirements and decide on whom we need to take to the UCL.

Lassana Diarra

This springy kid from Portsmouth has come a long way by making it into Real Madrid, competing with the likes of Guti, Gago and Sneijder to be top dog. While most sports critics wrote him off as a “would be bench warmer” when Real Madrid sought his services, citing his inability to make it in clubs of a “big stature” like Chelsea and Arsenal, the defensive midfielder quickly made sure that he won over Juande Ramos and a place in the starting XI by his performances on the training ground, and later won over the crowd by his performances on the pitch.
Lassana Diarra or Lass as his jersey reads (to avoid confusion with his senior namesake in the team) has fit in like a glove, so much so that he’s been drawing comparisons with the great Claude Makelele. His work rate is unquestionable. He lasts the entire 90 minutes with still enough strength left in him to still run that extra mile, he is all over the park winning the ball, making quality tackles and breaking up the opposition’s play. However, the defensive aspect aside, he’s also a good playmaker. His sense of positioning and vision is what adds another dimension to him as a player. He makes sure that he is always well positioned to receive a pass and distribute it around the park. He has good vision to start off counter attacks and build up attacks from open play. He showed the crowd yet another aspect to his game with an inch perfect loopy lob to Raul who glanced the header to far post, the only goal which determined the final result in the game against Numancia last weekend.
This is what Real Madrid has to say about Lass’ first 172 minutes on pitch:
In 172 minutes on the pitch, Lass has recovered 18 balls (nine in each match) for an average of one every 9.53 minutes. In that same amount of time, he has 31 clearances, one every 5.53 minutes, and has proven to be a bastion in defense. On the offensive side, Lass has successfully completed 77 of 87 passes and has opened the game up along the flanks 15 times in his 16 attempts.

Jaan Klass Huntelaar

Though Huntelaar hasn’t figured as a regular starter for Real Madrid (at least not yet), the prolific striker has come up through the youth ranks of that academy of thoroughbred goal scorers, PSV Eindhoven, which has gifted the footballing world with amazing talents like Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Luiz Nazario Ronaldo (R9). He has maintained an average of 20 goals per season in the Eredivisie, which is no small feat by any means. Huntelaar is a classic example of the old definition of a “number 9”. The proverbial “fox in the box”, Huntelaar is gifted with impeccable sense of positioning, a predator’s instinct in the box and the ability to play and shoot with both feet. He is also good aerially, which is generally what seperates good strikers from the great.
Real Madrid signed Huntelaar when he was recuperating from an injury, probably his first long term injury in his distinguished career. Consequently, he has shown some good touches since his debut at Real Madrid, but has largely failed to impress. The non-performance could be attributed to being rusty after injury, but if he has to match the standards set by his dutch counterparts viz. Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Arjen Robben, he still has a long way to go.

Crux of the Problem

So, on one hand we have a defensive midfielder who’s already settled at Real Madrid and on the other hand we have a prolific goal scorer, who needs that 1st goal to get his confidence back and settle down into the squad. And what better stage to showcase one’s talents than Europe? But, we can take only of these two to the Champions League. So who should that one player be?
Real Madrid, as a team right now, is a wounded lion. We have one goal scorer and one defensive midfielder who would miss the entire season and we’ve signed another goal scorer and a defensive midfielder to replace them, not aware that under UEFA rules, only one of them can be registered in the competition. To add to it, we are struggling to achieve a semblance of decency in the league, while we are taking European giants like Liverpool head-on in the UCL. A wrong decision right now could hurt us badly in future. If one takes a look at our squad, they’ll realize that though we have a host of midfielders as opposed to just three strikers, we actually have only one player capable of playing that crucial defensive midfielder player role; and that’s Gago. Apart from Gago, we do have J. Garcia, but he’s simply not cut for Europe, since he lacks the quality. In all other positions, we have a host of attack minded players, but then again, the strikers department is quite depleted with the absence of Ruud Van. Raul is a great striker and Higuain is the top scorer for us this season, but in a season fraught with injuries for us, we should ask ourselves the question; What if one of them gets injured? The only other option is Javier Saviola, who hasn’t started more than 2 matches for us this season and scored just 1 goal. Is that the guy we would like to come on for us against Liverpool?
Having said all this, it is quite clear that there is a trade-off required. We have to sacrifice some aspect of our game; either the defensive aspect by taking Huntelaar to UCL or the attacking aspect, by taking Lass to UCL.

Synopsis

Personally, I feel we would be better off by taking Lass to the UCL. Lass has already settled down at Real Madrid. He is at home with our playing style and Gago , the fine player that he is, cannot be expected to last the entire UCL without picking up a tiny niggle here and there. With Gago gone, we cannot afford to ignore the defensive midfielder role and we’ve learnt our lesson the hard way in the past. On the other hand, even if we lose one of our strikers to injury, we do have another bonafide striker (however out of form) to come on from the bench. With Gago gone, we don’t have any other player who can take up the mantle of a defensive midfielder.
Another aspect to my personal viewpoint is our playing style. Currently we rely more on counter attacks and playmaking from the midfield rather than on individual talents and footwork from the forwards. Our forwards rely heavily on the feed coming in from the midfield and finish off the chances that come their way. In a setup like this, generally there is a less chance of strikers picking up injuries. The midfield has to bear the entire brunt. So a trade-off where we see Huntelaar resting for UCL is what we should go for, in my opinion. This would mean that Huntelaar starts getting more starts in the league and builds up his confidence levels, while Raul / Higuain is rested on some occasions to be fresh for the UCL ties.

