Poor_Sunyol
In Lucho we trust!
Drenthe is going to be a gamble. Great going forward USELESS at the back. Everyone skinned him pre-season.
Real Madrid (old thread)
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Poor_Sunyol
In Lucho we trust!
Well my friend we will have to agree to disagree yet again!
Internazionale
New member
Real is looking really dangerous this year
jairzinho
Senior Member
yeah they truly are..on paper at least...lets see if the millions they spent will be worth anything after all....kaka, ronaldo, benzema, robben, schneider....how the f*** is Pellegrini going to select the best side...he's really spoilt for choice all over the park
veryfatchocobo
New member
I still don't see the flare they had before, but they're much more effective than any of the Calderon teams FOR SURE. I'm expecting to see the flare later on though.
Beast
The Observer
U normally won't see the flare now cause this team will require at least 6 month of game time & training to hit top gear.
the new introduction take over 60 % of the team players .. it's different /less time /easier when u have 1 or 2 players coming to a solid 9 players it's another thing to have 6 or 7 news starting players.
by the time they hit top gear the liga will be over IMO but it will be time for the CL KO round.. so i have my money on the CL (at least reaching the final or the semi's ) but not the liga who i predicted Barca will walk all over it with considerable ease.
the new introduction take over 60 % of the team players .. it's different /less time /easier when u have 1 or 2 players coming to a solid 9 players it's another thing to have 6 or 7 news starting players.
by the time they hit top gear the liga will be over IMO but it will be time for the CL KO round.. so i have my money on the CL (at least reaching the final or the semi's ) but not the liga who i predicted Barca will walk all over it with considerable ease.
Beast
The Observer
From The Sunday Times August 23, 2009
Cristiano Ronaldo: The Great White Hope
The £80m former Manchester United striker may struggle to get used to the weight of expectation at Madrid as La Liga begins.
Little more than two minutes were needed last Wednesday night for 80,000 Germans to glimpse the sort of Real Madrid much of Europe dreads for the season ahead and much of Europe anticipates with a quickening pulse. What mattered was not so much the way the first of Madrid’s five goals against Borussia Dortmund was converted, by Esteban Granero, but how deliciously it had been set up: a subtle back-heel, delivered with speed and precision and not so much as a turn of his head by the Brazilian Kaka.
Three new recruits, Xabi Alonso, Kaka and Granero, were involved in the goal, which was pleasing for the coaches charged with the tricky task of creating a team where six, perhaps seven, first XI places will be occupied by players recruited since mid-June. Kaka has so far been the outstanding newcomer. Against Dortmund, in Madrid’s penultimate summer friendly, he scored his side’s fourth of the evening. Arjen Robben, the club’s mercurial winger, had already opened the second half with a spectacular goal, a missile of a volley, which he celebrated with particular gusto. This has been an uncertain summer for the Dutchman, partly because he is not a fresh arrival.
Standing somewhat on the margins of this rout lingered Madrid’s other winger, the world’s most expensive footballer. Cristiano Ronaldo hit the crossbar and indeed gave up a chance to register on the scoresheet when he invited Kaka to take a 72nd-minute penalty. It was acknowledgment that if it had been anybody’s special night, it was the Brazilian’s. Ronaldo had attempted a slick, back-heeled pass of his own shortly after Kaka’s delightful trick. But it was overhit. As he altered his position on the field, from outside-left to wide on the right, then to playing off the centre-forward, Karim Benzema, Ronaldo’s performance posed as many questions as it gave satisfying answers. “Ronaldo is the dark corner so far in the planning of coach Manuel Pellegrini,” concluded Marca, the popular madridista newspaper. “Rich guy, poor game,” decided Sport, a paper with a firm anti-Madrid agenda.
Afterwards Ronaldo acknowledged that fluent, peak form still felt some days away. “The main thing is that I’m at 100% for the beginning of the season,” he said. “And I’m not worried. I’m absolutely sure I will be in top condition when the competitive matches start.” That date is six days away, the beginning of a Spanish domestic season more hyped than any since Real Madrid first began their studied policy of turning financial ostentation into an Olympic sport. Talking of which, Usain Bolt has been invited to attend the opening league fixture at the Bernabeu against Deportivo La Coruña, one world record-holder joining in the global scrutiny of another, Ronaldo.
