Liga Pundits articles

[Beast]

When you have Puyol-Pique,Xavi-Cesc-Iniesta..etc it cannot be Catalunya

could be similar to Ogg who talked shit about joining the Spanish national team and was excluded ever sing

[FCBarca]

Except Victor hasn't done that...Even Xavi has hailed the Catalunya NT as has Puyol in addition to playing for them...That can't be the reason either.

[AnfieldEd]

Think of the intangibles. Reina is a very good man to have around the squad and in the dressing room. For example the way he lead the celebrations for the euros. So the players and management clearly like him as a man and he bring harmony to the squad. That and, ya know, he ain't half bad. Lopez same reasons, perhaps in that the players and management like his character.

A squad member's character and personality is just as important in this situations.

[Cule Angles]

Yeah, VV's a bit of a wideboy by all accounts, I'm not sure he'd be much of an asset hanging around in a sulk because he wasn't playing.

[Beast]

LA LIGA REVIEW
Marauding Madrid
By Phil Ball

Oh well, back to looking back, instead of forward. My undistinguished debut (4/10) on the quiniela has seen me return to the safer Sunday night spot. Last week was a football-less weekend for me in Prague, for which reason Eduardo Alvarez stepped into the breach, nearly getting himself rumbled in the Calderon to boot.

I did actually walk into a sports shop in Prague to ask the puzzled girl behind the counter if she had a Dukla Prague away kit, which I thought would make a nice present for my son. One of my favourite songs of the 1980s was 'All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague away kit', by the band Half Man Half Biscuit and it had long been my ambition to use that phrase in a Czech shop. I was unaware that the team was dissolved back in the 1990s (so was the girl), and have recently battled back to Second Division status. Just thought you'd like to know that.

All this, of course, is simply a preamble to the topic of the week, which has to be the splendid game in the 'Bernabow' on Saturday night. Even the most avid of Madrid haters would have to admit that it was something of a spectacle. Trailing 0-2 to Sevilla after 53 minutes, the merengues rallied and staged one of their infamous remontadas (comebacks), eventually winning the game 3-2 in stoppage time and taking over from Barcelona at the top of the league on goal difference. Barcelona had, once again, played hours earlier, and drawn 2-2 at Almeria, of which more later. But the whims of televised football and the giddy variety of times at which teams are obliged to play now conditions the way several teams play. It's nice to get a Saturday game played, with the three points tucked away so that you can relax for the rest of the weekend and watch your rivals mess up, but if you don't win that early game, it changes the mentality and approach of those that follow, however much they might pretend to just be taking the game as it comes.

For several months now, Real Madrid have been doggedly hanging on to Barcelona, on several occasions starting their games knowing that a defeat would condemn them to an eight-point deficit and the cules' culos disappearing over the horizon. More recently, they have had to peg back Barcelona from a five-point lead, constantly trying to keep them within distance so that if they were to slip up, they might take advantage. Well they did slip up, although a draw at Almeria with ten men is hardly a result to be ashamed of.

The trouble for Madrid was that Sevilla are always an awkward opponent, and one that had inflicted an embarrassing defeat on them earlier in the season, prompting the first doubts in the press as to the wisdom of the galácticos 2 project. Now they had a chance to exorcise some ghosts and really put the pressure on their sole rivals for the league title. So at 0-2 down, and two soft goals at that, it must have been tough for madridistas far and wide. SNAFU? Possibly. As the Barcelona team got onto their plane to head back home from Almeria, the captain announced that Real Madrid were 0-2 down. When they touched down 40 minutes later, he (although it's not known whom he supports) revealed the bitter fact that his on-board guests were no longer the leaders.

Will it stay thus? Well, despite my surname, I possess no crystal ball. There will inevitably be some chops and changes along the way, and some turbulence for both teams in their flight to the finish, but if Real Madrid continue to play like they played against Sevilla (defensive lapses notwithstanding) then by the time el clásico comes around (in a month's time) Barcelona will know that their performance in the 'Bernabow' may well decide their season. It will be even more interesting if both sides are still alive and kicking in the Champions League. This coming week will also determine that question, with Real Madrid needing to 'remontar' once again following the 1-0 deficit from Lyon, and Barcelona to turn their scoring draw in Stuttgart into a home win.

Sevilla's manger, Manolo Jimenez, said after the white-knuckle ride that it was the best Madrid team he'd ever seen, which is a bit over the top, but you could see the impression they'd had on him. He looked shell-shocked. Then again, although they played some good stuff in the first half, it was only after Guti and Rafael van der Vaart replaced Lass Diarra and Alvaro Arbeloa immediately after Sevilla's second goal that the 'electric' (dixit Jimenez) play really started.

The thing to highlight here is the sheer weight of offensive possibilities that Madrid seem to have accumulated, led irrepressibly by the rampant stallion Cristiano Ronaldo. It really was fantastic to watch, unless you were a culé on the sofa. Quite apart from Ronaldo, Gonzalo Higuain was brilliant, never allowing the visitors' defence a moment's rest. With a little more cool-headedness he could have had a hat-trick. Kaka zipped around rather more ineffectually, but his mere speed and presence scares defenders. Sergio Ramos spent the entire second half parked in Sevilla's half, and Guti simply added to the mix with his architecturally precise passing. He seemed to have an abundance of options, but every pass he made was unusual, difficult to anticipate, angled in a way that suggests a spatially-gifted brain. Other aspects of his brain I refrain from commenting on, but it never ceases to amaze that Guti is still there and still capable of coming on and wreaking havoc.

