Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid

Vazquez getting away with his scrubness

yesssssss

Griezmann is such a big game flop.

There, I said it. Pray for no jinx

ZZ starting to sub on the guys with the least work rate. Shall i even bother to watch the last 10 mins?

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Ronaldo at CF, when he plays and links up with his back to goal is a fantastic striker.

Thx Griezmann again you big game flop

This match pretty much proves that Kroos is replaceable. Modric isn't.

But Ronaldo MOTM by a mile. Not seen him this sharp in years. Guy ran like a beast.

Amazing performance overall.

Modric-Kova-Isco were fantastic. Casemiro for Isco when you really want to give the other two more freedom but even that's debatable

FT 3-0

What a game. What a fabulous game. Apart from the first 10 or so minutes of the second half we were extremely comfortable this whole game. No Ramos to gift penalties, no Benz to make us play with 10 men. This is what happens when Atleti are faced with a proper forward and not a traffic cone

I don't think a single player played bad. Navas back to his best too. Now play with the same line up against Sporting please

This is how we can contain teams if we play with real wingers. Atletico basically choked to death because our wingers tracked back and they prepared their tactics to exploit Ronaldo at wings.

Isco and Varane stood out.

chad4401 wrote:
anyway win is still possible as long as cr doesn't scrub it with his selfishness, everybody else will do their job.

Yawn too easy, time to read these fake praised fill posts

Average positions of our players, no overlapping players and we managed to cover the whole pitch

Isco is back!
This is the isco we paid for.
He was on the left, right, centre, defense, attack, making assists, shooting, marking, dribbling...
Anyone noticed his game dropped after they started kicking him but he was still the best player after ronaldo

No Ramos no problem, no pk, no red card, no brain fart.

Good job Zidane! 10/10 match! first match we have played that we have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Did anyone notice that almost all our players were slipping but none of the atletico players lost their footing, not even once.
I believe they intentionally did something to the pitch and wore protection.
There should be a standard pitch preparation.

Honestly, after this performance, it would be a crime for Z to go back to BBC.

Ronaldo from now on must play CF, Bale at LW and Lucas on the right.

It felt so incredibly satisfying that for once we were playing with proper wingers who track back and help our fullbacks.

With this system, Ronaldo's laziness won't hurt us so much, and he happens to be efficient in front of goal.

Please bench Benzema. It would so unfair to let go of such a well-organized and balanced unit just to play him.

Shout out to Bale for being such an unselfish team player and to Isco for playing like a god today. (hurry up with his contract renewal). He belongs here.

best performance of the season by far

Varane was a boss.

I often question Nacho's footballing technique, but he shoved that question back in my face tonight. very solid.

Bale was so good on the left. Waltz pass Godin to set up Ronaldo.

Lucas V. ran himself into the group. He made a couple mistakes. But he put in a great offensive and defensive performance.

Yes, Ronaldo was a great centre forward. He produced a great performance against a great defensive team to boot.

and the rivals draw....nice one zizou et al

yeah for once we actually capitalized on a slip up from a direct rival lol

At Real Madrid, there's always a conflict between the starting 11 that a manager would want to field... and the one he's forced to field politically.  Let's not get into the "manager needs to show backbone"argument because that's not reality for Real Madrid.  The club has huge TV and sponsor deals and the club gets those massive contracts due to the star players.  As a result, the manager is forced to play these stars to satisfy the contracts.  If Real Madrid didn't force the marketable players on the pitch, we would no longer get those contracts.

In any case, my point is that Zidane was somewhat fortunate that injury circumstances allowed him to play something close to his preferred starting 11 in a big game.

He is an extremely good manager... people just don't want to admit it for various agenda-driven reasons.

Agreed Sport. ZZ unfortunately would never have played this line up/formation if everyone were available. At least he learnt his lesson from the last time we played them and lost. In that game he had James in midfield and played a 433. Bad bad idea.

Playing BBC all at once is suicidal. Ronaldo and Benzema are way too lazy to be playing at the same time. We can afford to have one, but two is suicidal.

Yesterday, I saw Isco delivering a godly performance just because he was put in his preferred position. I saw Bale and Lucas Vasquez playing like proper wingers and Marcelo looking decent defensively just because this time around he had Bale in front of him. For how long are we going to keep playing our players out of position just to accommodate Ronaldo and Benzema? Shouldn't the team come first?

Don't feed me the "Z is forced to play this or that player" excuse because we have an 80m player on the bench, and he's actually subbing off whoever he wants, including Ronaldo.

If there's one thing we should take from the Calderon performance is that we can be very organized defensively and lethal offensively. We can play very well. And in order to do that we have to field just one lazy player (either Ronaldo or Benzema, but not both), and play the rest of our guys in their preferred position (Bale at LW, Isco behind the CF and Lucas Vasquez on the right).

If we do that, we can dream of winning something this year. If we stick to BBC, god help us.

I think you are underestimating the importance of squad management DoC. ZZ isn't this liked because he plays who he wants. Look at what happened to Rafa as soon as he criticised Ramos (with reason) after the derby last season. Their relationship quickly soured and never really recovered. If we went by merit then Ramos would be the first on the bench but you have to manage these guys correctly to get the best out of them. We all agree that we feel Ronaldo should have been subbed a few times this season but what happens when his relationship with ZZ breaks as a result and players start taking sides??

It's easier to bench James who has only been with us for 5 mins and already fallen out with a coach and part of a disastrous team that got annihilated by Barca B it's another thing altogether to bench a guy who has been with us for 10+ season through thick and thin and given us alot of joy. I think ZZ sort of has a soft spot for Benz the same way he has for Isco. Imagine if ZZ buried Isco on the bench when he wasn't performing and refused to play him, he wouldn't have given us these performances he has been showing for the last month or two. The same way he probably wants to play Benz into form sort of like what Carlo tried to do. You obviously get to see how lazy he can be while he gets his match fitness up but maybe game time is exactly what he needs to get into form.

Make no mistake I was happy he didn't play yesterday because of his tendencies to choke against them going missing in the process but we have to tread lightly if we want to dismantle the BBC. I don't think ZZ wants the drama of being questioned every single game

Isnt this question mainly about Benzema?

Because since the start of the season zidane has showed he will not compromise his team for James. that was a big decision, and he stuck by it. If i look t yesterday's team, the biggest players missing were Benzema, Kroos and the CBs.

I find it hard to believe Kroos would not have given his all yesterday, same as the CBs (although we all share the opinion that Ramos is not the same). Bale played with compromise, CR too, Isco, modric, lucas etc... the biggest change i think was BBC being dropped, and the guy that is forcing himself to play BBC is Zidane and no one else.

But even if you bench Benz you'd have to play Morata and the problem people have of Ronaldo playing on the wings will still exist. You want to play a 442 two of Casemiro, Modric, Isco, Kroos will have to be benched, that is infinitely less playing time for our best performers and where our strength lies than if we played 3 midfielders.

Also you can't underestimate the non footballing significance of the front 3. BBC is a brand much like the MSN, if we break the front 3 what makes you think Perez wont make a dressing room visit demanding ZZ play them/him sort of like Perez did with Carlo and Bale?

It's going to have to take alot more than one win vs a rival without Benz to stop people from questioning the dismantling of the BBC. We'd have to go on a 10 or so winning streak beating both Barca and Dortmund for everyone to sing the same song in unisome including the higher ups.