These are unfamiliar pressures for the Portuguese. Even Ronaldo’s more sympathetic colleagues talk of the weight his £80m transfer fee carries. “His main problem will be the amount of money that has been paid for him,” said Luis Figo, his compatriot and once the bearer of a world-record fee at the same club. “I’m happy to talk to him if he wants me to, but Cristiano is aware of the status of the club he has joined and the pressures that come with it.”
What could Figo say to reassure his countryman? The circumstances are not quite like those that Figo, and, in subsequent summers during the early years of this decade, Zinedine Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo and David Beckham found when they arrived, one after the other during the first stint in charge of the Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez. Madrid were the European champions when they paid Barcelona almost £40m in the summer of 2000 to hire Figo; they were Spanish champions 12 months later when they beat that record to recruit Zidane; European champions again when they bought the other Ronaldo; Liga title-holders when Beckham joined.
But the club that re-elected Perez in June and promptly spent some £170m on a new front three of Ronaldo, Benzema and Kaka are champions of nothing except inflation. They have not penetrated the last-16 stage of the Champions League for five years, and they finished a dull second to a dazzling Barcelona in the league last May.
Into this environment steps a man who has competed in the past two Champions League finals and won three Premier League titles on the trot. In short, Ronaldo must turn from providing the finesse in a very strong Manchester United to rescuing what has been a very ordinary Real Madrid. While he has the assurance of sharing that responsibility with the other newcomers, notably Kaka and Benzema — Xabi Alonso should be equally important but he does not have top billing here — their presence reminds him daily that this is a Madrid team which is being not so much rebuilt as blitzed into shape, suddenly and even haphazardly.
Arrigo Sacchi, the club’s director of football in the period Figo, Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo and Beckham shared places in the XI, is alarmed by a sense of déjà vu. “Kaka and Ronaldo are strong men and good footballers, so they should be able to play alongside one another. But Madrid should be careful not to do what they did once, and bring in players without thinking whether they complement each other technically. They have made that mistake before.”
Initially, Ronaldo is bound to miss the relationships he had at United, the routines developed with teammates. Benzema, 21, signed from Lyon, lacks the maturity, industry and range of influence Wayne Rooney provided as Ronaldo’s partner in United’s attack. And some of the freedoms given to Ronaldo as a United footballer are inevitably allocated at Madrid to Kaka, a No 10 with a wonderfully manicured image of saintliness but also one capable of expressing his concerns quite powerfully at Milan when he thought his territory was being cramped by Ronaldinho.
Ronaldo is still seeking his bearings. A feature of the pre-season has been his starting from deeper positions; the murmurs have it that he feels perplexed by some of the instructions coming from his new head coach. What he does not want to be taken for, though, is a prima donna. Ronaldo devoted most of a brief encounter with the Spanish media last week to correcting an impression given by the Portuguese authorities that his withdrawal from a recent international friendly, through illness, showed a lack of commitment to his country, who are in danger of not qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
His friends in the game imagine his club football will turn out to be more fulfilling. Gerard Pique, a colleague of Ronaldo’s at United for three seasons and now defending the European, Spanish league and cup titles at Barcelona, had noted the beginnings of scepticism in the local press but shrugged: “That’s to be expected when a player like him moves. It’s also normal for any player, however good, to have to adapt to the big differences between the English league and the way we play in Spain.”
Pique smiled: “For us, I have to just hope his adaptation takes at least a full season, because once he gets going, he’s almost impossible to stop.”
------------------------
In an interview to Marca, coach Manuel Pellegrini talked about his philosophy of work and other aspects relating to the squad prior to Real Madrid's last preseason game.
Now you’ve been in the Club for almost three months, is Real Madrid as you expected?
It is as I expected, although its international impact has impressed me. Arriving in Toronto, Washington or Dortmund with hundreds of people waiting for us is thrilling.
You try to convince players through game time rather than spending hours in coach talks. Are your ideas getting through?
Yes, absolutely. I’m happy about the way the players have responded to my intentions of showcasing a particular game style. You have to convince players, but there’s a difference between power and authority. The power comes with the job, whereas the authority is achieved by convincing players through knowledge of certain aspects of the game. There’s also a tactical scheme, but no one is wrong in front of a chalk board. That’s why I like to repeat every gesture on the pitch until they become automatic movements.
Does your squad have enough quality to achieve your goal of combining good results with good football?
It’s always important to showcase good football. If there’s a crowd of 90,000 willing to see a brilliant performance, that’s what we have to give them. Brilliant performances start with victories, but there are many ways of winning. If I don’t enjoy myself watching my team play, I’m not going to feel happy no matter how many games we win.
