El Senorito - Sergio Canales

Ozil plays his position, is and will be a better player than Canales throughout his career.

If Canales becomes so-and-so, by all means keep him as a decent sub, but if he should fulfill his potential whats the point of keeping him benched?

I predict he will be out of Madrid soon enough. Not that he is bad, just we got better in his position. Too good for bench, not good enough to displace Ozil in the starting lineup.

Also, I like to think im neither positive nor negative, I strive to overcome my biases and come to a realistic opinion.

When we move up in the world and finally change to a 433, all those midfielders will have a meaning for us.

skali wrote:Ozil plays his position, is and will be a better player than Canales throughout his career.

If Canales becomes so-and-so, by all means keep him as a decent sub, but if he should fulfill his potential whats the point of keeping him benched?

I predict he will be out of Madrid soon enough. Not that he is bad, just we got better in his position. Too good for bench, not good enough to displace Ozil in the starting lineup.

Also, I like to think im neither positive nor negative, I strive to overcome my biases and come to a realistic opinion.

Meh, I do think you are right about one thing- that Madrid has given up on him. Just my personal view. Applying your logic would mean Barcelona would have sold off Thiago. They have a much more solid MF than we do and yet they took him on, he is getting regular play and still being called up to NT. Canales is every bit as good as Thiago (just a year younger and needs this year to develop his potential (unlike the wasted year he had last year)).

If we can play Kaka together with Ozil, there is no reason we couldn't play Canales together with Ozil. Canales by the way is more natural a little further back than Ozil. Nick is right, it works best in a 4-3-3 system. Watch the Spanish Olympic team next year and you will see their MF as Javi Martinez, Thiago and Canales..

We can agree to have differing opinions on this. Time will tell if Canales will indeed turn out to be the 'next spanish superstar' or not.

One thing only:

futbol_bill wrote:Applying your logic would mean Barcelona would have sold off Thiago.

This is a logical fallacy. I have neither said nor implied this in any way. Barcelona's playing style is a lot different to ours, so by no means is something i claim to be a reasonable decision in our case automatically a reasonable decision in theirs. Furthermore, even I (who havent seen that much of Thiago or Canales) know that Thiago and Canales arent exactly the same type of player, further disproving this = sign you are trying to put between the two situations.

Other than that, I see no way in which I can prove to you that playing Canales and Ozil together wont work (my hunch), nor any way in which you can prove the opposite to me, so we bide our time and 5 years from now see who may have been right.

i dont think canales can be thaaaaat good to not be our backup.

I mean look at benz/pipita case. same can be Ozil/canales.

futbol_bill wrote:

skali wrote:We should hold our thumbs that he fulfills his potential and then sell him off for a shitload of cash.

Now that's a real positive madrista. Just like Kaka let's get him into top shape and then SELL!!!!! We obviously don't need the next Spanish super star!!!!!

Canales starting to deliver like a boss. I am so happy for him. I think Valencia will snap him up though, we will need to wait a little longer for our buyback clause to come into effect.

That's the good part lol, they need to buy him to further the loan time.

skali wrote:We can agree to have differing opinions on this. Time will tell if Canales will indeed turn out to be the 'next spanish superstar' or not.

One thing only:

futbol_bill wrote:Applying your logic would mean Barcelona would have sold off Thiago.

This is a logical fallacy. I have neither said nor implied this in any way. Barcelona's playing style is a lot different to ours, so by no means is something i claim to be a reasonable decision in our case automatically a reasonable decision in theirs. Furthermore, even I (who havent seen that much of Thiago or Canales) know that Thiago and Canales arent exactly the same type of player, further disproving this = sign you are trying to put between the two situations.

Other than that, I see no way in which I can prove to you that playing Canales and Ozil together wont work (my hunch), nor any way in which you can prove the opposite to me, so we bide our time and 5 years from now see who may have been right.

For someone who hasn't seen much of either Canales nor Thiago, you are very opinionated!!

First off Canales performances with the Spanish youth teams have been absolutely dominating. We haven't had anyone standout as much as him since Cesc Fabregas. Thiago has impressed as well in the last couple of years but Canales has had a longer dominating youth career even though he is a year younger. As to their style play, they both play exactly the same position. Canales has played more forward on some teams (similar to Ozil), but that has been when he has been the main offensive force. When he has played with effective forwards (in a 4-3-3 formation), he plays further back than Ozil does. This is his natural position and is the same as Thiago.

How can you say Ozil will be better than him. He's 2 1/2 years older. Yes he's good but Canales will be at his level in another couple of years. I'm not saying he replaces Ozil, but I definitely can see them playing together. With the Olympic team, they will play a 4-3-3 system with Javi Matinez as the further back / defensive midfielder and it will be Thiago and Canales as the creative forward midfielders.