Van der Vaart, who almost joined the Dutch exodus in summer, is also gifted and left-weighted, and could still prove Jorge Valdano right - the director having let the excellent Wesley Sneijder go somewhat controversially. He came on and immediately understood the game, eventually deciding it amongst a sort of collective delirium in the Bernabeu. After 53 minutes you could have heard a mouse squeak. After the third goal in stoppage time it looked like the Bernabeu of old, before the prawn-sandwich brigade took over. If they can despatch Lyon on Wednesday night, the momentum might become a steamroller. They looked frightening on Saturday night, very entertaining, and all without one of their galactic signings, Karim Benzema. Sack Pellegrini? Yeah right.

Over in Almeria, you could also sense that something might happen. The two managers, Pep Guardiola and Juanma Lillo, are the best of mates but have never had to oppose each other on the touchline. Neither of them wanted it, but destiny had decided otherwise. Back in 1996, after Barcelona had won 4-2 at Lillo's Oviedo with (Brazilian) Ronaldo making his debut, the ground delegate told Lillo that Guardiola (then in Barca's midfield) wanted to speak to him. Surprised, Lillo agreed, upon which Guardiola remarked to him: ''I like the way your teams play. Let's keep in contact'', with one of his eyes already focused on a future job as a coach. Seven years later, Guardiola rang Lillo again and told him that if Lluis Bassat won Barca's presidential elections, he (Guardiola) would be sporting director and Lillo would be brought in as manager. Joan Laporta won, and the rest is history, but three years later, with Guardiola still playing, the two coincided in Mexico at Dorados de Sinaloa, where Lillo finally got to manage his friend as a player, albeit one in the final season of his career.

On Saturday night, Lillo got one over on his best mate by adopting a much more defensive strategy than he is renowned for, ceding possession to Barcelona in a sort of 'you-might-as-well-because-they'll-keep-possession-anyway' sort of plan and then catching them unawares on the break. Poor Pep got pretty perplexed (there's a new tongue-twister for you) and was sent off after 25 minutes not for arguing with his friend but for suggesting to referee Clos Gomez (he is as bad as his name suggests) that 'Pitas todo al reves! No te enteras de nada' (You decide everything the wrong way around. You just don't get it, do you?) which was a bit strong for Pep, normally a man who keeps his tantrums to a minimum.

Worse still, Clot/Clos Gomez sent off Ibrahimovic for nothing much at all in the second half, condemning the visitors to yet another epic. Whisper it in the gallery, but Barca actually played better without the Swede. They became more direct, and their attacks functioned more quickly, instead of foundering on the interesting but sometimes unilateral thoughts of the target man. Ibra's good, but still doesn't quite seem to be on everybody's wavelength. He gives Barca something, but is it more than he takes away?

Elsewhere, Xerez ruined everyone's quiniela by winning 4-2 at Malaga. It had taken them 11 previous games to score six goals away from home, so four in one game was almost too much for their brittle emotions. Mallorca got back on track with a 3-0 win at home to Sporting, and are once again pushing for that magical fourth spot.

Next week's Barcelona vs. Valencia game looks the pick of the crop. Valencia's away form has declined of late, but the hosts cannot afford to stumble. The race at the top this season now permits no margin of error, and is all the more absorbing for it. Bring 'em on!

[Beast]

Rafael van der Vaart the Real deal as dramatic winner lights up summit

Another late comeback recalls the Capello days as Real take a giant step forward in the title battle with Barcelona
Sid Lowe

The phoney war was over. Xerez, Tenerife and Valladolid had departed broken and battered, so too Zaragoza, Málaga and Racing, 21 goals conceded, two scored, and barely an eyebrow raised. Now, at last, 12 straight victories and a 41‑8 aggregate score later, a half-decent team arrived at the Bernabéu, someone who might actually give Real Madrid a game. A match big enough for the TV to send their commentators. Saturday night 10pm, Madrid against Sevilla; a clash boasting more goals than any other this century – 70 in 17 games. The game Cristiano Ronaldo reckoned would decide "half the title race" and which, two hours later, many reckoned had decided all of it, crowning Madrid the new La Liga champions with 13 games still to go.


And yet as the two sides emerged from the tunnel carrying a Chile flag, a smattering of seats high in the west stand lay empty. As the game kicked off, still they remained unoccupied. They were supposed to be sending news of Madrid to the rest of the world; instead, their eyes were drawn elsewhere. Barely 10 metres away, up those stairs and through those doors, the biggest home game of the season was under way but in the passageway under the stand a crowd had gathered around a silent television set suspended from the ceiling. The pictures came from the Mediterranean but Madrid provided the soundtrack. On the screen, Barcelona were playing in Almería; from beyond the glass doors came the strains of Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and the Ultras Sur.


Down in the south-east, land of spaghetti westerns, 10-man Barcelona were laying siege to Almería's goal. It was 2-2, Almería had taken the lead twice, Leo Messi had equalised twice, the first from a free-kick so soft, so subtle, you suspected he was wearing slippers, and, as the PA at the Bernabéu ran through the teams there were still 15 minutes left at the Juegos Mediteráneos; still time for Barcelona to win it. They'd kicked off 12 minutes late after Almería insisted on wearing shirts bearing a message of support for earthquake-stricken Chile, leaving the referee Clos Gómez unsure what to do, scratching his head while the teams waited in the tunnel. Then Barça's delegate Carles Naval had the brilliant idea of phoning someone and asking if it was OK.


