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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.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Derby Doldrums
Thursday, 8 January 2009
UEFA postpones decision on Huntelaar and Lass
The story has been brewing for a couple of weeks now, ever since Real Madrid signed Lass from Portsmouth and then 'discovered', via the press, that UEFA rules state that of a maximum of three new players that can be registered for the knock-out stages by February 1st, only one can have played in another European competition, such as the UEFA cup.
Admittedly, Real Madrid have found themselves in a fairly unusual position, having lost three players for the remainder of the season before the year was out. However, UEFA rules are quite clear on this point, and have been for some years. Protestations to the contrary cannot disguise the fact that the club's sporting director, Predrag Mijatovic, or one of his team, should have known. The chances of a resignation, or, at the very least, some sort of apology for the mistake, are, shall we say, remote.
Mijatovic & Co. have tried to deal with this in typical fashion, acting as if it is someone else's fault. In this case, they argue that UEFA's rules are ambiguous and contradictory, given that third placed teams in the Champions League group stages then go on to compete in the UEFA Cup, and say they are prepared to appeal all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Besides the fact that it is unlikely that there is enough time for the appeals process to complete before the 1st February deadline, Real Madrid's directors are being at best disingenuous (and thus once again incompetent) or at worst just going through the motions for appearance's sake. The rules are quite clear (articles 17.17 and 17.18 if you want to look them up) and Real will have to pick one of their two recent acquisitions (probably Lass) for registration. Whether the rules are "fair", given Real Madrid's injury situation, is irrelevant, and UEFA may very well decide to alter them, but only in time for next season.
Update: UEFA finally announced late on Thursday evening that its Control and Disciplinary Body had rejected Real Madrid's request and that any appeals would be heard next week.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Early Christmas present for Real Madrid
In most other countries, presents are opened on Christmas morning. In Spain, and some other countries with a Catholic tradition, the custom is to open presents on the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, commemorating the visit of the Magi.
Whichever tradition applies, Real Madrid have bought themselves an early Christmas gift in the shape of Ajax and Holland striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. They will however have to wait until January 1st to open that present, when the winter transfer window opens.
It is of course only "coincidence", as Mijatovic insists, that this signing is being announced mere days before the club's AGM this Sunday.
Both Calderón and Mijatovic are expected to face heavy criticism at the meeting, particularly over their disastrous summer transfer policy where they sold Robinho to Manchester City to finance the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United. Coincidentally, the Portuguese winger was confirmed yesterday as the winner of the Ballon d'Or, making him the European Footballer of the Year.
Huntelaar was this year made Ajax captain by manager Marco van Basten, an important recognition for a 25-year-old. He is seen as both a short and long term replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy, who is out for the rest of the season, but is carrying an ankle ligament injury himself which means he won't play again until after he joins Real Madrid in January. This led Michel Salgado to joke that "we even sign them injured" on Tuesday evening as the agreement was made public.
Earlier in the week Ramón Calderón had promised new signings to alleviate the raft of injuries to the squad, although he said that any winter signings would come to "help out, because we already have the good players up front: Raúl, Higuaín and Robben". Let's hope Huntelaar sees a bit more of the pitch than Saviola, for instance.
On the technical side, there's little question that Huntelaar is a valuable addition to the squad. He's a centre forward at heart, so he will need good service from the midfield players, reather than tracking back to get the ball himself.
However, the presence of so many Dutchmen in the squad should make his adaptation relatively straightforward. His goal record speaks for itself; last season alone he scored 33 goals in 34 games in the Dutch league championship.
Real Madrid will pay Ajax 20 million euros for his services, plus another 7 million depending on results. Huntelaar will be in Madrid for a medical on Wednesday and is expected to sign a contract until 2013.