However, that is just my viewpoint. What really happens remains to be seen. Until then, I would like your viewpoint about this.

Official: Real Madrid withdraw appeal filed with CAS

2009-01-27T08:39:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India
Credits: UEFA's official website.

You can also view the article here.

UEFA has issued the following statement on Tuesday concerning the withdrawal of an appeal by Real Madrid CF to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

"UEFA President, Michel Platini, last Thursday met the new President of Real Madrid CF, Vicente Boluda, at the House of European Football in Nyon, in particular to discuss the appeal filed by Real Madrid CF with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the decision of UEFA's Appeal Body of 13 January 2009, regarding the requested registration of the two players Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Lassana Diarra for the final (knockout) phase of the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League.

During the meeting, both UEFA and Real Madrid CF were able to explain their own positions regarding the matter, in a spirit of open and sincere communication and with reciprocal respect.
Following the meeting, and upon the invitation of the UEFA President to reconsider their position, Real Madrid CF have decided to withdraw the appeal filed with CAS and to accept the decision of UEFA of 13 January 2009. Thus, Real Madrid CF will inform the UEFA administration, within the prescribed deadline, which of the two players, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar or Lassana Diarra, they would like to register on the A list for the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League first knockout round matches onwards.

The UEFA President was very appreciative of the manner and the style in which Real Madrid CF developed the discussions of last Thursday and commented: 'This does not come as a surprise to me. Real Madrid CF are one of the most successful teams in European football, the all-time record-holder of titles in the UEFA Champions League and have a great tradition.'

The UEFA President concluded by stating that the issues raised by Real Madrid CF 'cannot have any influence on the current UEFA Champions League season, but they were raised in good faith and are a good opportunity to discuss within the competent UEFA bodies the question of whether article 17.18 of the current UEFA Champions League regulations may need to be amended for the future seasons.'

Jonarda 20: Real Madrid 1 - 0 Deportivo Coruna (Match Review)

2009-01-26T00:06:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Paulo Martin, Spain

Real Madrid's Raul Gonzalez, centre, dribbles the ball through the Deportivo la Coruna defence during their Spanish La Liga soccer match at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Sunday Jan. 25, 2009.

5 wins in a row !

So we have made it 5 wins in a row now since playing Barcelona we have won 15 points ! And again we have regained our defensive strength maintaining yet another clean sheet.

Jonarda 20. Final score: Real Madrid 1 - 0 Deportivo la Coruña. A good win which now distances us from the likes of Sevilla & Valencia, both of whom failed to win this weekend making our second place spot a little safer. The first half had glimpses of vintage Real Madrid football with the team maintaining possession and attempting to score as quickly as possible. The team came out of the dressing room, firing on all cylinders and was a tad unlucky not to have scored early on in the game. The game perhaps didn't have as many chances as expected, especially from our point of view but still it was a much deserved win.

The New Makelele

The double pivot central midfield duo of Lass and Gago again dominated the play in the center of the park, though personally I feel it isn't needed during home games. Lass had an exceptional game; the lad does everything correctly, and makes things look easy which is what a quality defensive midfielder should do. I think at last we have found a player who could fill the legendary Makelele`s boots. Not only was he superb in destroying Depor`s attempts at creating football but he also isn't shy with the ball, making some quality passes and spreading the ball about nicely.

With around 40 minutes into the first half, game resumed from a corner kick awarded to Real Madrid. Lass latched on to a short corner pass from Sneijder on the left flank, and from the edge of the box, sent in a swirling, dipping cross which Raul glanced cleanly at the far post, past a stunned Munua. “1-0 to Real Madrid!” the commentators screamed, the Bernabeu erupted, but Raul didn’t kiss his wedding ring this time as expected. Instead he pointed at the Real Madrid crest, and then to Lassana and Sneijder; a gesture, which may well have been symbolic, for all we know.

We maintained possession and had numerous attacks in the first half and were very unlucky not to have scored a second with the referee and linesman denying Robben of his goal and being a little too benevolent with the yellow cards.
Higuain looked a little off today and wasn't his usual self but he always maintains his high level of commitment and excellent maneuverability. Robben was once again our best man; the Flying Dutchman looks simply unstoppable! He cleverly switched wings making it equally hard for Manuel Pablo and Filipe to stop him. He also had added help of an excellent S.Ramos who looks like his old self again bombing up and down the wing and sending in his trademark crosses.

Sleep, Sugar, Sleep

Everything that we did well in the first half, came undone in the second. Sneijder who was invisible all game (again!) was substituted for VDV who didn't offer anything to the game and yet again failed to prove himself. Drenthe came on for Raul, and was immediately booed by some sects of the fans, which is just shocking! It is appalling that the poor kid gets booed by the home crowd; this is going to do wonders for his confidence level. I know it was a small sector of the crowd who was booing (the same idiots who always do it viz. The Ultra Sur) but it was accentuated by the almost silent Bernabeu who seemed to have been hypnotized by the team’s poor display in the second half. Huntelaar hardly got a touch on the ball, but towards the dying seconds of the game, after yet another sublime run down the flank by Robben, he (Huntelaar) was unlucky not to have scored with a good save by Munua. Casillas again had to pull off one of his wonder saves to stop Lafita`s shot, but was almost surprised on another occasion, by a long range effort by Filipe which ricocheted of the crossbar into the stands. Apart from these two chances, Deportivo didn't really threaten us all game.