The delay added to the drama. Spanish football's normal back-to-back had become an overlap, that feeling of shared destiny made starker, more intense. Outside, there was a ¡Huuuuy!, inside there was a ¡Huuuuy!. Ronaldo had drawn a save from Andrés Palop. It would be the first of many. Messi had drawn a save from Diego Alves. He'd made almost as many. The Madrid fans paced back and forth, their heads spinning. Madrid were playing for the league title out there. But they were playing for the league title in here too. Barcelona poured forward. Three minutes added on. Yet another ball in from Dani Alves. They started screaming at the screen. Foul! Miss it! Offside! Die! Blow up, you bastard!


Eventually, the bastard did blow up. The dash to their seats began, sitting just in time to hear the Bernabéu's traditional seventh-minute chant in honour of Juanito, the winger who died in a car crash in 1992. A minute later the scoreboard flashed, confirming the result to the rest of the stadium: Almería 2 Barcelona 2. A roar went up: win and Madrid would go top for the first time in almost three months. Only a minute after that Xabi Alonso bundled the ball into his own net; Alvaro Arbeloa turned to a team-mate and started bawling: "How bad are you?" – and Madrid were trailing at home for just the second time this season. Seven minutes into the second half, Ivica Dragutinovic swung in a free-kick, Alonso ducked and Iker Casillas dived late: 2-0 to Sevilla. The opportunity had gone. Barcelona had dropped two points, but Madrid were about to drop three.


Except it hadn't and they didn't. Manuel Pellegrini sent on Guti and Rafael van der Vaart. Gonzalo Higuaín won the ball off Alvaro Negredo, Marcelo's deflected pass reached Ronaldo and Ronaldo scored. 59 minutes gone. 2-1. Belief flooded back. Guti's shot crashed against the bar. From the resulting corner – although quite why it was a corner is a mystery – Sergio Ramos headed home and tweaked his nipples in celebration. 2-2. Higuaín hit a post. Higuaín hit the bar. Raúl blocked Ronaldo's shot virtually on the goal-line. Ramos skidded into the six-yard box, just missing the cross. Ronaldo's header went wide. Palop saved again. The ball went wide. And over. And into the goalkeeper's arms. And all the while time ticked away.


The board went up, three more minutes; the cross went up, one more chance. Higuaín headed. Palop saved. Again. This time, though, the ball squirmed free. This time Van der Vaart was there to poke it in. 92 minutes, 3-2! The Bernabéu went bonkers. Pellegrini punched his fists, a huddle formed. Madrid had done it again. Images of Zaragoza and, especially, Espanyol flooded everyone's minds – the late comebacks that allowed Madrid to win the title under Fabio Capello. Somewhere after midnight and Madrid fans were in their wildest fantasy.


Perhaps not so wild. It was typical Madrid. This is the club that boasts of its balls, that made a legend of remontadas (fightbacks) in the 80s, Juanito switching to Italian to tell Internazionale not to get cocky after a first-leg win because 90 minutes at the Bernabéu are "molto longo".

One match reporter, forced to file 15 minutes before the end, had already sent his copy through: Real Madrid last night completed a dramatic comeback with a late goal from [insert name] that sent them top. Somehow, you knew they'd do it – and not just because they deserved it, reeling off 34 shots to Sevilla's two and leaving Manolo Jiménez admitting defeat with a simple: "Madrid are electric, the best Madrid I've ever seen." It had been breathless and brilliant, but the twist was so familiar it was almost formulaic. Sylvester Stallone saves the penalty. Michael J Fox sinks his shot. Sean Bean scores from the spot. And Real Madrid win the match. And the league.


Yes, the league. On Sunday morning, every paper led on Madrid going top, El Mundo describing them as "Champions of Faith". Every newspaper, that is, except the Catalan daily El Mundo Deportivo, who decided that Messi still being Pichichi (leading scorer award) was the top story. This morning, there was more of the same. "Madrid favourites for the league", ran AS's front cover, while the back saw the return of its favourite invention: the patented FC Barcelona shittingyourselfometer.


If Madrid had just won, if they had tied the game up early as they probably should have, perhaps the sensations would be different. But the way they won was so reminiscent, so psychologically significant, so emotionally powerful, that the reaction was inevitable. "When Madrid win like that, Madrid win the league," wrote Juanma Trueba. "We've all got déjà vu." If the phoney war was over, so was the actual war. Saturday was the night Real Madrid won the league, the night the footballing axis tilted, one columnist asking this morning: "Where were you on 6 March?" As the fans spilled into the streets, a chant of "campeones, campeones, oé, oé, oé" went up.


All of which is a bit odd with 13 weeks left and considering that Barcelona didn't even lose. But the difference between the big two and the rest is so colossal – third-placed Valencia are 16 points behind, sixth-placed Mallorca are as close to the relegation zone as the top – that it's hard to see where either side will slip. Any points dropped at all seem huge; in this league dominated by statistically the best Barcelona and the best Madrid in history, draws seem catastrophic. It almost feels as if 12 of the remaining 13 games are irrelevant, as if only Madrid-Barça on 11 April matters.


