Penal Madrid

mc_lovin

Senior Member
Zidanes idea to play Hazard as a (kind of) 2nd striker has to backfire, surely. Both him and Benzema arent natural goalscorers, but still early days.

Otherwise I agree, Hazards weight shouldnt be an issue once the season starts.
 

Andresito

Senior Member
Staff member
Madrid are shite. Roma are battering them.

Zidane had 5 months to prepare for this season and he decides to implement a new formation 2 weeks before the league starts lol.
 

xXKonan

Senior Member
They don't look anywhere near ready to start the season.

Even with Neymar that still have a number of issues that will still plague the team.
 

Andresito

Senior Member
Staff member
Trying a 4-4-2 in the second half. It's obvious he doesn't have a clear plan.

Carvajal, Varane, Militão, Marcelo
Vinicius, Modric, Casemiro, Hazard
Jovic, Benzema
 

Vilarrubi

New member
Zidane:

main-qimg-8a5206d8a8d41d34fdd95afcf80630e4
 

El Gato

Villarato!
Trying a 4-4-2 in the second half. It's obvious he doesn't have a clear plan.

Carvajal, Varane, Militão, Marcelo
Vinicius, Modric, Casemiro, Hazard
Jovic, Benzema

It's obvious he has a clear plan of having a very flexible team who can play in multiple formations suited for many scenarios.

Everything is going as expected TBH. Defensive solidity with a relatively old midfield core without a mobile vertical player doesn't come after 5 games of preseason. Pogba deal went dead so they're likely looking at alternatives, trying to sweettalk Levy to dropping price for Eriksen and if that doesn't happen Van de Beek is likely to be the choice. And Zidane always prefers to outscore the opponent than get 2-0s.
 
Last edited:

DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
It's obvious he has a clear plan of having a very flexible team who can play in multiple formations suited for many scenarios.

Everything is going as expected TBH. Defensive solidity with a relatively old midfield core without a mobile vertical player doesn't come after 5 games of preseason. Pogba deal went dead so they're likely looking at alternatives, trying to sweettalk Levy to dropping price for Eriksen and if that doesn't happen Van de Beek is likely to be the choice. And Zidane always prefers to outscore the opponent than get 2-0s.

I know you love Zidane man and you really want to be optimistic, but this might turn ugly very soon this season. Zidane has no plan whatsoever from what I've seen and he seem to be more flustered in/by the press than he's ever been in his life.

Worry not though, you already have Mourinho lined up if that happens ;)
 

BarcaOG

Banned
i agree, theres no reason to think zidane actually has a plan. preseason has been a disaster. it is true, [MENTION=5226]Wolfe[/MENTION], that integrating so many new players takes time, but that cannot be an excuse for some of the preseason performances we've seen from real.
 

Andrew M

New member
It's obvious he has a clear plan of having a very flexible team who can play in multiple formations suited for many scenarios.

Everything is going as expected TBH. Defensive solidity with a relatively old midfield core without a mobile vertical player doesn't come after 5 games of preseason. Pogba deal went dead so they're likely looking at alternatives, trying to sweettalk Levy to dropping price for Eriksen and if that doesn't happen Van de Beek is likely to be the choice. And Zidane always prefers to outscore the opponent than get 2-0s.

Put down the crack pipe
 

xXKonan

Senior Member
Think this will be the season where Zidane will probably realize it may have not been a great decision to come back.

He already left behind a legacy, having three CL wins and a league title and other stuff and you can't get better than that at Real. When he got the job the first team it was the perfect storm, he had a number of key players in their prime along with CR7 and got the most out of them.

He won't replicate that and considering the mess of a preseason they had even with the new signings, I doubt even Neymar can make that large of an effect at Real as Perez would want.
 

Messigician

Senior Member
It's obvious he has a clear plan of having a very flexible team who can play in multiple formations suited for many scenarios.

Everything is going as expected TBH. Defensive solidity with a relatively old midfield core without a mobile vertical player doesn't come after 5 games of preseason. Pogba deal went dead so they're likely looking at alternatives, trying to sweettalk Levy to dropping price for Eriksen and if that doesn't happen Van de Beek is likely to be the choice. And Zidane always prefers to outscore the opponent than get 2-0s.

Deluded
 

El Gato

Villarato!
I know you love Zidane man and you really want to be optimistic, but this might turn ugly very soon this season. Zidane has no plan whatsoever from what I've seen and he seem to be more flustered in/by the press than he's ever been in his life.

Worry not though, you already have Mourinho lined up if that happens ;)

Zero optimism from me. It’s as if all shouting about lack of plan didn’t see his previous preferences and expect some rigid one formation revolution. LMAO.

He is integrating a new (overweight) ball leader into the side.
He didn’t get his vertical midfielder. Yet.
He is trying to teach the same side to play different formations and break their schematic movements and habits they had when Ronaldo was here. At no occasion did they play 3 at the back. Now they are because Marcelo is best utilised as LM when there are no DMs.
+ squad aren’t even certain this is the final shape of the team and if anybody out of their group is going to go to make room for Neymar or get sent to the stands for Eriksen/VdB

Everything I saw makes sense. Preseason is for losing games while learning movement. How many teams that beat us played together for years in the same formation? Now RM have Hazard, Jović and Militao all learning relatively new roles all the while knowing the rest of the clique for just over a month. And they’re trying to get fit at the same time. Bale being one of the fittest of everyone in the group, much like Ronaldo used to be, is telling of how different players approach the holidays.

Not sure where you guys read all this delusion. Have I assumed things will be rosy? No. Did I say Zizou is guaranteed to succeed? No. What I’m pointing out is the statement he has no plan. For which there’s no evidence, because even Zidane himself says he is trying many systems because it’s what he expects us to have to do. And I agree. He had us play 4-3-3, diamond, 4-4-2 with Kovacic and Casemiro flanked by Asensio and Vazquez. Last season one of the biggest problems the team had was lack of ideas when their plan A wasn’t working or when they didn’t manage to net it. This was addressed by bringing in new forwards and Zidane is still trying to shoehorn a 2-striker system familiarity in so that we’re comfortable switching to its movements when we need to chase the score. Last season we won probably 1/3 of games at most where we went down first.
That statement on that basis made no sense.
 
Last edited:

Home of Barca Fans

Top