Mar 7, 2008
Yup, the dream is over. Real Madrid have been dumped out of the Champions league and have failed to reach the quarter final stage for the fourth season running. Am I sad? Most definitely, but am I surprised? No. Schuster is coaching a team in the champions league for the first time and quite clearly,he isn’t ready for this big a club. And with the squad we had, winning the cup would be nothing short of a miracle.
Thanks to the reputation the club’s board has, Schuster has his work cut out. Win silverware and please the crowd, else start looking for another club. Its quite evident in his tactics that he’s insecure and his main objective is to just last the season. Playing the likes of Ruud, Raul, Ramos, Casillas week in week out, not giving enough chances to the youngsters even against lesser opposition, totally ignoring the Castilla players, rushing players back from injury into the starting XI all just reinforce the fact that he was afraid to lose, afraid to take risks of any kind. And when some of our key players got injured or were unavailable, it just exposed our inexperienced bench. Soldado clearly cannot be expected to perform miracles in the last 5 minutes of a champions league match, not because he isn’t good enough but because he simply hasn’t played enough minutes this season.
What next for Madrid? A tough league match against Espanyol which we cannot afford to lose. In fact, winning La Liga is the only way Schuster can redeem this season. Its not going to be easy considering the form Barcelona are in and the fact that round two of ‘El Clasico’ happens on week 36 of the league. The injury to Messi should hit them hard though.
Its a good thing Milan crashed out as well, the tag of the most successful team in Champions League history looks safe for now and the near future, but I hope its not another 32 year wait before we win our next one.
Dec 12, 2007
After Day 1 of Match-day 6 of the Uefa Champions league,14 of the 16 teams for the next round have been decided. Madrid “could” have gone out, Liverpool “could” and probably should have gone out, the mighty Rosenborg, for a change, “could” have qualified for the knockout stages. But in the end, none of it happened. All the biggies of European football have qualified for the next stage.Of the 12 teams from the major leagues,ie,La Liga,EPL and Serie A,10 have qualified,the other two being Valencia, who are having an awful season, and Lazio who don’t belong to this stage anyways. 7 of the 8 groups have been topped by teams from the above mentioned 10. As far as European football is concerned, experience at the big stage almost always shows.
The draw for the knockout stage happens on December 21. Madrid have qualified as group leaders and thus avoid most of their major rivals. I just hope, come Feb 19th, the team wouldn’t be making a trip to England.A trip to England’s neighbour Scotland would be perfect though.
Nov 26, 2007
Murcia Vs Real Madrid : Final Score 1-1
This week was a case of the good,the bad and the ugly for Guti. Made the assist for the first goal, his laziness resulted in the Murcia goal and finally got himself sent off. Of course,it wouldn’t be fair to blame the loss of two points on him, the team and Schuster failed to impress again.
Thankfully Villareal dropped points as well which means its another week at the top of the table.
Sadly,things seem to be much worse at St.James’ Park. Another big home defeat means big pressure on Big Sam. There just has to be something about being a Newcastle defender.No matter how good you were previously, you just magically turn into the suckiest defender in the world once you wear the black and white stripes jersey. The scoreline might have read 6-0 had Benitez spent 20 odd million pounds on a better finisher.
Finally some good new,El Il Fenomeno played his first 90 minutes this season for Milan. Won a penalty, hit the woodwork once. He looks fitter than ever!