And that's the other reason why title talk seems a bit premature. In a way, nothing actually changed on Saturday night. Madrid have gone top on goal difference but at the end of the season it will be the head-to-head record that counts if the teams remain level on points. Coming into this weekend, Madrid were two points behind and had the title in their own hands. So too did Barcelona. Assuming all other results go their way – and that's an assumption everyone is happy to make – Madrid, who lost 1-0 at the Camp Nou, would go top by beating Barcelona. Coming out of this weekend, the situation is the same. Madrid still need to beat Barcelona to make good their lead.


But if nothing changed on Saturday night, everything changed on Saturday night. If the facts are the same, the feelings are different. Because while Madrid are growing, Barcelona appear to be shrinking; while Ibrahimovic isn't scoring, Higuaín is; while Barcelona dominated, racking up 72% of the possession and 23 shots to eight, they didn't find a way through whereas Madrid eventually did; while Madrid have won six from six, scoring 23 goals, Barcelona have scored 10, twice dropping points; while Madrid look fast, powerful and aggressive, Barcelona are starting to look tired; and while Barcelona have an impressive side, Madrid have an impressive squad – seven Barça players have played more minutes than any outfield Madridista this season. Because while Almería's manager Juanma Lillo insisted that only bad luck would see Barcelona fail to win the league, bad luck appears to be on the way.


But it's not about luck. Not this time. Playing one after the other has done Madrid few favours this season. As David Gistau puts it in El Mundo, playing after Barcelona has been like "being Benny Hill in a tutu and having to follow the Bolshoi ballet on to the stage". Not this time; this time it was Barça puffing and panting, outperformed and outshone. On Saturday night, something shifted: Madrid were better than Barcelona. On Saturday night nothing changed but everything changed. And as the fans departed the Bernabéu, they were convinced that one thing had changed above all. The destiny of the league title.


Talking points
• Pennant Watch: Er, next.


• Hurrah for Xerez! They are not now going to be the worst side in history after beating Málaga this weekend and scoring four goals! Yes, four. Cuatro. That takes them to 18 for the season and means that they have overtaken Logroñés – officially the most rubbish side ever. And they have done so with 13 weeks still to go, too. Their shock 4-2 win over Málaga (for whom Duda scored a beauty) included one of the best penalty miss-and-score-from-the-rebounds ever, a kind of caught and bowled from Momo. They're still going down, though.


• Valladolid are going down, too. The change of coach has done nothing to change their fortunes. They were beaten by two goals from Athletic Bilbao's favourite mascot Gaizka Toquero and now haven't won in their last 10. That'll be 11 pretty soon too – next weekend they face Real Madrid.


• In fact, it's not just at the top where it's all looking a bit flat; at the bottom it looks increasingly like the relegated teams have already assumed the position. Almería are flying under Juanma Lillo (one defeat in 10 since he took over), Zaragoza haven't got Pennant but do have just about enough, Espanyol should win enough at home and Racing, well, they might just be dragged into it … But there's now a five-point gap separating Xerez, Tenerife and Valladolid from the rest.


• Deportivo sixth, Mallorca fifth. They're doing a great job and you have to admire them in a way (that way preferably being from a distance and with the telly on another channel), but dear, oh dear …


Results Deportivo 3–1 Tenerife, Almería 2–2 Barcelona, Real Madrid 3–2 Sevilla, Málaga 2–4 Xerez, Espanyol 0–0 Villarreal, Mallorca 3–0 Sporting, Osasuna 0–0 Getafe, Athletic 2–0 Valladolid, Zaragoza 1–1 Atlético. Tonight's forgotten, doesn't-really-count Monday game: Valencia versus Racing.

[Beast]

Barca fall for Madridista magic, once again

Tuesday 09 March 2010 12:00
La Liga Loca learned two things during its cheeky visit to the UK over the weekend, and one on its return to Spain.

Brighton appears to have morphed from a pleasing, chill-out crusty-friendly paradise into a neo-fascist dictatorship with haranguing instructions to its citizen-brothers plastered on every surface imaginable.

One pub was cheerfully informing its clientele, for example, that they were being watched on CCTV and ordered them to refrain from talking on their ‘intrusive’ mobiles and informed them that smoking within 100 metres of the front door was illegal and that they should leave the establishment in total silence under pain of death once their fun quota has been reached.

And not to drink too much, either. Or eat anything that had not been locally sourced.

The city authorities have also imposed a directive forcing any male under the age of 26 to dress like a member of Vampire Weekend.

But to continue the weirdness, the blog has returned to Spain to discover that Barcelona is no longer the super-sexy, stylish wonder club that completed its glorious global conquest just a few short months ago.

Instead, it has turned into a giant, blubbering, Kleenex-clutching jellyfish. In a pinny.

The weekend’s draw against Almeria still sees Pep’s Dream Boys side-by-side with Real Madrid with a good 13 games to go.

Indeed, with 25 matches played in la Liga, Barcelona are actually two points better off than last year’s rather handy team.

But rather than giving a superior smile, a nonchalant shrug and telling the Madridista camp that we’ll all see how things look come May, the league champions have gone more than a little crazy.

The local Barcelona press have always been fairly sensitive souls and that’s exactly why their trouble-stirring counterparts in Capital City engage the same winding-up tactics on them every single year, with the same desperately predictable results.