As i mentioned before a positive note to be derived from this match, is yet another clean sheet. Pepe, who didn't really have a great game, still maintained a dignified level of play all game, Cannavaro who looked much better tonight than in previous matches was commanding our defence and Heinze who failed to attack his wing and deliver a cross well enough most times, did maintain a high level of play at the back and looked very good to my surprise. All in all it certainly wasn't our best match but we maintained our winning streak which is really all that matters now, if we want to have a shot at a comeback further down the line.

We lost a more of possession and failed to capitalize on our chances towards the end, which gave Deportivo wings. Depor’s sole objective was to draw 0 - 0 and they came close to it, had it not been for Raul`s goal. I was thankful to Lotina for granting me the pleasure of watching the magnificent Juan Carlos Valeron in action for what may well be the last time. Valeron clearly maintains his elegance and breathtakingly precise passing ability but lacks the in the physical department.

Number 7, a Legend

Raul didn't really participate much in the game tonight, mainly due to not receiving many quality through balls (we may be missing Guti). But he scored his 305th goal in 501 matches in style and is now the leagues highest active goalscorer and is only 1 goal away from breaking the legendary Alfredo Di Stefano`s record.

Some sectors of the crowd were shocked when Juande Ramos brought in Drenthe to replace Raul. As Raul walked down to the bench, the crowd acknowledged his contribution and in that moment, it was quite evident that Real Madrid is Raul Madrid.

Debate: Ronaldo, Kaka or Ribery?

2009-01-22T01:55:00.001-08:00

Posted by: Rahul, India.

We're exactly half-way through the season. And 19 games on, it is clear even to a blind man who's going to win the Liga this season, barring the Catalans push the infamous self-destruct button (fingers crossed!). While Barcelona have been demolishing everyone in sight, Real Madrid have been scrappy and peeled off results in recent weeks. And though the hard-fought recent results are heartening, the quality of our game continues to be poor. Don't get me wrong, I'm not demanding aesthetically pleasing football immediately from a manager roped in mid-season. But let's face it, since the departure of Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo and co, i.e., the wicked Galacticos, our play has never quite been eye-candy. Slick movements and passing are a rarity, one touch moves are non-existent and outrageous goals are scored not more than twice a season. The obvious question thus arises. Should we resort back to a few new Galacticos? The answer, I'm afraid, is yes.

The first three and a half years of the Galacticos era were not only successful but very pleasing to the eye as well and a revisit to those years can only bring contented smiles on the faces of most Madridistas. And even though in the latter years it went on to become hugely disastrous, the style of play never quite reached the nadir of our game today. I think the solution is a trade-off. The right mix of superstars and youth, of proven talent and potential kids, of stylish wizards and hard-workers. And I think we've learnt from past mistakes of not flooding the team with superstars and their egos at the risk of losing genuine talent and players with a sincere work ethic.

As of now, one look at our squad is enough to know that not only is it a decent one, but also a big one. But the point is we desperately need quality here, and not quantity. We need just ONE player, and not a host of them. Our embattled Sporting Director, Pedja Mijatovic made a rare sensible statement during last summer's transfer window when he said, "At the moment, one great player is much better for us than three good ones". We need just that one magical player who can turn things around single-handedly when they aren't going well. As of now, I can't think of any single player in our squad who can do that, who has that magic. Admittedly, Robben does. He's started doing that the past few weeks. But who knows where the next injury is lurking? There's no doubt we need one of those "wizard" signings; someone who can actually scare defenders the night before the match itself. It's high time we got someone like that once again at the Bernabeu.

So who should that ONE great signing be? I can only think of two genuine current greats who Real actually have a chance and a possibility to sign and yes, they are Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka (Messi is out of question for obvious reasons). Now Ronaldo definitely makes more sense, seeing as our squad has only one proper winger, and that too an injury-prone one. Sure, Ronaldo is not all that blessed in the grey area and his ego seems to inflate with every goal he scores. But that can easily be overlooked and his talent definitely overshadows the tantrums. Not only does Ronaldo offer wing-play and good crosses but he also comes up with a chunkful of goals (though I still believe his last season's tally was a one-off). He'd offer that flair and the bag of tricks that's missing right now. He's still relatively young. I believe he can still improve further. And plus he's two-footed. Though it might seem a minor point, it's essential for every great winger to have two feet, and most whos-who of football have always maintained this. Cristiano Ronaldo would be a near perfect signing.

However I'm not that optimistic of seeing Ronaldo donning the famed white, at least not as long as Fergusson is around. Even if we have the man with the magic wand around (as far as getting big name players go), a certain Senor F.Perez, I'm not too sure of us landing Ronaldo. In spite of all the recent talk of him changing his brand to CR9 and all that, I remain doubtful. So, we're back to square one, with no one capable of turning on the style consistently.

So only then, should we go for Kaka. A lot of fans are apprehensive about signing him, and rightfully so. Our central midfiled, at the moment, is cluttered with too many hopefuls. The players in queue for the central midfield position are Diarra, Diarra, Gago, Sneijder, Van Der Vaart, Guti, Parejo and De La Red. Now let's look at this rationally. Both the Diarras and Gago are vying for the defensive midfield position and I agree three players for just one position is a lot, but none of them plays the role we can expect Kaka to perform. Van Der Vaart has simply failed to impress this season and many have expressed doubts that he can turn it around. Most Madridistas would be glad if he did, but I just don't see that happening. Guti is way too inconsistent and depending on him to do that prime role of playmaking, every week on a consistent basis is just impossible. It's an uncomfortable thought having him as our main source of moves for an important Champions League 2nd leg game, for example. He doesn't turn up the heat in most big games. But he'd be very effective coming fresh off the bench in say the 60th minute. As for De La Red, neither does he play in Kaka's position, nor does he possess Kaka's talents. We're not even sure he'll ever play again, sadly. Parejo is still young and he'll learn gradually. In fact, he'd tremendously benefit from having Kaka around.

