Zinedine Zidane

football10 wrote:

There is no need for this to be posted here.

Do not do it again.

football10 wrote:

It is one of the reasons we love Zidane. Proof that what he could ( and still can) do on the pitch has no limits.

I hope this is the season we finally get our over-due revenge on Barcelona. a 4-0, 5-0, 5-1 thrashing will be trophy enough for us. If we can comfortably defeat a big team and then atletico madrid, then we know we are heading in the right direction.

Here is a tricky one:
A - a 5-0 thrashing of Barcelona and 2nd position in La liga
OR
B - another 4-0 defeat to Barcelona and the La liga Trophy.

I know it will be impossible to lose to them and still win the league but lets just assume. A or B?

trophies > bragging rights

Both scenarios are impossible to achieve. I don't see us winning the league or even beating Barça, let alone thrashing them 5-0 at the Camp Nou.

I know, anything is possible in football, but I just don't see it for the time being. Let's just see how Z does from now until then, cause he still hasn't played against a single tough team yet but that didn't impede him from dropping points *cough*Betis*cough*

If he wins comfortably against Atlético while winning all the other games leading up to Barça's, I might reconsider my stance. But until then, I prefer to stay skeptical.

I hate Bale as much as anyone here sports, but he is not a diva. He actually puts effort, both offensively and defensively. His problem is his skills. James and Isco are both better footballers.

firstly, trophies over bragging rights. secondly i think you're getting a bit too excited talking about beating bigger teams by huge margins. zidane's doing well so far, but let me remind you, we haven't played any worthy opponent under him yet. so please relax. we need to face who's in front of us, and work on our mental psyche as champions league draws near.....this habit of getting too excited does little help for anyone...calma. let's take things once game at a time. focus on our next match and forget about rivals and bragging rights for now. besides, they hold the bragging rights at the moment

It's impossible not to get excited, but i cant wait to see how we will perform against a top team. I have never been this optimistic about madrid in the past 7 years. We have never been this team-oriented since the days of the galacticos.There is clearly a difference in the approach.
I will be calm though

For example, Ronaldo does well against the small teams and his stat padding performance against Espanyol was expected. But there was something different about this particular small-team performance. He surprisngly never made any gesture when his teammates failed to pass to him even when he was in a better position. He played like the 11th player. I also noticed his teammates did not celebrate with him subserviently.
I am always the first to bash Ronaldo especially when he scores his bucket of goals, but not this time around. He gave a performance reminiscent of Ronaldo - Zidane at work.
I will be calm, the matches just need to come quick.

I'm Calm!

shadexticos wrote:For example, Ronaldo does well against the small teams and his stat padding performance against Espanyol was expected. But there was something different about this particular small-team performance. He surprisngly never made any gesture when his teammates failed to pass to him even when he was in a better position. He played like the 11th player. I also noticed his teammates did not celebrate with him subserviently.
I am always the first to bash Ronaldo especially when he scores his bucket of goals, but not this time around. He gave a performance reminiscent of Ronaldo - Zidane at work.
I will be calm, the matches just need to come quick.

He did to Carvajal during the second half. He was in a position for a through ball but Carvajal played it safe.

I think it's fine to make gestures or what as long as it's warranted. It's common in team sports. What irks me is when we score a goal after he misses then he makes them hissy fits.

I think will do better against top teams, If the BBC are willing to track back then we will win some of those matches, i since don't think we can't win Barcelona nor in la liga and certainly not in CL.

The biggest issue... and the one Zizou keeps harping on... is that the team is out of shape. So we can't sustain the style he wants to over a game yet. We basically do it for half the game now and then guys start to fade. Until this gets fixed, we better hope we're ahead in the scoreline come the 60 min mark because we don't have a lot left in the tank to get a result late in games.

I can't believe we're not in good physical shape AS A TEAM in Feb. It's outrageous.

How in the hell a professional football team "is not in shape" to do what their manager wants them to?

Doc wrote:How in the hell a professional football team "is not in shape" to do what their manager wants them to?

When the practices up to this point weren't run at a high enough pace. So guys aren't ready to bring the effort needed into the games and sustain it. It's sad really for a club like Madrid. Unforgivable by Rafa.