Around this time, every season, the Madridista press accuse Barcelona of being in the process of - or about to - bottle it big time.

And every time, every season, the local papers do little to counter this accusation by getting their Catalan panties in a right old bunch in response.

Mundo Deportivo have reacted to Barca’s campaign in la Liga where just one game has been lost and a positive goal difference of 45 has been achieved, by claiming that the Dream Boys need to completely reinvent their signing strategies with Tuesday's headline shouting “Sign Goals!” over a picture of David Villa - a striker who was busy not scoring in the previous evening’s encounter between Valencia and Racing.

The paper also has a massive wailing blub of what they perceive to be Real Madrid’s dastardly tactics, complaining that the club is ‘the leader in tricks’.

“The agitation and propaganda of the Madridista football regime has worked efficiently and ended up terrifying the referees and creating a climate of persecution,” complained a hysterical Lluis Fox in Tuesday’s edition.

“It wasn’t necessary to mount such a hostile campaign against Barcelona,” continues the columnist whilst scooping up his cojones which had just dropped to the floor and rolled under his desk.

Sport are also on the conspiracy bandwagon by screaming on their website that Juan Jose Gallego Galindo, the linesman who caused the sending off of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Saturday night, was a Real Madrid fan - a claim based on the damning evidence of a comment from Santiago Canizares’ Twitter site.

They too are forgetting that the current battle at the top of the table is due to Real Madrid being a little better than last season's side, having spent all the money in Spain on a new team, rather than any existential crisis in the Catalan camp.

Mundo Deportivo are quite right to call the Madridista naughtiness of late ‘tricks’. The problem is that they are falling for them, all over again.

[Hamzah]

i agree.

[Beast]

Put-upon Manuel Pellegrini could emulate Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskas

Gabi Marcotti

After Real Madrid’s 1-0 loss to Lyons in the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie nearly three weeks ago, Manuel Pellegrini, the usually unflappable Chilean coach, snapped at his critics by saying that his side were the best “in 15 years”.

He’s wrong, of course. Statistically, at least, they are on track to be the best in 50 — not 15 — years. Project Real’s numbers over a full, 38-game season and you’ll see them getting 94 points and scoring 102 goals. The last Real side to better that was the 1960-61 version that featured the likes of Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskas, Emilio Santamaría and Francisco Gento.

No city brings as much pressure to bear as Madrid does on Real. And that’s in a “normal” season, let alone one on the heels of the biggest summer spending spree in history: a quarter of a billion pounds, give or take.

So it is not a surprise that Pellegrini, who joined in the summer from Villarreal, should feel the heat from the hot seat.

He has faced a barrage of criticism from the voracious Madrid press, particularly Marca, which has devoted banner headlines such as “Leave!” (after Real were knocked out of the Spanish Cup) to Pellegrini and compared him to a “princess who turns into a frog”.

Pellegrini’s predecessors — including one Fabio Capello — were also put through the daily wringer; the difference is that their teams underachieved or played dull football.

Pellegrini’s version cannot be accused of the former — although if they fail to get past Lyons on Wednesday night, there will be more predictable calls for the Chilean’s head — and, as for the latter, while they are not exactly a fluid footballing machine, they entertain and score plenty of goals. Which, given that the side were thrown together with all the planning of an eight-year old swapping Panini stickers, is no mean feat.

Contrary to what one Spanish daily newspaper — which called him a “coward” — wrote, Pellegrini has shown courage at every turn this season. He put on the bench Raúl — the deity-in-residence at the Bernabéu has started only twice in the league since October — and Karim Benzema, Florentino Pérez’s much-hyped £40 million signing. Instead, Pellegrini showed faith in players such as Gonzalo Higuaín, who was the fifth-choice striker in August. The 22-year-old Argentinian is a leftover from the former regime — he was hand-picked by Franco Baldini during Capello’s season in charge — but is proving a hit under the new one as well, as proved by his 16 Liga goals in 19 appearances. There is also Marcelo, another Capello legacy whom the club tried to dump in the summer but has blossomed since being switched from left back into midfield.

But Pellegrini has also fostered a spirit of collaboration that, at a club such as Real, is more important than “confidence”, that tired cliché. After all, players such as Cristiano Ronaldo are not likely to be short in that department. We saw this on Saturday night at the Bernabéu, as Real fell behind by two goals against Seville, through an own goal from Xabi Alonso and an Ivica Dragutinovic free kick.

Pellegrini rolled the dice, swapping a full back (Álvaro Arbeloa) and a holding midfield player (Lassana Diarra) for two attacking midfield players, Rafael van der Vaart and Guti. Rarely will you see two more inspired substitutions. After Ronaldo pulled one back, Guti hit the crossbar and his incisive passing lit up the midfield. Van der Vaart set up Sergio Ramos for Real’s equaliser and scored the winner in injury time.

Not too shabby when you consider that Guti, who has a history of being a thorn in the backsides of Real coaches, had a furious row over playing time with Pellegrini this season and that the club tried as hard as they could to offload Van der Vaart in the summer.

With Barcelona held to a 2-2 draw away to Almería, the two Spanish giants are level at the top of the table. Yet, in the eyes of some, Pep Guardiola, the Barcelona coach, is a genius, whereas Pellegrini is some kind of Forrest Gump, freeloading a ride on the back of Pérez’s spending.