I base my opinion on my experience when it comes to how media handles players, and how clubs handle them.

For instance, if Madrid starts giving up on a player, they generally have a very sound reason for doing that. The number of players who were lauded by Madrid fans as 'amazing' over the past couple of years but who have turned out to be nowhere near this 'worldclass' level of football is staggering.

There are literally dozens of players, mostly Canteranos, who ended up being first-choice midfielders in a smaller team for the rest of their careers, without ever being influential in a big club or the national team.

Even the few notable exceptions who have ended up as amazing footballers (take Eto'o for example) realistically had no place in Madrid at the time when the decision had to be made regarding their future.

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A lot of people engage in yet another logical fallacy when they say: 'look at X he has turned out to be worldclass after we kicked him out, lets not repeat that with Y'. The reason this makes no sense is that by all likelihood X has turned out worldclass because he was given the boot and then given a fair chance in another club, possibly additionally motivated by this rejection he suffered.

If instead, he was made a substitute with limited playing time, and maybe forced to adapt to a system he doesn't fit in, X likely wouldn't become worldclass.

So the question comes down to the decision: worth investing further time in X or letting X go. And if Mourinho seems to think that Canales doesnt fit in his plans, than obviously Canales can only fulfill his full potential by seeking playtime elsewhere.

To me it seems that Canales is not very fast, and as such is more of a player suited for possession football than our direct style, which may very well be seen by the type of player Mourinho wanted this year for his auxilliary CM - Coentrao, a fast player to run with ball and transition it from defense to attack.

Given that he is the huge potential you claim him to be (and it very well may be so, I have no reason not to believe you), he should by all means seek to be a first-teamer in a club - other than Madrid.

I really don't think that Mou has given up on him.

Why people think because he played 10 games last year is beyond me.I mean last year we played a system most of the time where there was only 1 spot open to canales and that spot was filled by both Ozil and Kaka.

Thiago played 7 games for Barca last year ffs.

Mou had some harsh words for him yes but that hardly means he's given up on him, it just means he needs to grow up both physically and mentally.

We can't develop him at Madrid at the moment , but I'm pretty sure he'll return.

On another note

We have way too many talented young left footed midfielders , if that's even possible.

Canales,Ozil,Sahin.,Sarabia

If we kept all of them at Madrid they would probably end up murdering each other.

VDB should have totally called him up for the meaningless two remaining games. If Thiago is good enough and getting enough first team experience, so is Sergio.

But what can we expect from such a coach?

glad to hear he is doing good at valencia .. good job from their manager

Saetablanca wrote:VDB should have totally called him up for the meaningless two remaining games. If Thiago is good enough and getting enough first team experience, so is Sergio.

But what can we expect from such a coach?

Whoa, Saetablanca. Canales has great potential but he's not ready for senior team yet. Thiago is a year ahead of him. Let's just be satisfied if Canales can earn the starting position at Valencia and work on his development. His next target after Valencia will be to earn a spot on the olympic team. That won't be easy as the team that won the Olympic berth was outstanding. Canales will not only need to start and shine at Valenica but he also will have his work cut out for him to start on that team. I think he can do it, but to expect a call-up to senior team, no way at this point.

By the way I doubt if Thiago will be on the Euro team. There are just too many quality MF available. He got his call-up to lock him up for Spain (vs Brasil) and this time it's due to injuries. Also I'm not sure but there may be time conflicts between Olympics and Euro. If so Mata, Javi Martinez and Thiago will go with Olympic team.

Not sure what your beef with VDB is. We spaniards think he is the best man for the job (much better than Argones). He also did a hell of a job at Real Madrid.

Seriously, Canales walks all over Herrera, who is injured by the way, and he is benching Parejo who was on the bench for Spain u21.

Bar injury, if he keeps it up and some, Canales is walking into that team.

Not that it's too relevant but highly doubt that Mata is going with the olympic team.

Also I think that a Euro 2008 place is possible since I think he's definitely gonna leapfrog Alcantara this season since he's going to have much more playing time.

I can definitely see him taking Cazorla's place after a full season

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Seriously, Canales walks all over Herrera, who is injured by the way, and he is benching Parejo who was on the bench for Spain u21.

Bar injury, if he keeps it up and some, Canales is walking into that team.

Glad to have you on the Canales bandwagon Nick. I think so too, but I'm saying that is his next challenge (together with getting firmly established in Valencia) and then making starting role on that team. Keep in mind they also played Munain in that position some times and he is the same age as Canales and is having a good year with Bilbao. It also needs the coach to play both Canales and Thiago at same time.