The way I see it, Kaka could potentially fit in easily. Selling Van Der Vaart and pushing Guti to the bench should make way for him. The midfield could be (L/M)Diarra, Sneijder, Kaka, Robben. Add Guti, Gago and Parejo on the bench and that does look really good. Hell, it might even look like the stuff of dreams. People might argue that signing Ribery makes more sense, given that a winger is the need of the hour. But if I had to choose between Kaka and Ribery, I'd still go with the Brazilian. It's just very hard to turn down a player with the ridiculously abundant talent and complete passing range and consistency that Kaka possesses. Ribery, for all the talent that he has, is still no Kaka. I don't believe he's the "main star" that we're looking for here.

Kakaphony - A War of Tabloids

2009-01-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

Posted by-Shibarjun Ghosh,India

Kaka almost had one foot in Manchester, Now he has two in Milan…with a head in Madrid", AS wrote in its article regarding Kaka's much lampooned and finally failed transfer speculations . Come to think of it, it makes quite a good line. Ever since the big money transfer of Kaka to Manchester City broke down the cacophony regarding his future has already started. The rumour mill has been working overtime and now there are speculations and predictions galore. Predictably, the Madrid based (or should I say Madrid biased) daily have seem to taken the upper hand on this one keeping well in mind that their cross town rivals took the cake, pie and cherry in the Ronaldo saga that enfolded in the summer of last year. AS chipped in with trivias here and there, but its a known fact that it was MARCA that was running the "Cristiano Ronaldo Show".

But who are these guys in AS??? Well they are very much like u and me; Madrid over-enthusiasts, but also a bit more imaginative. AS is so pumped up and so over excited about the fact that they have got the best seller plot of the month they don't care if the facts they are stating are true or not; like stating the fact that that Kaka's contract ends in 2011 instead of 2013, which in fact is the case.

So much so is their verve about the new scoop that they have not hesitated taking digs at the recently crowned FIFA player of the year Ronaldo (who of course was the main protagonist of the summer blockbuster scripted by Marca) and have also gone on the extent of saying that "Ronaldo needs a team to shine whereas Kaka makes a team shine", not exactly true by my diagnosis. Ronaldo has scored 42 goals last season and has won the Double with Man Utd, leading the charge from the front, enough for Real Madrid to go on a wild goose chase with the a possiblity of smashing transfer records left right and centre. As for Kaka, no doubt he is a great player, probably one of the greatest to have graced the footballing world of late, but playing in the uefa cup certainly is not my definition of "shining".

However AS is taking no chance; they are doing everything to juice it up, like putting words in people's mouth, citing "undisclosed inside sources" and also introducing Barcelona as the new "twist in the tale". People like Emerson with their few predictions and on-the-record antics have got more media coverage than they have managed in the whole of this season with their onfield activities. Suddenly everyone wants to be part of this blockbuster and have been contributing in with their share of lip service. And Emerson has apparently also gone to the extent that not only Kaka, but even Pato would be joining Madrid in the near future. And in this saga fraught with contradictions, Emerson has again gone on record denying that he made any such claims!

Now AS certainly doesn't want to leave anything to chance this time. Once bitten, twice shy, they have learnt from their mistakes and have not forgotten the lesson they learnt the last summer when Marca stole all the limelight with the Ronaldo saga and AS was relegated to playing second fiddle in the war of the tabloids. However, what if all these reports are really true? I would be shouting “Vamos!” at the top of my voice but for the time being it’s not about Kaka, Milan, Madrid or City because the real action is in the tabloid columns and not anywhere else. It’s 2009 and the score is Marca 0-1 AS.

As of now, I am waiting for a fitting reply from Marca with the hope that they can come up with an equally engrossing and exciting plot where there is no shortage of drama, emotions, betrayal, loyalty and lots of money (like this one). There are a lot of protagonists up for the taking. Benzema, Villa, Walcott, Ibrahimovic or may be Ronaldo once more, to name a few. Until then guys, grab your popcorn and enjoy the bytes; this show is not over as yet, and another blockbuster’s already blooming!...hope its just AS good.

Jonarda 19: Real Madrid 3 - 1 Osasuna (Post Match Review)

2009-01-19T03:28:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India.

Real Madrid's Sergio Ramos from Spain, center, reacts with fellow team members Pepe, right, and Arjen Robben from the Netherlands, left, after scoring a goal against Osasuna during their Spanish La Liga soccer match at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2009.

A Tale of 2 Halves and a Referee

Jonarda 19. Final score: Real Madrid 3 – Osasuna 1. A comfortable win by a 2 goal margin. Yet another win under Juande Ramos. But these facts do not tell the full story. They do not tell of the saga that was written in those 90 minutes with two different contrasting plays and in which referee Perez Burull played a major role.

The Osasuna Story

Real Madrid began the 1st half very nervously with almost everyone looking quite rusty, especially the defence, which was quite reminiscent of the defence under Schuster. Predictably, Osasuna started pressing forward with intent and about a quarter of an hour later came the first real chance, when Juanfran drilled in a shot down the centre of the pitch which was parried away easily by Casillas. Osasuna kept up the attack and soon enough Plasil broke away from Gago on the right flank and sent in a dangerous cross. Cannavaro, stuck with two Osasuna players to fend off, got elbowed away and Neckounam glanced the header away to the far post, past a bewildered Casillas. While Osasuna celebrated their first goal away at the Bernabeu, the Real Madrid players were left to come to terms with the fact that we were indeed 1 goal down against a relegation threatened team.