In fact, if Real haven’t been this good since before construction started on the Berlin Wall, at least some of the credit must go to the coach. Whose job, by the way, is far from over.

Apart from going all the way in the Champions League and La Liga, he still needs to figure out a way to get the best out of Kaká, settle the back four and help Iker Casillas, the goalkeeper, to regain his mojo (he was again well below his standards against Seville). If he can do that, and if he can add some fluidity to Real’s game — which is still too reliant on individuals — then, and only then, will he get ten marks out of ten. From me, anyway.

For some of my colleagues in Spain, no doubt, even that won’t be enough. They’ll need La Liga and the Champions League served up on a platter. To them, being simply above average and winning silverware is more important than being one of the greatest ever and coming up empty-handed, just because the opposition were even better.

[Beast]

Manuel Pellegrini's nightmare becomes Real as Madrid begin blame game

Sid Lowe

Another exit for Real Madrid in the last 16 of the Champions League means another spate of infighting and, most likely, yet another manager in the summer

The dream has become a nightmare. The Real Madrid president, Florentino Pérez, will preside over the European Cup final at the Bernabéu on 22 May but his team, the most expensively assembled in history, will not be there. As if to make matters worse, Barcelona still might be. Talk about rubbing it in. Someone else's success would become the image of Madrid's season, Pérez's first since returning unopposed as the saviour. Not that he will be the one who pays for it – heads will roll but his will not be among them. Others stand in the way with the coach, Manuel Pellegrini, the first under scrutiny.

Real will now repackage winning the league title as a triumph, and to do so must be their objective now, but no one is under any illusions. This season was defined by the European Cup and Real have gone out at the first knockout stage.

When Pérez became president again, he talked about the need to do in one year what the club would normally do in three, about recovering Madrid's "place in the world". The league means comparatively little: Ramón Calderón, dismissed as the worst president in history, won two. Their pursuit of the decima ('the 10th") has been obsessive; hosting the final reinforced that. Calderón had requested it, Pérez inherited it. His €258m (£234m) outlay was no coincidence.

The thing about spending that kind of money is that you have to win and win big. But Madrid haven't. Their place has not changed: eliminated at the first knock-out stage. That is why going out to Lyon is an unmitigated failure regardless of the league, the sports daily AS describing it as a "catastrophe".

It is the kind of catastrophe that can precipitate further problems, airing splits and exacerbating them. Guti talked about the lack of a team ethic, Pellegrini complained that his side had been individualistic, Ronaldo went straight off without a word. When Kaká was withdrawn, his press agent attacked Pellegrini on Twitter as a "coward who hides his own inadequacies by pointing at others". Kaká's wife retweeted the remark.

There was, though, no hiding place for her husband. Ronaldo has been declared blameless but not Kaká. Despite his status, the evidence against him has been too overwhelming to ignore. "I'm sorry," wrote AS's columnist Tomás Roncero, a self-consciously fanatical Madrid supporter, "but my patience has run out with Kaká. A player who cost €75m cannot play like some YTS apprentice. He had a great chance which he missed. Just for a change."

The search for people to blame did not start last night – it had already begun. Excuses were made in advance, the bandage had been put on before the wound. Gonzalo Higuaín, top scorer but inherited from the old regime, a competitor to Karim Benzema, was already under pressure. All the easier to attack him for his open-goal miss.

Above all, it is Pellegrini, long since attacked freely and with impunity, judged to be responsible for Madrid's defeats but not their victories, who is the principal target. Marca's headline this morning was: "Get out! Adiós, Europe; Adiós, Pellegrini." Pellegrini refused to resign and insisted that Madrid's project was a long-term one. The response was inevitable: it may well be, but you're not part of it. The inevitable names will now be thrown around – Rafa Benítez and José Mourinho among them. Pellegrini will not continue beyond the summer, if he even makes it that far.

As a club, Madrid were – somewhat unusually – cautious, the director general, Jorge Valdano, has appealed for calm and backed his coach, while Pérez maintained silence. But Valdano backed Vicente del Bosque in 2003 and he left despite winning the title, because of defeat in the European Cup semi-final. Del Bosque was followed by five more coaches, €441m worth of players and no titles in three years.

Pellegrini is certainly not blameless but, like his predecessors, he has been expendable from the start. Today more than ever. It is tempting to conclude that he can finally perform the task he was brought in to perform: providing a head to place on the block.

[Fourteen]

My money's on Rafa Benitez.

[Beast]

My money and kids tuition funds are on Jose Mourinho

[Beast]

Blame game begins in Madrid press

Thursday 11 March 2010 16:24
At the start of the season, journalists lucky enough to be working for Marca and AS had three stock questions they would ask Real Madrid’s footballers whenever they saw them: Would you like to win the Champions League? Would you like to win La Liga? Would you like to win the Copa del Rey?

The players in turn would give three stock answers: Yes. Yes. The Copa del what?

Thanks to the mighty Alcorcón and a French side described by Guti as “not one of the great teams of Europe”, hacks may simply be probing their subjects on the state of the weather come the middle of May, if the defeat of Lyon eventually sends morale-sapped Madrid into a nose-dive.

The pressure of five years of knockout failure, the quest for La Décima, insane summer spending and the failure to score an away goal at Stade Gerland had already given the Real Madrid players the biggest of willies ahead of Wednesday’s tie.

