Of Mousetraps and Ketchup Bottles

I don’t get it.

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Racing and Levante did it EXACTLY the same
way. Wait for Madrid
in your own half. Defend deep. Frustrate them. And with a bit of cleverness and
luck, through a quick counter, or a set piece: you just might nick that goal
that gives you a point – or 3.

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Espanyol instead, chose to do it EXACTLY
the same way as Ajax
and Rayo. Control the ball, caress it. Ping it about: show Real Madrid who’s in
control. And within a matter of seconds: Kaka, Ronaldo and Ozil WILL murder
you.

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Why did Espanyol choose to try to be Ajax or Rayo rather than
Levante or Racing? I have no idea. I don’t get it. I only know that I enjoyed
myself quite a bit watching it all unfold.

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Real Madrid is the world’s best, most
fabulously-designed, attractive-to-watch, extravagant and ridiculously-expensive
footballing equivalent to the mousetrap. Cross a line enough times and in mere
split second, SNAP! You’re dead. Last night’s game at the Cornelia El Prat
wasn’t much different. Madrid didn’t really boss the game: the tried, but
couldn’t manage to. Espanyol did a good job of gaining control of the game:
enabling them to cross the line, that
line more than a few times… and they duly got punished for it. 4 goals. 4
daggers. Thank You and Good Night. Thanks for having us over.

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Team
Selection

Jose Mourinho seems to be playing games
with all of us with his team selection. After not picking Albiol for a few key games
where first-choice centerbacks (Pepe + Carvalho) are unavailable. Varane instead
got the nod to start much to the surprise of many.    This of course got the conspiracy theorists
a buzz.  Maybe they were on to something…or maybe Mourinho just had some form of squad
rotation system in his mind that none of us at this point can understand.  The other surprise of the night was also
Sergio Ramos starting at CB with Arbeloa playing at RB given Varane’s
performances during the last few game. The midfield was also a bit of a
mystery: with Lass starting ahead of Khedira despite the German’s
availability. 

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The choices were pretty much obvious
upfront given Di Maria’s suspension. 
Despite the sentimental speculation that Vanilla Joe (Jose Callejon)
would get the starting nod due to his history as an ex-Espanyol player, Jose
Mourinho opted to further entertain the media with the Kaka-Ozil
partnership.   Ditto for Ronaldo and
Pipita – Benzema was after all injured.

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Player
Performances

The defense did reasonably well.  One could complain that we missed Carvalho’s
passing capabilities from defense.  But
then again, if you don’t have control of the game, what do you need a
ball-playing CB for?  I’ve always said
that Arbeloa for Ramos at RB in Mourinho’s system (where there is less
attacking on the right side) represents no drop in quality for Real
Madrid.  And as for Ramos, I belong to
the school of thinking that he is a far more suitable CB than he is an RB. 

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Meanwhile at midfield, once again, the Xabi
Alonso + Lass partnership fails to control the midfield.  AS’ passing stats this morning showed decent
numbers for Lass, but I’m not inclined to only look at the numbers.  What remains critical however, was Xabi Alonso’s
ability to pick out the right passes with a single touch to his teammates the
moment some form of control of the ball was gained. 

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The key plot line of last night’s story
however, was how Madrid happily allowed control of the ball and the game go to
Espanyol and were equally happy to get just those few chances in the game.  Nothing personified this more than our
opening goal where a single touch from Kaka puts Ronaldo on his way to feeding
Pipita for the opening goal.  Many have
spoken about how we managed to tear Ajax open in a matter of mere seconds
mid-week.  I’m pretty sure however, that
if we were to measure the amount of time it took Kaka to ping that ball to
Ronaldo all the way up to the goal scored by Higuain, that you might find the
time it took to score the goal comparable to the one we scored versus Ajax
mid-week.

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The
Ketchup Bottle Breaks

Welcome Back Pipita!

How fitting is it that this also happens to
be the weekend where Ruud van Nistelrooy finally manages to score for Malaga:
he of the now-famous ketchup bottle metaphor. If we were to conclude that by
scoring his first La Liga goal for Malaga, RVN has finally managed to open his
“ketchup bottle,” then I suppose  Pipita
has managed to smash his.  All three of
Higuain’s goals were full demonstration of a shockingly improved level of
fitness and confidence.  After all, it
wasn’t too long ago where we saw him run the entire length of the pitch to find
himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper, only to blast it WAAAAY out.  The opening goal fed to him by Ronaldo was
taken with 2 touches of the ball and aimed at the top corner: none of that
fire-it-at-the-goalkeeper crap that we all know we usually see from a non-match-fit
Higuain.  Kudos would also have to go to
Alvaro Arbeloa for attempting and succeeding a very successful Xabi Alonso
impression: delivering a long vertical raking pass that travelled almost
three-quarters of the pitch to find Pipita for his and Real Madrid’s
second.    And since we started this
discussion on strikers talking about RVN, what poetic justice it was to see
Pipita imitating his mentor, using his predatory striker’s instincts to
capitalize on Espanyol’s defending error to earn the right to keep the game
ball last night.