From all accounts, Zizou is running a mini preseason camp between games to try and get guys up to snuff as quickly as possible. Even CR admitted that he needed to work more.

I'm reading the words you wrote and I truly can't believe it. I honestly respect your opinion on matters Madrid and France but what you're telling me not making sense. You mean to say Rafa had these guys under prepared for 90 minutes of football?

Doc wrote:I'm reading the words you wrote and I truly can't believe it. I honestly respect your opinion on matters Madrid and France but what you're telling me not making sense. You mean to say Rafa had these guys under prepared for 90 minutes of football?

Fit enough to play Rafa's style... which was very static. I bet you the only fit guys were Modric and Kroos (maybe not even Kroos). For the style Zizou is implementing, we were apparently woefully poor physically.

Here's a CR quote after the last game:

“The team is working very hard. In the past three weeks you’ve seen that with the results on the pitch,” Ronaldo told Canal Plus. “We needed to work harder as a team. Now we have a positive mentality. The team is in good shape. Zizou has done a phenomenal job. I feel a lot fitter. We won comfortably and everything went as planned.”

and Zidane himself:

“We have had time to work,” said Zidane. “This was the third week and the team is getting better physically, which is the most important thing for me. When the Champions League starts again we will have games every three days and won’t have this time to work. I am happy and the players are happy because they can see the difference.”

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1038345/improving-fitness-zidane-has-been-phenomenal-says-ronaldo/

It's true and not an excuse imo

Ronaldo and Modric both come out and essentially say the preseason was kinda bad and most time was spent on a plane during those trips.

FalcaoPunch wrote:It's true and not an excuse imo

Ronaldo and Modric both come out and essentially say the preseason was kinda bad and most time was spent on a plane during those trips.

So you make them train harder in between games to start the season to get them up to snuff and then you can ease off to maintain the level once the team gets there... as it stands, Zizou and his staff are forced to run a fitness camp in freakin February because most of the team isn't at the needed level. As he's mentioned, Zidane is hoping he can get them right by the time we play Roma.

i don't know about all this. i just want zizou to steer the team in the right direction. all the fitness talk on here seems contradictory: first of all, it was perceived that benitez' training methods were too tough and rigorous and that led to a bunch of our injuries earlier in the season. now its that benitez didn't train them well enough, and that's why fitness is a concern. i don't buy it. i think it was simply that the team was very lukewarm the past couple of months and disinterested, and they are now just gaining some level of intensity with new management...nothing too deep. hell, i won't be surprised if as the season winds down they start becoming uninspired again. we saw them do that in carlo's second season; i just hope zizou pushes them all the way till the season ends and doesn't let them start slacking

FalcaoPunch wrote:It's true and not an excuse imo

Ronaldo and Modric both come out and essentially say the preseason was kinda bad and most time was spent on a plane during those trips.

That wasn't Rafa's Fault, The Club with that summer was responsible for our poor form, i don't know if Rafa had the same problem in other teams though

Claudio84 wrote:

FalcaoPunch wrote:It's true and not an excuse imo

Ronaldo and Modric both come out and essentially say the preseason was kinda bad and most time was spent on a plane during those trips.

That wasn't Rafa's Fault, The Club with that summer was responsible for our poor form, i don't know if Rafa had the same problem in other teams though

He did other than Chelsea because EPL doesn't really focus on midfields.  Both Napoli and Inter were dreadful in the midfield under him...  It's not that the players are out of shape on purpose.  His lines aren't helping each other out.  He makes the players stick to their zones and the zones are too far apart from each other.  So the forwards stay high and the defenders stay low while the midfielders just get killed.

So the midfielders tend to be in great shape while the rest of the team is lazy relatively speaking just because of the tactics employed.

marca saying he has penned a deal till 2018. your thoughts people

http://www.marca.com/en/football/real-madrid/2016/02/04/56b31f6cca4741c5538b45cf.html

http://www.sport-english.com/en/news/liga-bbva/not-all-the-madrid-players-are-happy-with-the-zidane-regime-4868339