I see it differently, let's agree to disagree.

On one end you have a player taking more risks with his passing, on the other another not attempting through balls and playing conservative. Which one is better? it's a matter of point of view, depends what you are looking for. But both can be frustrating.

I am not sure there is much point discussing this with you anyway, you already made up your mind. I dont think you are objectively looking at each player' strength

i liked modric's goal and attitude. he messed up on the equalizer we conceded, but took the bull by the horns and just smashed that one in. in games like these, where u're chasing the winning goal, passing the ball into your opponents net is the most difficult option. even if you do a thousand back heels, one-twos, touch and go passes; teams are hell bent on defending with their lives late on. u either grow a pair and attempt screamers, or try a solo run.....good on modric

the midfield is what it is, but on this pogba talk...i'm not saying we should or shouldn't buy him, but u guys know he's not a defensive midfielder right? let's take kroos; played ahead of schweini and javi martinez; and then khedira and schweini, and now is supposed to be the makelele on the team. now take pogba, he had vidal and pirlo; with vidal doing the dirty work. now he's got khedira, sturaro (who i consider a defensive midfielder) and marchisio. if u think cos of his physique, u'll put him in a double pivot chasing and tackling, we could be making the same mistake with kroos....

and i really rate pogba, he is very good for his age. but i don't think he's a defensive juggernaut. i mean even with france, i've seen him play alongside matuidi and sometimes in front of both matuidi and lass. to now have him mopping up tackles alone, unless he is partnered with modric and another more defensive minded midfielder, i'm not sure that works....and that's the issue we face with kroos. kroos is a magnificent footballer, but we've got jason kidd playing center

tito... at least on my end, i think BOTH Kroos and Isco aren't good enough.  Modric can cover his lane while Isco can't... so that exposes Kroos even more.  Assuming there are no good holding mids available (there really aren't tbh)...  you want to put someone opposite Modric that can handle his lane on both ends too and the best one out there is Pogba.  So then, you don't have 2/3 of your midfield who are inadequate for their positions...  you only have 1 left.  That leaves us with the deep playing role to figure out.  My opinion?  If you get Pogba, then you have plenty on the attack with both Pogba and Modric.  So now playing Casemiro and having him stay in his role in front of the defense is fine.  

In my mind, you put Casemiro back there and then free up both Modric and Pogba on their sides.  That, to me, is a very well balanced midfield because you have 3 different types who complement each other:
-  Casemiro sits in front of the back 4 and his job is to link the defense and the midfield.  He also slides left or right if a fullback attacks.
-  Modric goes B2B on the right like he's doing perfectly right now.
-  Pogba goes B2B on the left side like he has done for Juve great in the past.  Nowadays, he's playing more of a free role for Juve because they need his creativity and danger factor, which they lost with Pirlo and Vidal leaving.  But he's fine staying on one side.

Kova is great too but he's just not fast enough.  We lack athleticism.  We need a guy that is going to put pressure on the opponent athletically.  Bale does that... we need another.  When teams like Granada today try to pressure our mids and bully them, those two will make them pay because one is just fast and the other is fast/strong/fearless to go with technique.  

With the current mids... the script to play us isn't that complicated tbh no matter how well the team is coached or not.

Kovacic is very fast. You can't be serious. And in my opinion he is just as talented as pogba. The minute he came on he ran straight at that high-line defense and put them playing deep (the play where he gave jese the pass. If that's not fast we need usain bolt).

I think the players let zidane down, the tactics were spot on but it looked as if we were a step too slow every time.
Ronaldo has gotten VERY slow. Wow. It's incredible how slow he is now. He needs to be a CF. he has strength and speed but he has absolutely zero speed now lol.

Granada had no fear playing a high line. Our fastest players right now are Carvajal, Kova, and Bale/ two Cbs. The rest of our players are sluggishly slow for the most part.
Kroos, isco, and james looks as slow as military grade tanks trying to close down the opponent. the transition Granada put on us from defense to offense was way too fast. no one to stop them going through the middle.

its a good thing such a game is coming while we still have time to improve. I guess Zidane and madridistas have come back down to earth.
Hopefully we learn from this

About Jese's speed, i dont see anything wrong with his speed. If anything, he is faster, fitter and stronger. He has just matured and knows he doesnt have to run every time. Anytime he has tried to outpace an opponent, he does. Except the opponent is super fast.
you should also know that Jese plays at about 30% of his potential when he is played on the right. Unfortunately for him, he is always played there.

FennecFox7 wrote:Kovacic is very fast. You can't be serious. And in my opinion he is just as talented as pogba. The minute he came on he ran straight at that high-line defense and put them playing deep (the play where he gave jese the pass. If that's not fast we need usain bolt).

I think the players let zidane down, the tactics were spot on but it looked as if we were a step too slow every time.
Ronaldo has gotten VERY slow. Wow. It's incredible how slow he is now. He needs to be a CF. he has strength and *agility* but he has absolutely zero speed now lol.

Granada had no fear playing a high line. Our fastest players right now are Carvajal, Kova, and Bale/ two Cbs. The rest of our players are sluggishly slow for the most part.
Kroos, isco, and james looks as slow as military grade tanks trying to close down the opponent. the transition Granada put on us from defense to offense was way too fast. no one to stop them going through the middle.

CR7 looked largely disinterested, to be fair. I noticed that there were a few balls he could've chased and kept possession in the final third, but he didn't feel like chasing them. The only time I ever saw any enthusiasm in him was when he threw his hands up in the air because he didn't receive a pass. Disgusting attitude. What exactly is he saving his energy for? Real Sociedad?