As the first half wore on, the team began showing intent of scoring and slowly but steadily, started playing slick, possession football. Lass and Gago made some strong tackles in the midfield to win the ball. Gago had a scorcher at goal from almost 40 yards out but shot just wide into the stands. Meanwhile, Higuain went down just inside the box looking for a penalty but was booked for diving. On the other end, Juanfran was supposedly brought down by Gago in the box. But replays showed that though Gago had a foot on him, he (Juanfran) had kicked the ball far ahead and was never going to get there in time. Perez Burull whipped out the yellow and booked Juanfran for diving, which was quite rash under the circumstances.

Towards the end of the first half, Real Madrid were positively dominating possession and were more and more threatening by the second. Ramos skied a header from a Sneijder cross, whereas a Raul cross went begging insde the box. Ramos then headed another Sneijder cross into goal but was ruled offside and rightly so. The teams walked to their respective dressing rooms soon after as the scoreboard read 0-1 to Osasuna.

A Tactician’s script

Real Madrid came out of the tunnel with two changes to the starting XI. Van der Vaart had predictably come on for Sneijder who hadn’t done much in the first. The other change was a surprise with Huntelaar coming on for Cannavaro. Many madridistas balked at this sudden change, but then soon relaxed when they saw Sergio Ramos moving down the centre of the defence and Lassana Diarra playing on the right flank. Van der Vaart took up the slot freed up by Lass and Huntelaar moved up front.

The start of the second half was delicately positioned with nothing much happening. However 10 minutes into the half, the ball was passed on to Ramos from the left flank who drilled a low shot in from thirty yards out. The ball bounced some feet ahead of the Osasuna keeper, Roberto, who misjudged the bounce and made a right mess out of it by palming it into his own net. Suddenly the Bernabeu erupted with the fans cheering “Vamos” for Sergio Ramos who notched his 2nd goal in consecutive matches for the club. Real Madrid was suddenly back into the game. From there on, everything followed as per Juande Ramos’ script. Madrid took control of the match and pressed on trying to penetrate the Osasuna defence further. Robben, who was largely quiet the entire match so far, since all the play was down the centre, latched on to a haphazard pass from Heinze on the left flank. He waltzed over the ball with a couple of defenders watching him just outside the box, then skipped past them and squared a menacing low ball past Roberto. Higuain rammed the ball home from three yards out for the 2nd goal of the match. A dejected Osasuna saw their hopes shatter once more while the players and the Bernabeu celebrated a goal which would prove to be the turning point in the game.

As the match wore on Osasuna retreated further and started relying more on long balls and counter attacks. It was one of these counter attacks which saw Juanfran skip free past the Madrid defence. Pepe followed him right to the very end, halting only after bringing him down inside the box. While the onlookers, players and spectators braced themselves for the upcoming penalty decision, referee Perez Burull handed the Bernabeu faithful a late Christmas present by ruling the decision against Osasuna and booking Juanfran for protesting. Juanfran had to exit soon after, having got the second yellow that day for no fault of his. To say that the referee conditioned the match is an understatement. He had just handed the match on a platter to Real Madrid, but hey, who’s complaining?

Osasuna simply lost interest in the match after this and the last ten minutes were quite forgettable with Madrid not willing to take the game to Osasuna and the latter having simply lost interest in the encounter. The last nail in the coffin came in the 91st minute (in injury time), when Robben dribbled past two defenders on the right flank and scored the third goal from a tight angle past a hapless Roberto.

Resilience in its prime

We at Real Madrid have seen more than a fair share of controversies this season. With Ramon Calderon doing the run only a couple of days prior to the match and a new interim president appointed, things couldn’t get worse at the club. But in these times of turmoil, the spirit of the players, the “never say die” attitude and the brilliant tactics of Juande Ramos saw Madrid win yet another game. And that’s what is important for us right now. We can wait for the aesthetically pleasing game. Right now there is a job to be done and all I can say is, we are doing a pretty good job.

Click here to view the match highlights

Disclaimer: The match highlights are not hosted by us though we have tried to verify the authenticity of the same before posting.

Calderon-Gate & What Lies Thereafter

2009-01-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Midhun Mohandas, India.

The inevitable finally happened. Ramón Calderón resigned as the club president on July 16th after reports that he had rigged the recent general assembly came out. Calderon and controversies go hand-in-hand, so it was not a surprise that the most unpopular president the club had in recent times, for both supporters and rivals alike, had to go in such a manner. Most of the Madridistas didn’t consider him as their president mainly because he never had the support of the majority.

Calderón laid the foundation of his imperium with a series of lies. He promised the socios that he had contracts signed with Kaka, Robben and Cesc Fabregas and has spoken to their respective clubs, and even had the audacity to claim that he would pass on the contracts to the new president even if he fails in the elections. This was later proved to be the first of the several bold faced lies that Madridismos would hear from their big-mouthed president. In January 2007, he was caught on tape making several unflattering comments about his players, and later had to apologize to the entire squad. He sacked Fabio Capello with in days after Madrid won its first major title in four years. Calderón always said that he wouldn’t interfere in Sporting matters, but he went ahead with his plan to sack the Italian tactician against Sporting Director, Pedja Mijatovic’s will. In March 2008, Calderon was accused of nepotism in selling season tickets by a reputed Spanish journalist. He was found using the club’s credit card for personal reasons which only added insult to the injury. Ronaldo-gate was another embarrassing incident during his tenure. He promised the fans that the club will be able to lure the Portuguese winger in the summer, but failed to get him despite the player expressing his wish to play for the Spanish giants on various occasions.