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Perhaps the other surprise of last night
was that we did not see Cristiano Ronaldo attempt a bicycle kick especially
after we saw Julio Baptista knock a beautiful one in last Saturday.  Instead, we saw him deliver two fabulous
assists including Vanilla Joe’s first goal as a Real Madrid player in La Liga.  Callejon’s decision to not celebrate the goal
and gesture to the crowd to ask for forgiveness was also a touching detail.

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Outside of Barca’s continued dominance of
La Liga (once again they are top of the table), I find that this La Liga season
thus far has been about ex-Real Madrid strikers: Negredo and Soldado leading
their teams with their goal-scoring exploits for Sevilla and Valencia,
respectively as well as RVN + Baptista’s exploits last Saturday.  Last night, I just had to wonder whether post-Levante
+ Racing, would Real Madrid’s current strikers follow suit?

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Three goals from Pipita + one goal from
Callejon with no discussions regarding Kaka + Ozil + Xabi later, we have a
broken ketchup bottle for an answer to that simple question.

2011-09-25: Real Madrid 6 - Rayo Vallecano 2

Winning despite a Broken Midfield but with a Broken Ketchup Bottle

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At 12
midnight, after watching Liverpool go down 0-1 to Stoke, I decided to take a
nap prior to Real Madrid’s match which would be at 2am Singapore time: deciding
to give Real Sociedad- Barcelona a miss. Before dozing off though, Barca was
already 2-0 up with just over 15 minutes into the game. Not long after, I woke
to a kick from my 3-month old son who has just awakened:  it was as if he knew that I needed to be alerted
to the fact that Sociedad had gotten a goal back. 3 minutes later, Sociedad had
made it 2-2. Late appearances from Messi and Villa didn’t help. Barca are going
through their annual early season fitness struggles again it seems – and Real
Madrid need to capitalize.

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If anyone
needed any validation that Real Madrid had a totally different fitness
situation, all that was put to rest with out 8 shots in the first 15 minutes of
the game. We’re only talking about fitness thus far though.

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Tactics
and Personnel – Midfield Selections

Pressing with a 4-2-3-1

With Sahin and Altintop looking at a long
spell in the Valdebebas injury ward, and Khedira still injured, Mourinho still
made the choice of not calling up Lass for the game: opting instead for only
Coentrao and Granero as Xabi Alonso’s 2 potential partners. Coentrao of course
got the nod to start with Xabi Alonso in the 4-2-3-1 system - repeating the starting
XI used against Zaragoza.

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The outcome
however was different: where Zaragoza seemed to capitulate and accept their
fate as cannon fodder to the Real Madrid onslaught after the opening goal, it
was a different story last night after Benzema opened the scoring (predictably
assisted by Ozil), Getafe fought back. They are after all coached by the man
behind Levante’s miracle campaign that saved them from relegation last season.
It was during this fightback where I believe the decision to select Coentrao as
Xabi Alonso’s midfield partner somehow backfired on us.

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I’ve called
Coentrao plenty of things: the ‘Joker’, the Energizer Bunny, etc. One thing
that I still cannot bring myself to call him though is: Central Midfielder.
Coentrao brings pace and reasonable capabilities as a ball distributor and a
ball winner. But what really stands out is his energy: a lot of it. I’m not
sure whether this is a result of a license given to him by Mourinho, or even an
instruction: but I have to say that I have a huge problem with his tendency to
unhinge himself from his ‘pivot’ position. We after all, not longer live in a
world where a single ‘Makelele-type’ pivot is sufficient. On top of that, Xabi
Alonso is no Makelele.

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What happened last night vs. Getafe

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Coentrao’s constant
forays to join Ronaldo, Ozil and Di Maria while adding ‘spice’ to our attack,
becomes a recipe for the opposing team to ‘flood’ our midfield (which by then
would be comprised by ONE Xabi Alonso) and overrun it once they win the ball
back. This will not be lost on La Liga managers who have been watching game
tape and it’s clear from last night that Luis Garcia did his homework… and it
wasn’t lost on Mourinho, who said: “El partido del Getafe es bueno. Y el nuestro no lo es” (The
game of Getafe was good, ours, not so). He goes on to say:

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"I'm not happy with my team tonight. We deserved to win and did,
but we missed many chances to score. We had too many chances with the little
football we actually played. I'm not angry with anyone, but I want to know why
the team didn't do well after having such a fantastic start to the season. I
want to study this match. I like to try to learn why my team didn't do things
right."