But the knowledge that the final was being held in the Santiago Bernabeu could well have pushed the footballers to the limit. This extra fear factor was like an arachnophobe finding a tarantula their tights.

After the early goal from Cristiano Ronaldo, Madrid looked calm and confident and on the way to racking up an Arsenal-sized score against their Gallic opponents.

But when the second never came, passes went astray (or were never made) and chances were missed, tempting Lyon into their second half revival that sent the home side crashing out of the Champions League in the last 16 for the sixth time in a row.

Within minutes of a tearful Gonzalo Higuaín trudging off the pitch and Guti attacking his teammates for being too individualistic on live television, Marca had set out its journalistic stall with the paper’s website leading with “Goodbye Champions, Goodbye Pellegrini.”

It was a theme that was developed in the following morning’s edition with the somewhat rude instruction for the Third-Choice Chilean to “Leave!” on the front cover.

The paper – and unofficial mouthpiece for Florentino Pérez – has been calling for the Madrid manager’s head now for months and Wednesday’s knockout disaster sees them ramping up the campaign to dizzying levels, with Roberto Gómez noting that “Madrid will not be in the final at the Bernabeu, but it is the final for Pellegrini.”

Marca’s Thursday editorial echoes these thoughts by announcing that Madrid "need to start looking for a coach for next season. Last night must never happen again."

The paper’s other traditional target is Gonzalo Higuaín, on the simple grounds that he was a Ramón Calderón signing and is popular with the fans. There have been renewed attacks on the Argentinian striker, who comes third from bottom of their midweek list of doom.

“It would be unfair to make him fully responsible for the defeat but had he been more on target then things could have turned out differently,” tutted Marca.
AS are a little less political in their post-match protesting and simply call the knockout to Lyon a “catastrophe” on their front cover. “This is the disaster that never ends,” sobs the next page.

The maddest of Madridistas, Tomás Roncero, mopes over the club having thrown their enormous summer spending into the bin and vents his righteous spleen in Kaká’s direction. “A footballer who cost €68m cannot behave like a trainee who’s on probation,” rants Roncero about the Brazilian God-botherer.

Over in the offices of Barcelona-based Sport and Mundo Deportivo, the aroma may be getting a little unpleasant as their journalists appear to have wet themselves over Real Madrid’s latest mishap.

“The Great Failure KO,” yells Sport, using bold white letters on a sombre black background.

“Isn’t football great!” beams Josep Maria Casanovas, having the time of his life in his Catalan column. “Florentino Pérez spent the worst night of his life watching his big dream turn to s**t.”

“The faces of Ronaldo and co heading back to the dressing rooms were those of losers, of failures,” continues Casanovas, evidently warming to his theme.

Mundo Deportivo spent some quality time turning global sports headlines about Real Madrid’s defeat into a cackling collage and finger-point that “football doesn’t have a price.”

“Once again they crash out in the last 16 because no one in Europe allows themselves to be intimidated by ‘Villaratos’ or other ridiculous inventions,” writes Santi Nolla, the paper’s director.

In the yin and yang nature of football in Spain, what has been a genuine, all-out, abandon-ship disaster for one club has turned out very nicely indeed for another.

Tim Stannard
-------------------------
Let Kaka feel the wrath

[yusuf]

My money and kids tuition funds are on Jose Mourinho

i am with you on that but rafa is still an interesting choice also cause he is without doubt out of liverpool while mourinho still has a chance with inter. mourinho i believe will go but rafa may be the better choice as his recent CL resume is better than mourinho's

[Beast]

Lessons from Lyon
By Phil Ball

I watched Sevilla versus Deportivo on Saturday night, since it seemed as good a way as any to escape from the Real Madrid-based twitterings and twerpings of the last few days. It was a good game too, and one in which Sevilla showed why they won't quite make it this season and Deportivo showed why they still might. Then again, Sevilla are in the King's Cup final, but one of the events of a newsworthy week was yet another frustrated meeting between the Spanish Federation and the two finalists (Atlético Madrid are the others) which failed to agree on either a date or a stadium. They'd better tell the King soon, however, because by the end of May he's usually donning his Bermudas and hoisting the mainsail.

Sevilla also have a Champions League date this week, on Tuesday at home to CSKA, and they might have to do a little better if they want to stay in the competition and help to keep the Spanish flag flying, with apologies to Barcelona for the phrase, but you know what I mean. Barcelona take on Stuttgart, and although the Germans looked a half-decent side in the first leg they were nevertheless incapable of taking advantage of Barcelona when they were down, chiefly in the first half. But with Sevilla you never know. They still play like children with hyper-active syndrome, incapable of slowing the pace down and giving themselves an occasional rest. Jesus Navas, deservedly in the frame for South Africa, often suffers the most from this condition, and seems to think that every time he receives the ball it behoves him to hare down the right and beat all and sundry before hammering across one of his trademark centres for the hungry poachers to sweep into the net.

Indeed, more often than not he achieves this, but Deportivo's trick was to leave Laure deep to wait for him, and to occupy Sevilla's right side with José Andres Guardado's splendid movement and poise. Navas suddenly found that Deportivo were prepared to attack down his side, forcing him to scramble back and help - not his strong point. Diego Perotti was similarly subdued on Sevilla's left by the visitors' organisation, and although Sevilla huffed and puffed and created chances, as their lighting-flash style will always do, Deportivo always seemed to know how to play them, with the veteran Juan Carlos Valerón still capable of some bewitching stuff. How wonderful to still see him playing, a reminder to the present Spanish side that their soil (even if it's from the Canary Islands) has always been a fertile source of creative midfielders.