The club's image was tarnished further when Marca reported that the management was unaware of the UEFA rules which allow them to register either Huntelaar or Diarra. Calderon tried to wash his hands off this latest controversy by blaming the club’s legal adviser for this goof up.

The General Assembly held in early December exposed the dark side of Calderon furthermore which eventually led to his downfall. He turned off the microphones when some socios started to question him. Ultras Sur were present at the assembly (normally only members are allowed) and they began to jeer the socios who tried to speak against Calderon. Ultras are said to be hardcore supporters of Calderon since he's 'too soft' on them. But his fate was decided when Marca came up with irrefutable evidence which showed many of those who voted in favor of Calderon were non-members which included a Atletico fan and his own sibling. Calderon tried to save his face by sacking Mariano Rodríguez and Luis Barcena, who was supposedly in charge of organizing the event. But the ploy backfired when Mariano revealed that he worked under the instructions of Calderon and the president was forced to resign after the board meeting on Friday.

Calderon has proven so many times that he’s a misfit for such a responsible post. He never took criticisms positively and acted weirdly many times. He ordered banners at the Bernabeu to be taken down in the middle of a game, simply because they criticized his administration. He didn’t allow fans to watch (Lassana) Diarra’s presentation because they voiced anti-Calderon chants during Huntelaar’s presentation. The way he reacted when Florentino posed with Zizou and Ronaldo after a charity match shows that he had no self-confidence in himself.

And if this was not enough, Calderon always harped about bringing back some of the 'values' that the club lost during Perez's era. I’ve always wondered what positive values has he brought back to Madrid? The cantera has been over-looked like never before which was not the case under the previous regime. In fact, Perez was mocked by critics for trying to build a team comprising of super stars and 'kids'. Calderon had the luxury of having some of the better players our cantera has produced in recent years which was not the case with Perez, and yet he signed players like Drenthe, Marcelo, Saviola ignoring players like Negredo, Arbeloa, Granero and Mata in the youth set up. So was making RM a laughing stock around the world the so called “value” he brought back?

Juan Villalonga , Eugenio Martinez Bravo from Plataforma Blanca and possibly Florentino Perez are mooted as the candidates for the next elections and I am sure some more will join the list soon. Lets hope whoever wins the elections does a better job than Calderon did in the last two and half years, and I bet that isn’t a tough benchmark to cross upon.

What do you think of the possible contenders for the job come July? Let us know.

Entre, Vicente!

2009-01-16T21:13:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India.

The deputy President of Real Madrid Vicente Boluda, who now takes charge of the club, listens to the President of Real Madrid Ramon Calderon during a press conference at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Friday Jan. 16, 2009. Ramon Calderon quit as Real Madrid president on Friday following a vote-rigging scandal. Calderon's turbulent tenure as head of the world's biggest football club appears to have come to an end after a Spanish newspaper reported that the 57-year-old lawyer had manipulated a general assembly vote, effectively a vote of confidence, in December.

Construction, Law and now Shipping. This defines the various backgrounds of the last three presidents on Real Madrid. While Florentino Perez was a construction magnate and Ramon Calderon made his name as a lawyer, Vicente Boluda has made his name in the shipping industry.

Balouda has a masters in Legal Advice for Business and a Masters in Maritime Law. He is also the president of the 'National Association of Shipowners and Tow-Trucks', a delegate in the 'Upper Counsel of the Chambers of Commerce', the first vice-president of the 'Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation of Valencia', and vice-president of the 'Spanish Shipping Association.'

In 1998 he received the 'Enterpriser of the Year' award for his work in the Boluda Group, against rivals such as La Caixa and IBM. Along with his own personal success, Boluda has a very successful family, with his grandfather, Boluda Marí, giving rise to a naval empire that has since expanded massively to cover various ports around the world. Now, they operate not just on the shore but also at sea, where they participate in off-shore rescue, and fight against contamination.

Coming to you from Real Madrid's official website, Boluda's opening words to the press and to the masses of Real Madrid....

"I would like to begin by expressing, in the name of Real Madrid, my thanks to Ramón Calderón for the job he has done these past two and a half years. On a personal level, I would like to add that I feel proud for having been part of
his Board and for being his friend."

"I take over the Presidency as an act of responsibility and an obligation I cannot refuse. An institution like Real Madrid can't be devoid of power until the next election, which will take place this summer. I ask Madridismo to stand united and to act responsibly, and I wish to ask all of you to allow us to do our jobs in a calm and confident atmosphere."

"Our football and basketball squads have important goals to achieve this season and they deserve our support more than ever. I offer our fans and Club Members my full dedication to this organisation. I will defend the interests of the Club with all my heart. Thank you."

This is "Called-a-Run"

2009-01-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Ashay K, India.

Well, there has always been immense pressure in a managerial position of any capacity at Real Madrid. So much pressure that one has difficulty surviving even if all he is doing is in the best interests of the club. But the audacity of Ramon Calderon, the scandals and the fact that the image of the club is tarnished has kept many wondering as to how Calderon survived for so long.
Marca explained that as well, in great detail. As a result, we finally get to hear Calderon address the Real Madrid faithful, and we hope, for the last time.

We would like to directly quote Calderon since this is such a momentous occassion for most madridistas...