I saw enough of Kova with Inter as I was watching Juve to know he's not fast. He has a quick dribble and first step... but he's not fast. He's not the type that can stride past defenders and gobble up space, which is what we really need. Heck, Zidane wasn't fast either but his technique was so good that you couldn't take the ball away from him... but Kova is not in Zidane's class obviously.

Kovacic is very fast from what I've seen in his time here.

Modric-Casemiro-Kroos is good enough defensively. I will feel super safe with Modric-casemiro-Kovacic though. All of them are high work rate, tackling , quick midfielders.


The only problem is that Casemiro isn't that good in short passing game. He may not help us have the ball like Kroos can, for that we will need special player at Defensive midfield position and I'll suggest Ruben Neves. It's Portuguese league so there is high risk but his technical quality on the ball can't be questioned.. He might struggle more defensively in bigger league though. At just 18 he plays like he is 30. Reminds me of Varane.

EDIT: Gotcha Tito. Thanks.

i disagree that you can get away with Casemiro-Kroos-Modric.  Out of those 3, only Modric is technically gifted enough to hold the ball under pressure and make the difference technically.  That won't work.  It's too easy to defend.  If you're going to play a specialist like Casemiro, then the other 2 have to be monster CMs technically to compensate that deficiency.

Building a team is about putting together pieces that take care of each other's deficiencies and emphasize each other's strengths as much as possible.  Casemiro-Kroos-Modric is a very average combo in that regards.

Varane is a generational talent, hard to compare him to many players. But if he as good as you say, he's a must

@sportsczy, i think @adit was referring to ruben neves (the 18yr old). @adit, when a club has had 1 league title in 8 years, signing an 18 year old kid from porto (with all due respect) is not going to be even remotely on the agenda. and if it was, it will just be another canales, odegaard situation. me personally, i don't want an 18 year old kid with little experience; i've seen top pros in different leagues come to madrid and just turn into scrubs overnight, unless a kid's talent and attitude (attitude more than talent; a gutsy die hard attitude, and not some star-struck kid) are very obvious that you can't pass on, i'd say no....if guys like lucas, jese, isco, james, kova, casemiro aren't getting ample minutes, i doubt this kid will upstage them, especially from a defensive standpoint where we provide little help

You really have three choices:
- 3 CMs that can all do a decent job of recovering the ball
- Play more of a AM where you then have to compensate with a DM
- Have 1 of the 3 CMs be deficient in ball recovery, leading to the other 2 CMs being better than average at it without needing to be a DM

Right now, we have Modric is decent at recovering the ball and Isco/Kroos who have no idea how to do it lol.

Sports, I'm away skiing right now and just catching up a bit. Sounds to me, you are saying Isco and Kroos have togo, couple with Ronaldo and possibly James, that's quite an overall you not only suggest, but seem to say it is essential!

Or am I miss reading the few posts I have seen?

futbol_bill wrote:Sports, I'm away skiing right now and just catching up a bit. Sounds to me, you are saying Isco and Kroos have togo,  couple with Ronaldo and possibly James, that's quite an overall you not only suggest, but seem to say it is essential!

Or am I miss reading the few posts I have seen?

Ronaldo doesn't HAVE to go imo.  He's fine.  James, Isco... basically whoever is a AM has no role in a 433.  So they all need to go since we don't use a AM.  Kroos can go lol.  

So this is the "to go" list for me:
-  Isco
-  James
-  Kroos

To take their place, i suggest:
-  Pogba
-  Matic (i think he can be had from Chelsea)
-  Asensio (as a backup mid)

Matic-Modric-Pogba would be a killer midfield behind BBC.

After Zidane took over Isco ran the most in the team, bcz he has to cover for CR . is Pogba going to do that?

Matic has been so poor this season buying him is actually nothing but gambling in one season wonder that isn't even proven in Europe.

Pogba will be another galatico head ache. The DM position however should be the priority.

Well he does that for Evra since Juve don't play a winger... he's the cover CM on the left and runs back and forth.  Morata and Dybala aren't asked to defend past the midfield circle.  Much much much better than Isco at it I might add.  It's not even a fair comparison for Isco tbh.

I'm certain you've only watched him in a couple of CL games Adit... and those are probably the Madrid tie when he came back from a long injury and the CL final against Barca. I'm absolutely positive you haven't watched him otherwise. Your comments are too far off base.

For the record, Matic is proven in Europe and is a good player having a poor season in a poor team.

Not that I agree with Adit but always remember what Paul is doing at Juve is not what he is gonna do at Madrid regardless of his obvious talent.

Doc wrote:Not that I agree with Adit but always remember what Paul is doing at Juve is not what he is gonna do at Madrid regardless of his obvious talent.

He's played a lot of roles with Juve though... at first, he was confined to being a left side B2B and main defensive cover guy with Pirlo and Vidal being the guys who were free. Then, when Vidal got injured, he actually moved to the right and Marchisio was playing on the left side. Then they tried him at the 10 (only spot he really struggled because he's not a 10). Now, they have him as the free CM in an advanced position with Marchisio playing deep and Khedira or whoever playing the B2B.

The only role he hasn't played for a long period at Juve was the deep playing role... which is what they bought him for in the first place lol. Remember, he was initially purchased to replace Pirlo eventually. He was a DM at every single youth level and club before his move to Juve.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree sport. I watched kovacic when taider was with inter. He's hella fast. Especially for a center mid

I'm not sure if you're looking for a sprinter or whatever. It's not like pogba is ridiculously fast, although he is very physically fit and strong

Am I the only one who prefers Isco over Pogba?

Please Sports, we know Madrid quite well. We would find a way to make him play a position he is not suited for. I personally don't mind the addition btw. Talent is talent and he has a boat load of it and, fortunately, Madrid has the finances to pull off a deal. I just don't honestly feel Perez is remotely interested. Maybe if Zizou whispers those sweet nothings in his ear...