Over in Valladolid the next evening, Real Madrid were attempting to start their season all over again, focusing on the only scrap left for them now, the league title. Not only that, but all eyes were focused on Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín, allegedly at war with each other because of the 'individualism' that Guti had implied was the reason for their traumatic elimination at the hands of Lyon last week. It seems that someone had to shoulder the blame for the aggregate defeat, and since Manuel Pelligrini was too obvious a dartboard, Higuaín came in for some stick for his alleged 'egoismo', or 'selfishness'.

It's true that he failed to pass twice to his fellow strike partner Ronaldo when the latter was in a better position, but for Ronaldo to complain about this sort of thing is a little rich. The Portuguese forward may indeed be the world's second-best player, but his Achilles Heel is his tendency to think that he can do it all on his own, especially when the chips are down. Pot calling the kettle black? Not so much when you consider Ronaldo's positive effects, and his ability to galvanise a team. Higuaín is indeed a rather monothematic striker - a good one at that, but one with a tendency to go it alone when he gets the slightest scent of goal. The problem is that nobody was really complaining until last Wednesday, when the defeat dissipated the euphoria engendered by the previous week's win over Sevilla, and more seriously emptied the Bernabeú's coffers of a whole lot of projected cash.

Why did Madrid lose? Because Higuaín hit the post in the first half instead of scoring, and because Lyon changed their tactical approach to splendid effect in the second half, and showed that there are no easy games in the Champions League. Madrid's belligerent and over-confident declarations before the game were only examples of the sort of chest-puffing necessary these days to set the scene. Various people, Guardiola included, have since implied that this was a lack of humility and that Madrid got what they deserved, but it is difficult to believe that they underestimated their opponents.

It was just a bad night for the new collection of toys. The keys wound down, Xabi Alonso wasn't there, and neither was Kaká, in truth. If Real Madrid had seriously predicated their whole season on winning the Champions League, then more fool them. There was no reason why they couldn't have gone on to do it, given a normal set of circumstances, but Lyon's victory is healthy for the game. It banishes the idea, once and for all, that immediate success can be bought, and reinforces the idea that Xabi Alonso is in fact their key player. The present Real Madrid side will have things to say, but it may take a little more time. Meanwhile, the fourth-estate goons who dedicate their keyboards to what Santiago Segurola calls 'tremendismo' (over-the-top reactions), are convinced that pestilence and plague have infected the White House, that Pelligrini will be shown the door in the summer, and that Rooney, Ribery and Cesc Fabregas will form the second wave of galácticos. Dream on. Oh - and they also want Jorge Valdano to take over as manager.

And so in Valladolid, just as we thought that the Ronaldo-Higuaín divorce was going to get messy, the latter scored a hat-trick and the former waded in with a goal too. By the end (4-1) everyone was smiling, and the alleged problems in the group, precipitated by last week's defeat, seemed to be over& until the next defeat, of course. Even Gago got a game, coming on late for Xabi Alonso - but that was probably just to keep up his value for when the negotiations start with Man City. The Premier League club also want Higuaín, apparently, and of course, on Friday the Madrid press were celebrating the news that the selfish one would be on his way in summer, and hey, how dare he ask for a pay rise? Now he's scored a hat-trick, they might change their tune again.

Barcelona, as a community, have been enjoying all this from the sidelines, of course, but is under no illusions as to the difficulty they may have now to keep their mitts on the league title. The 3-0 result against Valencia does not tell the whole truth, as indeed the 4-1 in Valladolid masks the fact that the home side caused Madrid rather more trouble than the score suggests. In the Camp Nou, Valencia (without David Villa) were coping pretty well unto David Albelda had to go off, but then Messi pulled another rabbit out of his hat and scored his umpteenth fantasy-dribble goal. Maduro was then sent off and the human tower, Nikola Zigic, failed on a one-against-one with Valdés when he really should have equalised. After that, Messi ran riot in the greater spaces afforded to him down the centre, and scored a hat-trick of mindboggling quality.

Elsewhere, Getafe beat Mallorca 3-0 and gave further fuel to the idea that their manager, Michel, might be the replacement for Pelligrini, if he really goes (back to Villarreal?) in the summer. Old boy Michel wants nothing less, of course, and although his judgement and man-management were questioned in the past, he seems to be emerging as the sensible choice, as a sort of Madrid version of Guardiola.

Whatever, it's funny how one game can mark the direction of a season, for everyone. Like the cruelty of an exam determining your fate on a single day, all your other virtues are cast to the winds, and the consequences roll in fast on the swollen tide. Barcelona have been handed an open invite to win in the Bernabéu in the Champions League final (I'm less sure about the clásico), and thus lengthen Florentino's face even further.

Players, a manager, a director and a president have all been taken to task, Ronaldo has been invited back to Manchester United by Sir Alex (!) and whether or not the consequences for Real Madrid are immediate, the seismic shift of the result has moved the earth several feet and caused ripples in most of Europe's big clubs - partly because they may now be in the market to pick up some new Real Madrid exiles, but also because Madrid (or rumours of Madrid), like the terrible Herod of yore, might come calling to them, for players, managers, wives and children. Watch out, Florentino's about!