"As I said in my previous press conference, I am not a coward and I have nothing to hide. I wish to swear again that the things that have been said in some media about my direct or indirect responsibility with what happened in the last General Assembly are false."

"Against the wishes of all the Members of the Board, I have decided to yield the Presidency. I hope that by handing in my head -highly sought after since the day my office began- I help to pacify a social strata that is permanently agitated by the information that appears in the media on a daily basis and that is divulged and elaborated with absolute disregard to moral ethics."

"I have given my soul and all my strength to Real Madrid these last two and a half years and my hands are clean. I have a clear conscience and I feel proud for having served the most important club in the world. I honestly believe that the success of those who have repeatedly sought my exit of the Club is also the triumph of injustice and evil doing. I have made mistakes as a consecuence to my limitations, but I have never taken part in any irregularities. The mistakes I made never sought personal benefit."

"I wish now to express my gratitude to the Board and to those whose loyalty is hard to emulate. Thanks to them, this Club has won 5 titles in two years: 3 in football and 2 in basketball. The Club's accounts regarding both income and expenditure are the best in its history. I also wish to thank the employees and collaborators I've had these years. They make this entity and myself proud with their efficient work, support and affection."

"I love and feel for this Club with all my heart and I wish to ask our Club Members and fans to stand united in support of the new President. I also wish to ask the fans to support our football and basketball players, who are great professionals that are deeply involved with the Club and their work. I can say the same of two exceptional coaches that make the Club proud. United, the teams and the fans can win all the competitions they are playing in."

"I wish to publicly manifest my unconditional support for all my successors and I renounce any act of obstruction or opposition. Finally, and most importantly, I wish to thank my family, my mother, my brothers and, especially, Teresa, an expectional woman without whom I would have never achieved anything in my life and who has suffered and accepted in silence and with affection all the absences, problems and unpleasantness derived from this position."

"Naturally, I can't forget my children, Leticia, Jaime and Mariana. Not only have they suffered for what's happening to their father, but they have also been permanently harassed and slandered. Their photos and personal details have been used with unscrupulousness. I ask you as a final favour to respect them. They are the most important thing in my life, as for every husband and father, and the decision I've made today has been heavily influenced by the relentless hounding they are subjected to and the suffering it has caused them."

"I leave with my head held high and stressing once again that I have a clear conscience because I have always been true and sought to make good."
"Thank you very much. God bless you."

...That emotional and touchy conference has left us quite subdued. So with a heavy heart, we wish Calderon the very best for whatever he takes up in the future and we hope tht he and our club never cross paths ever again.

Disclaimer: Though the thoughts in the post are our own, Calderon's comments have been picked verbatim from the Real Madrid official website.

Et Tu, Marca?

2009-01-16T05:53:00.001-08:00

Posted by: Ashay K.

Julius Caesar's words echo strong in this case. The only change being this time its Calderon and there's no Brutus, only Marca. After carrying out a long campaign against Ramon Calderon, Marca seems to have finally succeeded.

Marca reports that Ramon Calderon has sensationally resigned from the post of Club President. Calderon is due to hold a press conference explaining his decision to stand down at 18:00 CET.
Keep watchin this space, we'll post more once the news is official followed by a detailed analysis of Calderon's tenure here at Real Madrid.

Jonarda 18: Real Madrid vs Mallorca (Match Review)

2009-01-16T03:55:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Paulo Martin, Spain.

Real Madrid's Arjen Robben (R) shoots to score against Real Mallorca's goalkeeper Dudu Aouate during their Spanish First Division soccer match at Ono stadium in Palma de Mallorca January 11, 2009.

Manual for the perfect counter attack.

Real Madrid`s recuperation process is following the strict script written by Juande Ramos. A better defensive system and taking advantage of counter attacking football. For now, our play isn't a priority, it doesn't have to aesthetically pleasing. With this rescue plan in motion, the team beat Mallorca with outstanding authority, Mallorca was a sad team which went from bad to worse with difficulties which reach all aspects of the club. For Real Madrid, Mallorca was a perfect rival to face. Robben & Higuain perfectly interpreted the counter attack and gave Mallorca no option.

The plan came together from the very start. Two light chances from Mallorca served as a prologue for Real Madrid`s first goal. Casillas intercepted a cross, he observed Raul was free and passed him the ball. The build-up to the attack following this was by the book. Raul to Higuain, who crossed the ball aerially to the right flank, were nobody had picked up Robben. The flying Dutchman accelerated and scored through Aoute's legs in a one-on-one situation . The goal accentuated the signs of things to come for both the teams. Real Madrid waited and counter attacked. Mallorca just fell apart.

A lethal problem for Real Madrid had been its fragile defence. In the last two months of the Schuster era the team received an average of two goals per game, a sum that is simply unacceptable for a team with Real Madrid`s aspirations. Closing that hemorrhage was a priority. The numbers under Juande Ramos are inspiring: Real Madrid hasn't conceded a goal in its last three games, against Valencia, Villarreal and Mallorca. Yesterday the team didn't need to rely on Iker Casillas, except to confirm that the keeper is a fundamental piece of the teams counterattack. His vision, which is very rarely mentioned about goal keepers, resulted decisive in the first goal and, later on, in an electrical play that Robben was unlucky not to have scored his second with a shot off the post. The virtue for consolidating the defence took another big step with Lassana Diarra`s presence, another specialist for the team that against Mallorca fielded its best defence (S.Ramos-Pepe-Cannavaro-Heinze) and another specialist in closing down players, Gago.

