Previous Head-to-head Results
| Competition | Date | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Champions League - Last 16 | 10-Mar-2009 | Liverpool | 4-0 | Real Madrid |
| Champions League - Last 16 | 25-Feb-2009 | Real Madrid | 0-1 | Liverpool |
| European Cup - Final | 27-May-1981 | Liverpool | 1-0 | Real Madrid |
| Totals | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P | W | D | L | F | A |
| 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
You have to go back to 1999 for the last time Atlético beat neighbours Real Madrid, and, on the evidence of last night's performance, they may well have to wait another ten years to do so.
Not that Atlético did not deserve to win; they did. But if they're going to waste that many opportunities to score, then it will be a long time before they can slay their particular bête noire.
Real can count themselves lucky that they were not three goals down at the break. Pepe's suspension for an accumulation of bookings, meant Juande Ramos had to rearrange his back four. The last time Pepe was missing, Real Madrid lost a league game, at Barcelona, and it looks like Juande made a couple of tactical mistakes.
His first, playing Lass as right back and putting Sergio Ramos alongside Cannavaro in the centre of defence unbalanced the side and showed why Lass's presence as a defensive midfielder is crucial to Real Madrid's success. Everyone knows Salgado is not my favourite defender, but when Juande rectified in the second half and brought him on, the difference was palpable. Surely he should have picked either Salgado or Torres at right back, or even Metzelder in the centre and Sergio Ramos in his usual spot?
The other tactical error was leaving Higuaín out of the side. Though the young Argentine has not scored for a few games, he does lead the side in assists in the league, and soon after coming on for Guti he provided Huntelaar with his equalising chance, though he was admittedly offside.
Atlético fans will not just rue the many missed chances by Agüero, Forlán and the rest, they can also point to a poor performance from the referee, who not only missed Real's offside goal, but also disallowed a perfectly good Atlético goal and wanted nothing to do with a penalty on Agüero.
Real, on the other hand, will pack their bags for Tuesday's game at Liverpool knowing that Pepe should be the rock at the centre of defence and hoping that their creative players can find that spark they so sorely needed on Saturday.
Real Madrid recorded their tenth consecutive league victory on an away trip to Espanyol. This result, combined with Barcelona's inability to hold onto a two-goal lead at Atlético Madrid the following evening, puts Real four points behind the leaders. It's hard to believe that this difference was twelve points a mere three weeks ago.
And yet, while much credit has to be given to Juande for turning the team around defensively (3 goals conceded in the last 11 matches), there is still much work to do to make Real Madrid the well-oiled machine in attack that the individual quality of its players would suggest.
The first half saw both sides "abuse" the midfield to the exclusion of both areas. Sneijder, who hasn't had the best of seasons, did not really perform well as playmaker, wasting innumerable passes to his colleagues up front, with Huntelaar looking especially isolated. Fortunately for the visitors, Lass swept up most of Espanyol's attacks, turning in another impressive display.
What Lass could not mop up, Pepe and Cannavaro did, with Casillas making the odd miraculous save that no longer gets headlines (he was much criticised early in the season for a few uncharacteristic mistakes).
Juande changed tack in the second half, bringing Guti in for the ineffectual Sneijder and Marcelo in for Higuaín to try to give the squad some balance and some width. Raúl tracked back to help out in midfield and the changes injected a little more urgency to Real's play.
Nevertheless, it was a whole 67 minutes before the deadlock was finally broken, as Guti was brought down outside the Espanyol area. The veteran Real Madrid midfielder, who recently announced he will leave the club in 2011 at the latest, slotted a perfect free kick into the top left hand corner of Espanyol's goal.
Five minutes later, Raúl effectively finished off the game as he timed his run perfectly to latch onto a half-mishit Marcelo cross and put the ball beyond goalkeeper Kameni.
As in midweek, the team who made the least number of errors won the game. Unlike then, this time that team was Real Madrid.
Yossi Benayoun's header brought Real Madrid's run of nine consecutive victories to a crashing halt as Liverpool took the lead at the Bernabéu in their last 16 Champions League encounter with Real Madrid.
The result was testament to Rafa Benítez's technical and tactical abilities, especially in cup ties. While Real Madrid started more brightly and played more fluidly, they crashed time and time again into Liverpool's carefully crafted defence.