Anyways my main point to Setablanca was it's too much to expect him to be called up to senior team at this stage. Look for him to be on board for next WC team.

ragbirjosh wrote:Not that it's too relevant but highly doubt that Mata is going with the olympic team.

Also I think that a Euro 2008 place is possible since I think he's definitely gonna leapfrog Alcantara this season since he's going to have much more playing time.

I can definitely see him taking Cazorla's place after a full season

Does anyone know the timing of the Euro and the Olympics? Last year when we qualified for Oylmpics the talk was the entire team would be back (incl. Mata and Javi Martinez) plus apparently Cesc is still eligible and they were talking about him as well.The issue for some of the players that are in la liga is getting sufficient playing time to be able to make team e.g. Parejo.

I just looked it up, Euro final is July 1st and Olympic soccer starts Jul25th.

So it is possible for Mata, Javi Martinez, maybe Thiago and maybe Cesc to play both but highly doubtful. My guess is that Mata and Cesc will play with Euro team and Thiago and Javi Martinez will play with Olympic team.

Sergio has strung two very good performances (one against Chelsea no less) hope he keeps up the form.

A part of me hopes the club plans and taking him back next summer when Kaka eventually leaves.

Zealous wrote:Sergio has strung two very good performances (one against Chelsea no less) hope he keeps up the form.

A part of me hopes the club plans and taking him back next summer when Kaka eventually leaves.

I would be the first to agree with you however I want to know what Mou really feels about him.

I've been following this young lad's career for 4 years now and I think he's a developing superstar that it would be a shame if we can't find a spot for him. A couple of things are against him.

1st is Mou was obviously pissed at him last year. He wouldn't play him at end of year in the nothing games. Canales obviously needed maturing but for Mou to hold that against a kid is foolish. Mou (some will say Canales deserved ii) kind of wasted his year last year.

2nd is the team is very young and there likely will not be many changes in next 2 years so bringing Canales back pretty well means someone has to go. Kaka is likely gone, but that will be the spot Neymar will take on roster.

If I'm not mistaken we have 2 years to exercise our option so leaving him at Valencia for the 2 years can be a good thing, provided we do bring him back.

I think last year was a bit weird because Jose seemed to really like Canales at first. (Even gave him a starting spot) something must of changed during the course of the season.

I think mistakes were probably made on both sides.

Like you said we have two years to get him back so I don't think there will be a problem in the long run provided the club buys him back.

Zealous wrote:I think last year was a bit weird because Jose seemed to really like Canales at first. (Even gave him a starting spot) something must of changed during the course of the season.

I think mistakes were probably made on both sides.

Like you said we have two years to get him back so I don't think there will be a problem in the long run provided the club buys him back.

Honestly I dont think there was any huge problem between them.

Canales was young immature etc and we all know how Jose feels about that.His problem with Canales if I remember correctly was that he wasn't playing the way jose wanted him to , so he just didn't fit the system.Too many backpasses.

Yeah he wasn't following instructions so Jose had a point but at the same time young players don't get it completely right at first, they need a little more time to really grow into a role.

Some regular playing time in Valencia will help him a lot but at the same time he could have been handled a bit better IMO.

anyways what happened to that rumor that he might start playing more deeper, i really hope we find a place for him if he shows his true worth.

Im really happy the way canales is playing at the moment.Guy just benched parejo Lulz and parejo used to play for u 21 instead of canales.

The Madrid One wrote:anyways what happened to that rumor that he might start playing more deeper, i really hope we find a place for him if he shows his true worth.

His nature role, actually Spanish role is an attacking MF position. The spanish formation doesn't have a CAM, it tends to have one MF back (I wouldn't call it defensive but it's deep position and certainly capable of good starting passes e.g Xabi Alonso, Javi Martinez, Sergio Busquets, Bruno and then there are 2 attacking midfielders e.g. Xavi and Iniesta or Cesc and Thiago or Cazorla and Borja Valero. Canales plays this position naturally, whereas Ozil, Kaka play right behind the forwards and sometimes even taking up a forward position.

Canales can play this CAM but his natural position is an attacking MF. Right now at Valencia they are playing Albelda as the back midfoelder and Banega and Canales as the two AM. The likely formation of the Olympic team will be Javi Martinez as the back MF with Thiago and Canales as the two AM.

So the only way he comes to Madrid as a starter (with Ozil still playing a CAM role) is to replace Alonso and Sahin taking up the deeper MF position. For what it's worth I have seen him play a few games as the deeper MF and his overall vision and passes are Xabi like, but I don't know how good his defensive play is.