Copa del Rey 2016-17
- Thread starter El Flaco
- Start date
raskolnikov
Well-known member
Madrid suck anyway, all they do is death of a thousand crosses and set pieces and rely on individal skills to get them a W.
F
FlaFCB
Guest
haha merdi 
serghei
Senior Member
True. They have absolutely nothing special. Just a conventional strong team.
Deco 20
Scandinavian 101
I'll take the credit for this draw
Aryagorn
Improvin' Perfection!!
Sepuldinho
New member
thanks celta and danilo 
Congrats Celtabarcafan161
Active member
now the pressure could start building for madrid all we can do is keep winning
Messi983
Senior Member
Don't forget Bale.
I'm also happy that they are out of Copa but let's be fair, they have a lot of injury problems that have affected them.
Just a look at their players that had injuries and compare them to our equivalents and their respective backups.
Carvajal vs Roberto - Carvajal is a better player between the two and I also believe we are in better position here because Vidal is better than Danilo although he didn't really have much chances to prove that. In other words, I think Madrid loses much more if they have to play Danilo instead of Carvajal than we would playing Vidal when Roberto is unavailable.
Pepe vs Masche/Umtiti - I was in doubt here because we could also compare Pepe's role to Mathieu's here based on the fact that both will probably leave in the summer. But I think if healthy Pepe would still be infront of Nacho in Zidane's pecking order at CB. So he'd likely rotate with Varane alongside Ramos who is their Pique as undisputed starter whenever healthy. I think we would be ok with Masche or Umtiti missing a few games but if we'd been without one of them for around 3 months that would affect us badly even if Mathieu would be healthy and ready to play.
Marcelo vs Alba - I think we are in a lot better position this season with Digne as Alba's backup but just remember us last season playing Adriano or Mathieu as LB whenever Alba was out. I think Marcelo is the best player out of them and there is a bigger dropoff from him to Nacho (I won't even count Coentrao who can't stay healthy) than it is from Alba to Digne. So Marcelo is one of their most irreplaceable players imo.
Casemiro vs Busquets - we'll see how we'll do without Busi over the next 4 or 5 games, they were without Casemiro for 14 games already. Both teams don't really have a natural replacements for DM but I think we are better covered there with Rakitić, Gomes and possibly Masche than they are with Kovačić, Kroos or Isco who are all more offensive players.
Modrić vs Iniesta - no doubt they are both important players for their teams but I think Iniesta is probably a bit more important to us than Modrić to Madrid. They have better cover for Modrić or better said players that have been with club for a longer time than Denis or Gomes with us so they are better used in their system when needed. Modrić has missed 6 games so far because of an injury and will probably miss another 2 or 3, while Iniesta has already missed 10 games and will also be out for another 3 or 4. So they are in a bit of advantage here.
Bale vs. Messi - I had a hard time to decide here as well. They both play same positon on paper (right wing) so that's one of the reasons why I decided to compare them. Someone could argue that Cristiano is Madrid's equivalent for Messi (their best and most important player), so it would be better to compare Bale with Neymar. But I think most realistic RM fans (so no Ronaldo fan-boys) will probably admit that Bale was just as if not more important for them as Ronaldo before his injury. So while I think we could compare Bale to Neymar we could also compare him to Messi based on his importance for their team. Of course Messi is a lot better player overall (that's not even a discussion here) and much more important to us in comparision to Neymar (or any other player) than Bale is to Madrid compared to Cristiano (or any other player) but I believe I'm not totally wrong if I say that a healthy Bale is Madrid's most important and best attacking player ahead of Ronaldo (at least in his current form) and losing him for such a long time hurts them a lot.
Messi was "only" injured for 4 games while Bale has already missed 15 games this season. I'd rather not imagine how we'd look without Messi for 2+ months again. It worked well (at least results-wise) last season because Ney and Suarez were in great form but this season when they were not, I think our situation would be a lot worse if Messi would miss as many games as Bale. Of course it's also fair to say they have more and better players to cover for Bale (his skillsets are easier to replace than Messi's although Lucas Vazquez or Asensio are not as good as Bale) than we have for Messi. Rafinha and Arda (most likely Messi's replacements) are both in good goal-scoring form this season and they would probably score more goals if given extended playing time but of course everyone knows their overall impact on our game and results would be a lot worse than Messi's.
So in general, while I think it's good and understandable to make fun out of Madrid's being eliminated from Copa because of the rivalry between the clubs and fans I think it's also unfair because we'd probably look even worse with similar injury problems they have.
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