March 2, 2016 • 20:00 • Estadio Ciudad de Valencia, Valencia
Referee: Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea

Injury Report:
1. Modric: heavy knock, return date unknown.
2. Benzema: hamstring strain, two to three weeks out.
3. Bale: Completed his first training session with the team today, not included in the Levante game.
4. Marcelo: muscle strain, return date unknown.

Suspended Players:
1. Ramos.
2. Carvajal.

The 19-man squad:
Goalkeepers: Keylor Navas, Casilla and Yáñez.
Defenders: Varane, Pepe, Nacho, Danilo and Álvaro Tejero.
Midfielders: Kroos, James, Casemiro, Kovacic, Isco, Odegaard and Marcos Llorente.
Forwards: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lucas Vázquez, Jesé and Borja Mayoral.

No Modric, Marcelo, Bale or Benzema... the 4 key guys to make anything run at Madrid offensively James and Isco really need to step it up.

It's almost impossible that we play well like this. It's like Barca missing Neymar, Suarez, Iniesta and Alves all at the same time.

Just hope for a win.

i expect a 3-5 goal haul from ronaldo

i expect us to win this game. lol, injuries are no excuse. c'mon its not like we're playing against bayern munich or someone. we're playing like crap, yes, but injuries come with the territory. players available need to look at this as a chance to prove themselves. obviously what cristiano said last week doesn't help (could you imagine someone like ramos saying "if cristiano played like messi we'll be top"). i still expect a win, levante aren't top of the table, but they're always tough for us. anything but a win, and the players should be very very ashamed

well sure. But teams that have a ton of injuries usually drop a lot of points... so you can't expect to be perfect if you have massive injuries.

Just look at Juve. They were bottom half of the table until Marchisio, Khedira and others came back from injury.

It really comes down to level of competition. There are no other leagues that have top 3 teams of the caliber of Madrid, Barca and Atleti where you can't stumble at all basically.

Going from third to fourth? Now, that would be a really bad scenario. Z has to win this, there's no excuse. He still has enough talent to dispatch 20th-placed Levante.

I'd like to see more of Danilo at LB. He impressed me the last time he played there and I think he deserves another shot.

I'd also like to see more of Mayoral. But more importantly, I need to see Danilo at LB one more time.

Ronaldo to score a hat-trick and do his annoying celebration.
I will really like to see if he will celebrate and the reaction of his teammates when he scores.

Danilo was a beauty at left-back vs atletico madrid. Mayoral too looked good too.

------------Navas---------------
Danilo----Pepe---Varane----Nacho
-------------Casemiro------------
------M.LLorente-----Kovacic
Vasquez----Mayoral------Cristiano

pls

Valkyrja wrote:

Keylor
Carvajal Varane Pepe Danilo
Casemiro Kovacic
Vasquez James Cristiano
mayoral

pls

Carvajal is suspended, i think James should be bench tbh

Confirmed Lineup:
Navas; Danilo Pepe Varane Nacho; Casemiro Kross James; Lucas, Mayoral and Ronaldo

Such a shame, really. I wanted to see more of Danilo at LB.

shadexticos wrote:Ronaldo to score a hat-trick and do his annoying celebration.
I will really like to see if he will celebrate and the reaction of his teammates when he scores.

I was just going to post something similar. He will have some balls pulling that BS celebration if he scores here lol

halamadrid2 wrote:Looks like a 4231. Not sure how i feel about this line up. On one hand Borja and Lucas are playing which means bettwr work rate but on the other where the f is the creativity going to come from?

I'm guessing the only #10 on our starting XI...

*Doesn't mean he will but essentially if we do play a 4-2-3-1, it will be his responsibliity

Ref sucked

Not too bad considering we're playing 3 cantera, Casemiro and Danilo. In fact, Pepe is the one that's really not up to snuff.

The ref really messed up in the build up to their goal. Now thats tue striker's instinct we need, not holding up the ball. And Ronaldo ffs, he had the balls to do that celebration. Disgraceful!

Kids played hard. Final ball wasn't there a lot... but they're kids. Ronaldo played decent... he missed several chances but he kept running at least.

Playing Kroos further up the pitch is a must. He's much more effective. But of course, Casemiro got hurt lol.

we seemed nervous in the first couple of minutes, got better as the first half was winding down. good 3 points, but it could have gone awry, levante had some close opportunities in the secondd half, and they had that feeling that they could beat us...that's something we need to get rid of. these days teams feel very brave against us, like they can get something off us no problem. lucas did well, one hopes he can be consistent, same with mayoral....but let's not get ahead of ourselves, they need time

They should be... we're playing 3 cantera, Danilo, Casemiro and an off-form James. Navas, Ronaldo, Pepe, Kroos and Varane were the only elite players out there... that's not a lot. Our quality in terms of individual players is very skewed towards the defense right now.

Doesn't look like it's going to get much better either given our injury issues.