Contact me
As it is, the sacking of Bernd Schuster and installation of Juande Ramos as caretaker coach is like careening the vessel at high tide to scour the hull: a superficial short-term fix that may do little to change the club's fortunes this season.
Sunday was a tough day for the club. The AGM approved the accounts, but with a fairly tight margin (55% of 'yes' votes). This was preceded by socio after socio standing up to speak to criticise Calderón for his management of the club. Though there was some vocal support from the gallery, the word was that they had been bussed in by the president to clap and cheer at the appropriate moments.
The accounts were approved and the budget was passed, but there remained the small matter of Sevilla visiting the Bernabéu in the evening. With Barcelona having demolished Valencia 4-0 the previous evening and nine points ahead in the standings before next week's Clásico at the Camp Nou, clinching all three points was essential for the men in white.
The game was a high scoring affair with refereeing controversy thrown in in for good measure. The visitors scored first (again) after a mistake by Casillas (again) before being pulled back by a Raúl goal. By half time Real Madrid were 3-1 down and the local crowd was chanting for the president (not the coach) to resign.
Somehow they managed to get back on equal terms after the break, with Arjen Robben providing the width that broke open the Sevilla defence. They could have even gone ahead but were denied by goalkeeper Palop's miraculous interventions in front of Raúl and Robben.
Sevilla were on the ropes and reeling when the referee decided to ignore a clear penalty on Higuaín by Palop and then showed Robben his second yellow card for protesting the decision. This proved another turning point in the match, with Sevilla making their extra man count to score the winner six minutes from time.
Schuster, in his post-match press conference, decided to dig his own grave (and, to the more cynical among us, guarantee himself a tidy pay-off) by saying the unsayable: "we cannot win at Barcelona because they are far superior and I think this will be their year. We can go there and be competitive, but that's about it".
Thirty-six hours later, Mijatovic informed Schuster of the club's decision to let him go and replace him with former Tottenham Hotspur and Sevilla manager Juande Ramos. After "short, but intense" negotiations, Juande signed for the remainder of the season, with an option to remain at the helm depending on the team's performance.
This weekend, Barcelona!
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Schuster is sacked, replaced by Juande Ramos
Monday, 31 March 2008
Back on top
Although much is being made of Higuaín scoring at last, he only managed to put away one of at least three clear-cut chances, and his team-mates seemed to be losing confidence in him. Another much-mentioned anecdote is Raúl scoring his 290th goal for the club, putting him neck-and-neck with 70s and 80s legend Santillana and second only to the great Di Stefano (307). Howerver, the keys to yesterday's triumph lie in the great display from the back four (especially Cannavaro, who's come in for a lot of criticism in recent days) and the return of creativity in midfield from the likes of Guti and (yes, it's true) Sneijder.
Real had to start without Pepe through injury, but they barely missed him, and his replacement, Gabriel Heinze, not only ably supported Cannavaro in the rear, but also opened the scoring for Real with a header off a Sneijder free kick. The Dutchman added a second assist when he found Raúl in the area. The captain controlled the ball, jinked around two defenders and blasted it far from the hands of Sevilla keeper Palop. This came barely two minutes after Kanouté, in a rare attack for Sevilla in the first half, hit a beautiful volley to put the scores level.
On past performances, a one-goal lead wasn't going to be enough, even if it didn't look like it was going to be Sevilla's night. Half-way through the second half Sneijder found Guti, who played it back Higuaín, who finally managed to put the ball, and the game, away.
Real's 6-point lead over Villareal means the boys from the "Yellow Submarine" will need to accumulate at least 7 points more than the men in white, given the head-to-head results between both teams.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
The whimpers of the impotent
However, it's not the game itself I want to write about, other than to say that Real were not that wonderful against Valencia, and, by the same measure, they were not that wretched against Sevilla. The team is starting to click together better than at the beginning of the season. How far they have yet to go is anybody's guess.