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One might
be able to argue though on the basis that Coentrao, due to his surging runs
from the midfield had a load of wonderful scoring opportunities (including 2
that were easier to score than miss). To which, I would like to point out the
difference between making those runs to help build up play and making late runs
to latch onto balls to score on ala Frank Lampard in Mourinho’s Chelsea.
Coentrao’s goalscoring opportunities were both off rebound opportunities from
late runs rather than from his participation in buildup play.

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Getafe
looked comfortable getting forward and very stable in the midfield precisely because
of Coentrao’s absence next to Xabi Alonso when Getafe had the ball. Last night,
Getafe midfielders usually received the ball having to face only the
slow-footed Xabi Alonso because his partner Coentrao would be behind, just
trying to run back into position after being part of the attack that lost the
ball. Their midfielders in turn, had little problems getting the ball to their
attackers (among them Sarabia, who I thought looked very good) to put us on the
backfoot. This would not happen with Khedira. Until Sami is fit again, perhaps
Mourinho needs to consider moving Pepe to midfield as Xabi Alonso’s bodyguard.
Ramos at CB and Arbeloa at RB have no impact on the quality levels on the pitch
for the team anyway.

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Signs
on the Wall

Real Madrid
conceded 2 lousy goals last night. Getafe’s equalizer was clearly a result of
poor communication between Pepe and Carvalho on who was supposed to track the
advancing Getafe attacker and who was supposed stay and sit back for anyone
ghosting into the box: both did the former, leaving Miku to ruthlessly punish
us with a goal. The second goal was just down to poor defending. While we may
have kept a clean sheet during our opening game of the season, it’s important
to note that we’ve also let in quite a few silly goals during the pre-season.
Is it time for Mourinho to take a more serious look at our defense? Is Carvalho
losing concentration (or rather, did he lose it during this whole Paulo Bento
feud?)? We have 2 Spanish international defenders sitting on the bench who can
help: Arbeloa and Albiol. If there’s a lack of focus, or a drop in level for
our defenders, we might want to give some of our bench players some game time.

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Goals,
Goals, Goals! (to the tune of Motley Crue’s ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’)

I have of
course, saved the best part for last: the goals. Firstly, I find it refreshing that
Ronaldo is proving me wrong about my theory which states that Ronaldo only
stops playing greedy once he scores. He didn’t give me any ‘pass the f#cking
ball you dick!’ moments last night. His penalty, though a weak call in my
opinion was still a foul, albeit outside the box.

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The star of
the night of course would have to be Karim Benzema. Somehow, the fates have
conspired for him to score twice last night to somehow make up for his standout
performance on opening day. The Frenchman looks sharp, moves and reacts a split
second faster (he wouldn’t have gotten the shot off for his first goal if he
got that chance last season) and is clearly brimming with confidence as seen
from him first-time shot at meeting Ronaldo’s pass for his second goal. All
this wasn’t lost on Mourinho too:

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Benzema had a well-deserved field day on the pitch last night

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"Benzema deserves full credit for his transformation. He had small
help from me, from his teammates and from Zizou, but he deserves the credit. He
has a fantastic attitude and he always had quality. People see that…”

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And also finally,
Pipita gets to score a familiar ‘Pipita-style’ goal: latching onto a pass and
using his graft and industry to find an opening to score. He scored for
Argentina this past week too. Does Jose Mourinho now have 2 strikers whose
ketchup bottles have finally fully opened up?*

(*Note to those who
may not follow my Ruud Van Nistelrroy allusion. This was revealed when Pipita
spoke about his ‘tutor’s’ advice: "Ruud told me
that goals are like ketchup… Sometimes as much as you try, they don't come out,
and then they come all of a sudden.'')

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The team
travels to Zagreb to open its quest for La Decima on Wednesday. Let’s hope that
by then, the midfield would be fixed and the ketchup bottle, still broken.

Overdrive and Cruise Control

Marcelo shows us what Real Madrid did to Zaragoza: Turn them upside down

Another La Liga game, another goalfest. Another Ronaldo Hat Trick. If no one paid attention to the fact that the team was sporting new away jerseys (I LOVE the Black Kit while the White Home kit has still failed to grow on me), and the energizer bunny with bleach-blonde hair (Coentrao) = the game might as well have been a continuation of last season’s La Liga Campaign. Well, wait a minute: it IS a continuation of last season.