A couple of early chances and a goal disallowed for offside were all Real had to show for in the first half, as the visitors slowly took control and even had the better of the period with Casillas keeping out shots from Torres and Benanyoun as well as a spectacular long-range effort from Xabi Alonso.
Juande Ramos brought Guti on for Marcelo after the break in an attempt to inject some fluidity into Real's attack, and perhaps hoping the Real Madrid veteran could find that killer pass that would unlock the Liverpool defence. It was all to no avail.
The side that had coolly slotted six goals past a hapless Betis in one half on the weekend, found Liverpool and the Champions League an altogether tougher proposition. Only long range shots from Robben and Higuaín troubled Pepe Reina, and not much at that.
With the game finely poised at 0-0, Heinze unnecessarily brought down Dirk Kuyt on the edge of the area. Fabio Aurelio curled in the resulting free kick and an unmarked Benayoun headed the ball past Casillas.
Expect two weeks of talk of "epic comebacks" from the press and the fact that everything is not lost. It's not an insurmountable task, but it will take several flashes of genius for Real Madrid to triumph at Anfield and move into the quarter finals.
An article in El País contrasts the character and personality of the two coaches in tonight's Champions League clash between Real Madrid and Liverpool.
Four players who played under both men give their opinions, and it makes for fascinating reading, especially if, as has been rumoured on occasion, Rafa Benítez makes the move at some time back to Spain to coach Real Madrid, where he spent over a decade as a player and then coach of the youth teams.
José Miguel González, Josemi, spent six months recovering from a knee injury in his only season at Liverpool in 2004-05. Rafa Benítez never asked how he was. However, Juande Ramos, who coached him at Málaga used to talk to him constantly.
"Juande is a better person", says Josemi, now at Mallorca. "Rafa does his own thing. He worries about the game, studies the opponent's moves... but he doesn't do much on a day to day basis with his players. With Juande, those on the subs bench are happier, because he looks after them and constantly makes comparisons to put pressure on the starting eleven."
"Rafa used an expression we found painful: 'A substitute with a substitute is more of a substitute', says Palop, who played under Benítez at Valencia before ending up at Sevilla under Ramos.
"Benítez is a great coach, but on a personal level I felt I didn't exist; I was only there to train. Never a word to see how I felt. He would surround himself with the most important players and completely ignore the rest." Palop adds that this contrasted with Juande who "bonded with the players and was ready to give a chance to everyone without making a distinction".
The Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard, shares this view in his autobiography: "Benítez is not cold towards me, just detached. Rafa doesn't think he needs close bonds with players, even the captain. But respect flows naturally between me and Rafa: he's the manager, I'm a player. Everything Rafa says and does is designed to strengthen Liverpool. Twenty minutes after I lifted the FA Cup, Rafa was downstairs talking to the press and telling them Liverpool could have won it without me. 'I don’t think we would have lost if we didn't have Stevie,' he said, 'because we have played a lot of games without him.' I'd scored two good goals and banged in a penalty, which was not a bad afternoon's work, but I understood Rafa. The gaffer was not belittling my contribution, as some people thought, he was just saying that the team is everything, that his number eight is simply a cog in the Liverpool machine. Fair enough."
"Juande gives you a lot more freedom, both inside and outside the pitch", adds Mallorca midfielder Martí who played with Benítez in his stint at Tenerife and then with Juande at Sevilla. "They're both natural winners, incredibly intelligent and able to adapt to their squad and their opponents. Juande always wants to score a second after the first, whereas Benítez is more calculating."
Palop says that Benítez "does not miss a thing. He gives you a lot of information, sometimes too much. One day he told us everything about the Basle keeper. Juande tells you what you need to know and no more. But Benítez always had an ace up his sleeve with his line-ups. Juande is more predictable".
César, the Valencia goalkeeper is grateful to Benítez for giving him his Primera División debut at Valladolid. Juande on the other hand brought him to Tottenham Hotspur for his Premiership debut. "They're both extremely hardworking," he says "I met Rafa when we were both very young. He was ahead of his time, both with his analyses and in his use of the computer."
"Juande is a great guy. Over two legs he's very dangerous, as he showed at Tottenham, winning the Carling Cup, and at Sevilla, with back-to-back UEFA cups. Real Madrid will be making a big mistake if they let him go," concludes César.
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