It was Schuster's off the cuff statement, in the post-match press conference, that has raised hackles across Spain and left him once again in the media spotlight. He's been railing against the media for some weeks now, perhaps in a Mourinho-style attempt to take the attention away from the players and onto himself and thus relieve them of the usual pressures. But blaming the referee's allegedly poor performance on his place of birth really takes the biscuit: "Is he Catalan? Well, there's nothing more to say". As Sid Lowe, and many others have pointed out, this is the same referee that gave Real more than a little helping hand in their defeat of Almería back in September, which goes to show that Alfonso Álvarez Izquierdo is probably just not a very good referee, but then, that's par for the course in Spain. Guti added more fuel to the fire by claiming that it had not been a defeat, but simple robbery. Given that he narrowly escaped a red card for elbowing an opponent, he has little to complain about, other than the fact it was probably frustration at being expertly hacked about all night by Sevilla's defence.
But now, the media circus has turned into a farce. Against all the video evidence, Schuster tried the next day to deny he had said anything about blaming the referee for the defeat and that it was all blatant misinterpretation by the press. Then, the president of the association of catalan referees (do they really need one?), César Ochoa, wanted the Anti-Violence commission to investigate the matter as it could be seen as incitement to violence. And now, a catalan political party, Convergència i Unió are surprised, saddened and angry at Schuster and want him fined by the Spanish Federation. To be fair, the politician in question also said it was probably something that had nothing to do with the referee being Catalan and more to do with Schuster being a bad loser. He also expressed disappointment that the Real Madrid president had not shown some class by making the club's position on the matter clear, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.
So what did Mr. Álvarez Izquierdo think of the matter? "It was a heat of the moment thing. It has no relevance for me". Maybe he's not such a bad egg after all.
Continue reading this article »
Monday, 20 August 2007
Capello would not approve
When Capello was sacked after finally bringing the league title to the Bernabéu following four trophyless seasons, Calderón justified the "unanimous" board decision on the basis that they needed "to find a more enthusiastic way of playing". In other words, attractive football would reign over the expediency of results at any cost.
Last night he got his wish, although not perhaps in the way he might have hoped: a crushing home defeat at the hands of Sevilla in the return leg of the Spanish Supercup saw eight goals scored at the Bernabéu. Sevilla proved to be superior in pretty much all aspects of the game as they picked up their fifth title in 15 months (2 UEFA Cups, 1 Spanish Cup, 1 European Supercup and now 1 Spanish Supercup).
What is surprising is that under Bernd Schuster, Getafe tied Barcelona for the least number of goals conceded (33) during last season's league championship. In other words, he built his team around solid defensive principles. With Real Madrid, he doesn't seem to have decided on a playing style or scheme, or even a fairly consistent starting eleven. This is fine in the middle of the preaseason, and there's been a fair amount of movement in the transfer market, but the league opener, the Madrid derby against Atlético, is only five days away, and the Bernabéu crowd can turn nasty very quickly if he doesn't deliver.
The Madrid press so far have been fairly forgiving of Schuster. This is hardly a major shock, given that they were the ones hounding Capello all of last season and demanding his presence at the helm. Their criticism so far has been mild, but this will quickly be forgotten if Real's performances don't improve soon.
There are worrying signs that the pressure is getting to Pepe. Following his provoking a Cadiz player by spitting at him (getting both the Cadiz player and his team-mate Diarra sent off in the process), he topped this by a truly unfortunate display last night where he gave away a penalty resulting in Sevilla's third goal, was partly responsible for three of the other four, and ended up getting sent off in the dying seconds of the game. Not the best way to justify the 30 million the club spent on you during your home debut. Drenthe, on the other hand, did get a cracking goal, but it was all for naught. Continue reading this article »
Monday, 11 December 2006
Setback in Seville
To be fair, the game ended up being far more entertaining than previous efforts so far this season, and it is perhaps not that disingenuous of Capello to comment that "a draw would have been fairer". But then again, there have been a few instances this season where Real took all three points in matches where one would have been more equitable to both sides.
David Beckham's early-ish cracker of a free-kick did not cramp Sevilla's style, and the Englishman won't be happy that his contribution, after starting a league game for the first time in a couple of months, was eventually wasted. Barcelona goes off to Tokyo to fight for the Intercontinental Cup with a four-point cushion as we enter the crucial stage of the league championship where there is no Champions League distraction and every point counts.
 Highlights |  Match report |