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This is NOT Real Madrid Mourinho edition version 2.0. This is merely Real Madrid Mourinho edition SEASON 2.0. Same team, just plenty of upgrades.

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Sadly, the same cannot be said of Real Zaragoza. 10 new players – including one which the club spent 8m on (don’t remember who) while they became one of the clubs in question for not paying their players’ wages – resulting in being one of the protagonist clubs of the Liga strike. They are also one of the few La Liga sides who do NOT have a shirt sponsor (including Sevilla!) – a reflection of the sad state of La Liga’s financial affairs.

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So while Real Madrid’s mangling of Zaragoza made waking up at 2-4am a worthwhile experience for me, I went back to sleep pondering: the gap between Real Madrid + Barcelona vs. the rest of La Liga. Or was it a case of Zaragoza being THAT bad and Real Madrid becoming THAT good? It’s probably both. Last season’s encounter at La Romareda after all was a 1-3 for Madrid and it was Zaragoza who put our La Liga dreams to bed last season with their 2-3 smash-and-grab at the Bernabeu.

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Anyways, some further thoughts:

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1.0  Tactics

1.1  Formation and Team Shape

SIEGE MODE: Real Madrid looked like something of a 2-1-5-2 when we were on full-attack mode.

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Real Madrid lined up as a 4-2-3-1 with Coentrao replacing Khedira beside Xabi Alonso. This at least was how it looked like ON PAPER. In application, it looked more like a 4-1-4-1 with Xabi Alonso as the lone pivot. And when we were attacking full-on, it resembled something like a 2-1-5-2: The key feature of the system being Sergio Ramos bombing down the right flank as opposed to the more restrained role we saw from him last season. Last night, Real Madrid didn’t just ‘fight’ like a southpaw boxer (a leftie, with Ronaldo’s left-sided wing as the main weapon). We in fact, looked like a completely ambidextrous attacking force: coming in from left, right and center.

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The point to note about ending up with a single pivot with Coentrao (though it’s great to see an attacking variant in its application as we saw last night) is that we must be careful about doing this against other, more offensively-potent teams. Coentrao’s propensity to dart forward or suddenly disengage from his pivot position to go wide while definitely an effective destabilizer of opposing defenses, may turn out to be a weakness than can see Xabi Alonso drowned at the center of the pitch. Mourinho seems to offset this by getting Marcelo to switch into the middle – something I’m uncomfortable to see (though it may actually work).

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1.2  Overdrive vs. Cruise Control

Real Madrid, like in the Super Cup, once again came out of the traps playing a dizzyingly up-tempo brand of football. They were like a freight train on overdrive. And with attacks coming literally left (Marcelo+Ronaldo), right (Ramos+Di Maria) and Center (Ozil+Coentrao+Benzema): Zaragoza really did look like a deer caught in the headlights. The question is: did we flatten them enough when we were on overdrive? I counted our ‘uptempo’ phase in the first half and I figured it to be till about the 30^th minute. We had scored 2 goals by then after creating a boatload of chances.

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In the second half, we came out of the traps once again with our high-tempo football (marked by Coentrao’s ‘running back’ breakaway dribble through the center which did not yield a goal). But, by the time Xabi Alonso scored from his ground-skimming missile at 64’, we were in Cruise Control. Another 3 goals followed soon after including a sweet, Milan-era-Kaka turn-and-strike.

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2 Goals playing on Overdrive. 4 Goals playing in ‘Cruise Control’ (i.e. similar to our pace of playing and attacking last season). The conclusion from this is NOT that playing in ‘cruise control’ is better but that there is still much work that needs to be done when we play on ‘overdrive’. Our boys may be able to create a frenetic attacking tempo that is nearly-impossible to defend, but it is perhaps this same frenetic tempo that frazzles their nerves in the final moments of attack which lead to poor finishing and decision-making during those split seconds prior to a potential “kill” (goal) (Di Maria’s first half miss at a wide open goal directly in front of him comes to mind). These are lessons which we learned from the Super Cup duel that we will have until December to refine and perfect.

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2.0  Player Performances

2.1  Ronaldo

3 Goals for Ronaldo. What else is new? He had some other great chances too, including 2-3 free kicks that were on target but were punched away. His decision making was much-improved, though I would doubt it would have been so had he not scored that early opening goal, which eliminated his obsession to get on the score sheet. After his 40-goal season, I can only hope that he can play this one without the anxiety to necessarily score goals as opposed to helping his team win in other ways.