Do you think you can bring to Real Madrid the stability you had during your five years at Villareal?
I hope so. Real Madrid won’t change me. I’ve coached the biggest clubs in different countries (River Plate, San Lorenzo…), with complicated media behind them and during difficult times you feel in the middle of everything.
You have confidence in yourself…
I have come to Real Madrid at the appropriate moment. I have confidence in everything I do on and off the pitch, including the way to manage this group of players.
Do you think everything is as simple as you thought before signing for Real Madrid?
Football is simple. At great clubs problems seem more important, but they are football-related problems. Aside from using wingers more or less, one tactical scheme or another, football is simple.
If you were granted a wish, would it be winning the Champions League at the Bernabeu against Barcelona?
It would be winning the Champions League at the Bernabeu, regardless of the opponent
Cristiano Ronaldo: The Great White Hope
The £80m former Manchester United striker may struggle to get used to the weight of expectation at Madrid as La Liga begins.
Little more than two minutes were needed last Wednesday night for 80,000 Germans to glimpse the sort of Real Madrid much of Europe dreads for the season ahead and much of Europe anticipates with a quickening pulse. What mattered was not so much the way the first of Madrid’s five goals against Borussia Dortmund was converted, by Esteban Granero, but how deliciously it had been set up: a subtle back-heel, delivered with speed and precision and not so much as a turn of his head by the Brazilian Kaka.
Three new recruits, Xabi Alonso, Kaka and Granero, were involved in the goal, which was pleasing for the coaches charged with the tricky task of creating a team where six, perhaps seven, first XI places will be occupied by players recruited since mid-June. Kaka has so far been the outstanding newcomer. Against Dortmund, in Madrid’s penultimate summer friendly, he scored his side’s fourth of the evening. Arjen Robben, the club’s mercurial winger, had already opened the second half with a spectacular goal, a missile of a volley, which he celebrated with particular gusto. This has been an uncertain summer for the Dutchman, partly because he is not a fresh arrival.
Standing somewhat on the margins of this rout lingered Madrid’s other winger, the world’s most expensive footballer. Cristiano Ronaldo hit the crossbar and indeed gave up a chance to register on the scoresheet when he invited Kaka to take a 72nd-minute penalty. It was acknowledgment that if it had been anybody’s special night, it was the Brazilian’s. Ronaldo had attempted a slick, back-heeled pass of his own shortly after Kaka’s delightful trick. But it was overhit. As he altered his position on the field, from outside-left to wide on the right, then to playing off the centre-forward, Karim Benzema, Ronaldo’s performance posed as many questions as it gave satisfying answers. “Ronaldo is the dark corner so far in the planning of coach Manuel Pellegrini,” concluded Marca, the popular madridista newspaper. “Rich guy, poor game,” decided Sport, a paper with a firm anti-Madrid agenda.
Afterwards Ronaldo acknowledged that fluent, peak form still felt some days away. “The main thing is that I’m at 100% for the beginning of the season,” he said. “And I’m not worried. I’m absolutely sure I will be in top condition when the competitive matches start.” That date is six days away, the beginning of a Spanish domestic season more hyped than any since Real Madrid first began their studied policy of turning financial ostentation into an Olympic sport. Talking of which, Usain Bolt has been invited to attend the opening league fixture at the Bernabeu against Deportivo La Coruña, one world record-holder joining in the global scrutiny of another, Ronaldo.
These are unfamiliar pressures for the Portuguese. Even Ronaldo’s more sympathetic colleagues talk of the weight his £80m transfer fee carries. “His main problem will be the amount of money that has been paid for him,” said Luis Figo, his compatriot and once the bearer of a world-record fee at the same club. “I’m happy to talk to him if he wants me to, but Cristiano is aware of the status of the club he has joined and the pressures that come with it.”
What could Figo say to reassure his countryman? The circumstances are not quite like those that Figo, and, in subsequent summers during the early years of this decade, Zinedine Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo and David Beckham found when they arrived, one after the other during the first stint in charge of the Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez. Madrid were the European champions when they paid Barcelona almost £40m in the summer of 2000 to hire Figo; they were Spanish champions 12 months later when they beat that record to recruit Zidane; European champions again when they bought the other Ronaldo; Liga title-holders when Beckham joined.
