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| There was Benze-cat, and now there's Cris Charming. Yuck. |
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“He’s
NOT handsome!” was my wife’s instant reply when I read Cristiano’s post-game
comments to her. I can only suppose that this is what happens when you read out
comments that epitomize the arrogance of an ex-Manchester United Player to a
.
"It's surely
because I'm good-looking, rich and a great footballer. They're jealous of me. I
don't have any other explanation," he said after the game, in quotes
published by Marca.
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Last
Wednesday, Real Madrid was the opposite of Cristiano’s self-description: Rich
(or rather, expensive), Ugly and Not Great.
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Putting
things into perspective, the game per se, and the outcome, wasn’t that bad. We
always knew that this trip to
was going to be a tricky one. Dinamo was a physical and solid tough nut of a
team to crack. They also had a giant (who had a monster game) in goal.
Considering the fact that Champions League day 1 was largely a letdown for the
favorites (The 2 Manchester Clubs and Barca dropped points while Inter lost),
one can say that perhaps say that Real Madrid managing to eek out a win isn’t a
bad outcome at all.
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And
this is why Ronaldo’s explosion of arrogance is just disgusting: because it
robs us of the merits of last Wednesday Night’s outcome.
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Tactics
Tactically,
I thought we were ok. Fabio Coentrao started again and played a much more
restrained game: his energy and active-ness was instead used to give Real
Madrid a much stronger presence at midfield. It was much-needed too: with
Dinamo’s Robust midfield game largely backed up by the appropriately named
JERK-o Leko patrolling their midfield, trying to pull off a Mark Van Bommel
performance.
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Coentrao
did, however interchange positions with Marcelo frequently – drifting to the
left wing, while the Brazilian put in shifts at the
(where he took the opportunity of feeding Di Maria to score). For Coentrao,
playing in Marcelo-mode however, he will need to develop his understanding of
overlapping with Ronaldo when Mr. Prince Charming is attacking on the left.
Without Marcelo’s overlapping runs, Ronaldo was constantly left having to face
2 or 3 defenders rather than just the 1 or 2 when Marcelo overlaps to drag at
least one defender away.
The
big problem however was as Bassam of RMFB had pointed out: our front 4 didn’t do enough
to press the opposing defense. I can distinctly recall that all our periods of
dominance in the game were when our front 4 did this. And this is there we get
to…
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Player Performances
Like
Bassam, I was stunned by how much vitriol is being spewed towards Higuain who
only played 10 minutes in the game. I also feel that Carvalho and Di Maria’s
poor performances in the
game has tainted the opinions of many Madridistas about their performance last
Wednesday. They weren’t great but they certainly didn’t have bad games. In my
opinion, the most off-color performance last Wednesday was from my current
favorite Real Madrid player: Mesut Ozil. And in case Andres is reading this:
No, I have not yet purchased his jersey and jinxed him :P. Maybe it’s because
Ozil is now being singled out by opposing defenses as a man-to-watch for Real
Madrid or maybe it was just one of those nights.
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After
all, a player who usually supplies the final ball that leads to a goal tends to
go through these ‘phases’ (Ronaldo and Benzema, the team’s 2 primarly goal
threats are the chief benefactors from this). Sometimes it’s due to opposing
teams designing their entire defensive scheme to stop such a player, sometimes
it’s just one of those days when things aren’t clicking and those passes aren’t
quite as inch-perfect on the night… or sometimes it’s just that slight (but
almost fatal) dip in concentration for the night. I can only suppose that this
is the next step for Ozil: taking his performances and his ability to influence
a game to a consistent level. At his age, this is a crossroads period for him:
to learn to assert himself and potentially reach ‘legend-level’ ala Zidane, or
‘could’ve-been-legend-level’ ala Guti. To end up in between isn’t so bad, but
then again, it’s hard not to be one or the other if you have such talents.
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In
this sense, Bassam was also right in his questioning of why Granero wasn’t sent
into the game. Granero would have been a great possible ‘cure’ to an off color
performance from Ozil. With no Kaka on the bench to stabilize control of the
game when in possession, Granero could have lubricated the team’s creaky
passing gears last Wednesday.
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Finally,
there is once again, the issue of finishing. A stat came out recently: Real
Madrid had a mind-numbing 65 shot
attempts in their first 2 La Liga games. 10 goals in 65 shots = 15.38% - worse
than a bad baseball batting average!
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This
weekend, we’re off to play Levante. We wiped the floor with them in the Copa
Del Rey last season, but also dropped points there in La Liga. With a 2 point
lead over Barca, it’s now time for the team to get their shooting boots on and
re-introduce Levante to the floor.
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