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Many have highlighted the seeming enigma that he has always brought to Madrid that the team plays better together without him and plays with some form of anxiety for him to score if he’s on. It wasn’t so last night (like I said, maybe it was the early goal) - he looked for his teammates, and had only a couple of shoot-first-ask-questions-later moments. The best part was: he gave his teammates the credit for his Nth Hat Trick.

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2.2  Coentrao

This guy had TOO MUCH coffee before the game. If there would ever be a poster child for the brand of football of this Mourinho Season 2.0’s upgrades, it would have to be him. Last night, his tireless running and livewire act served as the catalyst for Real Madrid’s ‘Overdrive Mode’. I am still however skeptical of the soundness of him playing a full-on Central Midfield role: his tendency to run at the flanks (and leave Xabi Alonso alone in the middle) really needs to be curbed lest Madrid find an opponent who will delight at flooding the center of the pitch to smother and choke the life out of Xabi Alonso. Having said that, what makes him the poster child of this season’s tactical system upgrades is not only his ability to spark the team into playing that now-signtature frenetic uptempo game, but also his ability to give Real Madrid a wide array of tactical options on the pitch.

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2.3  Ozil

Ozil is seems to be fast-becoming one of the integral parts of the Madrid midfield, regardless of formation

In this Real Madrid Mourinho Edition Season 2.0 – one of the primary upgrades apart from the newfound tactical flexibility is the strengthening of the team’s spine… and this is where Ozil-in-Madrid season 2.0 comes in. We’ve talked endlessly about Xabi Alonso’s role as the pulse of Real Madrid’s offensive game and as the rock at the heart of its spine. Ozil on the other hand has been a ‘luxury’ in the Madrid midfield, having been kept out of the starting XI of last season’s ‘clasico series’. On the back of his performance during the preseason and in last night’s game though, it looks like Madrid’s ‘spine’ just got another integral component: Ozil. Playmakers in advanced positions usually have a much poorer pass completion rate due to the ‘risk’ of playing around more defenders and Ozil is no exception. His improvement however has been very noticeable: this season he is even more calm on the ball, displays superb awareness and seems to have improved his decision-making. His overall performance last night was in my opinion makes him a legitimate option for Real Madrid Man of the Match, Ronaldo Hat Trick or Not.

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2.4  Marcelo

While Coentrao’s forays into the Zaragoza box via the flanks or through the middle kept me on edge, particularly at the thought of having Marcelo cover for him, the Brazilian however gave me no reason to fret. He defended and attacked on the wing, covered in the middle when Coentrao ‘unhinged himself from position’, scored a goal and did a backflip to celebrate his goal. What else should we ask for from a Real Madrid left back?  

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2.5  The Subs

We’re now seeing the logic of Mourinho’s 20+3 system: 20 versatile, multi-functional outfield players and 3 Goalkeepers – 2 less players than the conventional 25 man squad we’ve seen pre-Mourinho. With quality to the last man on the squad, accounting for injuries and suspensions, every player then stands the chance to play significant minutes for the team. Last night, they were Callejon (who nearly scored), Kaka (who did) and Pipita, whose improved state of fitness was seen in his running the half the length of the pitch ending and his match fitness seen in the fluffed goalscoring chance.

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3.0  Keeping up with the Joneses

It was a weekend where Champions League aspirants both in England and in Spain showed their mettle on Saturday Night: with Liverpool handily beating Bolton 3-1 and Valencia pulling off an epic 4-3 comeback win against Racing Santander. Sunday night of course were for aspiring Champions: With both Manchester Teams mangling their North London opponents (5-1 for City over Spurs and 8-2 for United over Arsenal).  Real Madrid of course, duly obliged late in the day.

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What about those playing Monday night this weekend? Pretenders I say. (Ha!)

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4.0  Other La Liga News

What the hell happened to what was supposed to be the coming out party of Malaga? Maybe it wasn’t too bad that their much-anticipated encounter with Barca has been ‘postponed to a later date’. Or was it the weekend of the epic performances from the ex-Castilla strikers? Negredo grabbed 2 to undo Malaga, Soldado had a hat trick and heck, even Raul scored!

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It’s sad to see the ‘divorce’ between Diego Forlan and Atletico finally materialize. Best of luck to him at Inter (as they report). Atletico are trading one Europa-League-winning striker for another. Still not the same though… for their sake, let’s hope ‘it won’t be the same’ for other reasons this time around.

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(originally posted at Real Madrid Football blog here)

p.s. for those on twitter, you can follow me: @MadridistaMac