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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
Monday, 2 March 2009
Imperfect Ten
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.
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.
Monday, 22 December 2008
Diarra for Diarra
Portsmouth have made a nice return on a player they splashed out £5 million for just under a year ago. With a reported transfer fee of £20 million, or €20 million (the near parity between the pound and the euro means that the numbers in both currencies are virtually identical), Lassana Diarra has now hit the big time.
Except this is not the first time he has joined a large club. He started his professional career in French second division side Le Havre (despite having the same surname as Mahamadou, given his Malian descent, Lassana was born in Paris and has already been called up to the French national side). In 2005 he moved to Chelsea, but did not feel he was given enough opportunities by Jose Mourinho and moved to Arsenal in 2007.
Life under Arsene Wenger was no better (in terms of first team football, at least) and Lassana decided to leave after just five months to join Portsmouth, in an attempt to get more playing time and exhibit his potential for other clubs to see. He is clearly ambitious and the injury crisis at Real will very likely furnish him plenty of opportunities this season to show off his talent. Whether he makes the most of them remains to be seen.
Although he plays in the same position as Mahamadou Diarra, as a defensive midfielder, his style is less about athleticism and muscle, and more about vision of play and passing accuracy.
Lassana completed his transfer after passing his medical on Monday afternoon and signed a four-and-a-half year deal that will see him play for Real Madrid until 2013. He will wear the number 6 jersey, the same as his namesake, although with the nickname "Lass", rather than his surname, to avoid confusion.
Last week, Real Madrid also negotiated the early return of one of its youngsters. Dani Parejo had joined Queen's Park Rangers on loan at the beginning of the season, and will be another option in midfield for Juande Ramos, although he's less likely to get as much playing time from the off as Lassana Diarra.
