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Earlier this week, French sports daily L'Equipe reported that Mijatovic had recently been in the UK to talk to Queiroz about Cristiano. The Real Madrid sports director reportedly put 120 million euros on the table to make him the player to spearhead Real's assault on the Champions League. Queiroz is said to have retorted that "at that price, the striker will be with United next season", which, if the quote is accurate, suggests there is room for negotiation.
Of course, the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo has matured into the kind of player everybody wants must owe something to the way Alex Ferguson runs his Manchester United squads. The relative freedom from internal politics and his unchallenged status inside the club means that no player is more important than the squad and internal cliques and dissension are generally quashed before they can take hold. Whether he could have flourished in that way at Real Madrid is something we'll never know.
Ironically, it was Ferguson's intransigence in this regard that eventually led to media maelstrom David Beckham joining the rank of the galácticos at the same time as Queiroz. However, as Queiroz recalls, the seeds of destruction that resulted in three years without a trophy, including his one season at the club (the Spanish Supercup does not count) had already been sown. Real's president, Florentino Pérez, decided that "he knew something about football" and commanded that Makélélé be sold to Chelsea. This was "a criminal error, the president's worst decision. Makélélé wanted to stay. He told me and he told [Jorge] Valdano (then the club's general manager). But, in the president's mind, releasing Makélélé vacated a position in which David Beckham could play. He was worried that, with Makélélé in the team, Beckham would be blocked out. But of course we could have had both."
Queiroz also analyses Real's Zidanes y Pavones strategy: "the policy was to surround the galácticos with players from the academy, the cantera, as much as possible. It was a great idea and could have worked - except that the cantera could not deliver its requirements. The young players were not there. On top of that, the club had let some of the best go the year before - like Samuel Eto'o. He was a Real Madrid player before he went to Barcelona and emerged as world-class. When the season started, I gave an interview to Marca and said that, although it was true Real Madrid was a Ferrari, you could not win a race if the car had no wheels. Sad to say, I was proved right."
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
What might have been
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Back to earth with a thump
The above are all valid, but they do not take away from the aptness of the saying pride comes before a fall. The hubristic hype peddled by the usual suspects (As, Marca) heralded a new, more attractive offensive football. Carlos Queiroz remarked in a recent interview that when he managed the squad back in 2004 he played attractive football and lost: "Real Madrid is extremely sensitive to external pressures. It was so in the past, it is the case now, and I don't know if it will continue to be, but it's something they need to address". He pointed to the fact that Manchester United managed to win the Premiership playing the type of football that is both effective and attractive, and expressed his disappointment that di Salvo, the fitness coach, has left Manchester for Madrid, while saying that Real have got themselves an excellent professional.
Valter di Salvo has his work cut out then, to get the squad's fitness levels up to scratch, if the evidence of last night's performance, particularly in the second half is anything to go by. They started the game brightly (and offensively) enough, with De la Red orchestrating in midfield and threading a number of passes through to Higuaín, who was not at his most inspired, missing at least three clear cut chances.
However, the defence, which had attained some measure of robustness under Capello, did a passable Swiss Cheese impersonation, especially Cannavaro, who will have to work hard this year to retrieve any kind of credibility (he hasn't got the excuse of poor preparation last year following a World Cup campaign). The wings were non-existent; this is a problem, especially on the left (Robinho at least should be back on the right, now he's returned from the Copa América), but there's as yet no movement on the reported negotiations for Robben (is he really worth over 30 million to Chelsea?) and Drenthe. Maybe Marcelo will feature in Schuster's plan after all, although his extended holidays have been the subject of some anger back at the club.
It's not a disaster; it was just a preseason friendly after all, but it was a wake-up call: the first real test (Spanish supercup) is a mere 10 days away and there's a hell of a lot of work to do, new signings or no new signings.