This all resulted too much for Mallorca who`s poor play and lack of ideas led to the teams defeat. You could see how frustrated they were by looking at their best players face, Arango. He expressed the teams lack of spirit and lack of vitality. Without play, without players, without vitality, Mallorca got caught up in Real Madrid`s defensive web. The second goal killed what little hope Mallorca had of attempting to fight back. Corrales failed to control a long ball which landed at Hgiuain`s feet, who once again manifested into the quality player that he is, appearing from further back where defenders didn't detect his presence. He split through Mallorca`s defensive line like a missile and sent in a dangerous low ball across the face of the goal. Raul was lurking inside the box for this eventuality. He quickly latched on to the ball and with his first touch, elegantly back-heeled the ball in past a stupefied Aoute before the crowd could even come to terms with what happened. A magnificent goal to celebrate his 500th league appearance.

Other than Real Madrid`s constant danger through its brilliant counterattacks the match had nothing more to tell. Mallorca`s monotony became dispairing. It was also clear that Real Madrid had no interest in managing the play, or taking it to Mallorca`s half. Pepe raised to the occasion and the rest of the defence responded with efficiency. Lassana Diarra confirmed his dynamic style of play, yet he didn't show much flair with the ball. That was reserved for Higuain who`s place in the starting XI isn't argued anymore, and Robben, who gave Corrales one of the worst nights of his life.

The evident win invited Jaunde Ramos to make some changes. Van Der Vaart and Huntelaar both came on. Sergio Ramos`s goal, a good volley which saw Aoute let a goal in through his legs for the second time that night and also marked his first goal of the season didn't really modify the game. Huntelaar currently is no match for Higuain though. He doesn't seem comfortable yet. Aoute made two routine saves from him after two typical center forward strikes. The young Dutchman needs to do a lot more than what he has shown to earn a starting spot in this Real Madrid team. Juande Ramos knows what he wants, the team is responding to that and we don't for see any major changes in the team in the near future.

Jonarda 19: Real Madrid vs Osasuna (Match Preview)

2009-01-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Paulo Martin, Spain.

Picture Title: Real Madrid players react after winning the 07-08 season title by beating Osasuna 2-1

Match Details:

Date:18/01/2009 Time: 17:00 Venue: Santiago Bernabéu

Here comes Osasuna, Basically, this year, they’re the worst team in the league. They've earned 13 points from 17 matches, putting them in 20th place. They’re somehow neither completely horribly bad on offense or defense, they’re merely mediocre at both. We are currently the 2nd best team in the league at home with 22 points (1 less than the mighty FC Barcelona), we have also scored 26 goals at home so far this season (5 less than the mighty FC Barcelona). If we talk about Osasuna then they are the 2nd worst team in the Liga away from home only being able to win 3 points out of 27 and only maneging to score 5 goals in 9 matches.

Having said all that i think we all saw the problems they caused FC Barcelona last weekend at the Camp Nou so we must not taken them lightly. Osasuna have always been a tough team to beat and a tough team in general, they have never been afraid of getting stuck in and a perfect example of this is what their manager Jose Antonio Camacho said this week in the press " I prefer my team to be booked 13 times than just be booked once". Clearly they are trying to intimidate us but i don't think that will work especially not at the Bernabeu. We have to keep a very close eye on Plasil & Nekounam who pull the strings in their midfield and on Pandiani who is always a danger especially in dead-ball plays. But the thing that will clearly work against them is the fact that they have played a cup tie this week and Real Madrid, already eliminated from the competition, have a squad that is fully rested.

I'm sure many of you know that Real Madrid legend Jose Antonio Camacho will be back at the Bernabeu so im sure he`ll have mixed emotions about the game, and it will be interesting to see how the Bernabeu receives him. Camacho a Madrid left back for 16 years (414 league appearances according to Wikipedia). Has guided lower league teams into Primera, Camacho knows his business, as his appointment to the Spanish helm and that of Real Madrid suggest. He’ll know how to approach the game, but his team is still destined for relegation, so it’ll be hard for them to get a point against us. He`ll want to make a good impression especially in the Bernabeu. Speaking of how the Bernabeu receives people, it will be extremely interesting to see the fans reaction to Ramon Calderon after this weeks scandals.

As for Real Madrid i don't for see any major changes in the team. I cannot see Juande Ramos changing a winning team, why would he ? Although he has been talking closely with Marcelo all week so perhaps he`ll be given yet another opportunity to prove himself ? Obviously we want to take advantage of Robben`s excellent form and see if Higuain will once again grace us with an excellent game. Guti who is back from his injury will probably be shortlisted for the game and he may receive some playing time depending on the how the game is going. The Bernabeu gets to see Lass and Huntelaar once again in action and im sure Huntelaar will be dying to score his first goal for the club at home in front of the fans.

Expected lineup: Casillas, S.Ramos, Pepe, Cannavaro, Heinze, Robben, Lass, Gago, Sneijder, Raul, Higuain.

So there you have it people, Siempre Madrid's official prediction would be a 3-0 with Higuain, Sneijder and Huntelaar scoring.

Watch this space...We'll be back soon!

2009-01-10T23:16:00.001-08:00

Yes, keep an eye out for this space! Our team is working on building a blog for all the crazy Madridistas out there and we'll be up and running soon enough. Keep coming back and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Hala Madrid!

Suggestions

2009-01-10T23:12:00.000-08:00

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What the FAQ?

2008-12-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

I am a crazy madridista and I am interested in posting as well. How do I start posting?

In case you want to contribute, you can write an email to madridistacorner@gmail.com with ur post title as subject and post in the body.

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