But the club that re-elected Perez in June and promptly spent some £170m on a new front three of Ronaldo, Benzema and Kaka are champions of nothing except inflation. They have not penetrated the last-16 stage of the Champions League for five years, and they finished a dull second to a dazzling Barcelona in the league last May.
Into this environment steps a man who has competed in the past two Champions League finals and won three Premier League titles on the trot. In short, Ronaldo must turn from providing the finesse in a very strong Manchester United to rescuing what has been a very ordinary Real Madrid. While he has the assurance of sharing that responsibility with the other newcomers, notably Kaka and Benzema — Xabi Alonso should be equally important but he does not have top billing here — their presence reminds him daily that this is a Madrid team which is being not so much rebuilt as blitzed into shape, suddenly and even haphazardly.
Arrigo Sacchi, the club’s director of football in the period Figo, Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo and Beckham shared places in the XI, is alarmed by a sense of déjà vu. “Kaka and Ronaldo are strong men and good footballers, so they should be able to play alongside one another. But Madrid should be careful not to do what they did once, and bring in players without thinking whether they complement each other technically. They have made that mistake before.”
Initially, Ronaldo is bound to miss the relationships he had at United, the routines developed with teammates. Benzema, 21, signed from Lyon, lacks the maturity, industry and range of influence Wayne Rooney provided as Ronaldo’s partner in United’s attack. And some of the freedoms given to Ronaldo as a United footballer are inevitably allocated at Madrid to Kaka, a No 10 with a wonderfully manicured image of saintliness but also one capable of expressing his concerns quite powerfully at Milan when he thought his territory was being cramped by Ronaldinho.
Ronaldo is still seeking his bearings. A feature of the pre-season has been his starting from deeper positions; the murmurs have it that he feels perplexed by some of the instructions coming from his new head coach. What he does not want to be taken for, though, is a prima donna. Ronaldo devoted most of a brief encounter with the Spanish media last week to correcting an impression given by the Portuguese authorities that his withdrawal from a recent international friendly, through illness, showed a lack of commitment to his country, who are in danger of not qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
His friends in the game imagine his club football will turn out to be more fulfilling. Gerard Pique, a colleague of Ronaldo’s at United for three seasons and now defending the European, Spanish league and cup titles at Barcelona, had noted the beginnings of scepticism in the local press but shrugged: “That’s to be expected when a player like him moves. It’s also normal for any player, however good, to have to adapt to the big differences between the English league and the way we play in Spain.”
Pique smiled: “For us, I have to just hope his adaptation takes at least a full season, because once he gets going, he’s almost impossible to stop.”
------------------------
In an interview to Marca, coach Manuel Pellegrini talked about his philosophy of work and other aspects relating to the squad prior to Real Madrid's last preseason game.
Now you’ve been in the Club for almost three months, is Real Madrid as you expected?
It is as I expected, although its international impact has impressed me. Arriving in Toronto, Washington or Dortmund with hundreds of people waiting for us is thrilling.
You try to convince players through game time rather than spending hours in coach talks. Are your ideas getting through?
Yes, absolutely. I’m happy about the way the players have responded to my intentions of showcasing a particular game style. You have to convince players, but there’s a difference between power and authority. The power comes with the job, whereas the authority is achieved by convincing players through knowledge of certain aspects of the game. There’s also a tactical scheme, but no one is wrong in front of a chalk board. That’s why I like to repeat every gesture on the pitch until they become automatic movements.
Does your squad have enough quality to achieve your goal of combining good results with good football?
It’s always important to showcase good football. If there’s a crowd of 90,000 willing to see a brilliant performance, that’s what we have to give them. Brilliant performances start with victories, but there are many ways of winning. If I don’t enjoy myself watching my team play, I’m not going to feel happy no matter how many games we win.
Do you think you can bring to Real Madrid the stability you had during your five years at Villareal?
I hope so. Real Madrid won’t change me. I’ve coached the biggest clubs in different countries (River Plate, San Lorenzo…), with complicated media behind them and during difficult times you feel in the middle of everything.
You have confidence in yourself…
I have come to Real Madrid at the appropriate moment. I have confidence in everything I do on and off the pitch, including the way to manage this group of players.
Do you think everything is as simple as you thought before signing for Real Madrid?
Football is simple. At great clubs problems seem more important, but they are football-related problems. Aside from using wingers more or less, one tactical scheme or another, football is simple.
If you were granted a wish, would it be winning the Champions League at the Bernabeu against Barcelona?
It would be winning the Champions League at the Bernabeu, regardless of the opponent
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