Real Madrid vs Roma

This is absolutely not similar to Callejon. Callejon was always scared in posession and 90% of his passes were to Arbeloa. But he made good runs and could score. Lucas is the complete opposite. He is a shat scorer but is not afraid to take on players. Both as expected run their hearts out. But I fully believe Lucas is better than Callejon no doubt about that and is more than good enough to start. Our hardest game in the opening half of the season was vs Celta who were brimming with confidence after spanking Barca. Lucas played a massive part in us beating them, then he played in the away PSG game when we suffocated them and were unlucky not to win. Fast forward and he is stll the same awesome player with a better understanding with Ronaldo

Roma werent any good at all. They reminded me of me on Fifa when i gad really crap players on ultimate team and kept playing Narsingh and Lass Bangoura and kept running but in the last instance realised they were crap at everything else and all my shots were off target and passes were intercepted. Thats dxactly what Roma did in both games. SES and Salah just ran and ran until they shat themselves in front of goal. They are a hopeless team. Even after being 2-0 down on aggregate they were happy to sit back and hit us on the counter. Meh

sportsczy wrote:

Thimmy wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Reminds me of the Callejon days when Ozil and Di Maria went through struggles and people were clamoring for him to start over either of those two...  Callejon was a really good energy guy.  He can bring a burst on an elite team as a sub and spot starter....  but we were never going to win anything unless Ozil and Di Maria were right.

To be fair, Özil kept running out of breath after only 15-20 minutes on the pitch, and Di Maria was running around like a headless chicken. In- form Callejon clearly looked like the more reliable option at the time.

I agree with you... especially the "at the time" part.  But do we win la decima if we hadn't insisted with Di Maria leading to his break through?  Not a chance.  If Callejon was playing instead of Di Maria, Carlo doesn't survive his first year at Madrid let alone win CL.  People forget how comically bad we were from Sept thru Dec in Carlo's first year...  Di Maria coming on and finding form (along with Benzema and Isco) turned that around for us.

It was Xabi's return that made most of the difference. Di Maria is so overrated. Xabi, Modric and Ronaldo were our best players that year.

Thought our forwards rushed it too much. Instead of going shoot at sight they should try to unlock the defence
At this point though it's hopeless, only change of personnel will do that.

We defended well except for Marcelo who single handedly destroyed our defensive organization with his lazy tracking back and awful tackles. Ramos in turn had to act as a LB and he got destroyed there.

We have some serious patch work to do in this team.

sportsczy wrote:It's not about balls... you have to put a starting XI out there that has the potential to compete for the CL title. Kids put out a nice effort and all... but they will get eaten alive against Europe's elite. They don't have the level.

Effort doesn't equal achievement... especially in CL.

o

You can really call them Sports! Casemiro and Lucas got eaten alive last night!!!!

i really don't get the negative vives from last night. tHey had the game in control the entire game. i thought it was an excellent game and we had balance like never before this season.

We had a solid midfield thanks to Casemiro insertion, we had 9 players back for defense and entire team was constantly pressing. Better still, Zidane has the entire roster minus Arbeloa at his disposal. all are contributing and have the needed confidence. It pains me to say this, but the midfield is better off without Isco or James. Let them come on as subs later in game if needed.The only thing I'm worried about is the return of Benz, means 2 guys not contributing to defense.

I realize la liga (and copa) are gone and further progress in CL primarily depends on who we draw, but I like what Zidane is doing. i was surprised at Pepe and Danilo in lineup, but it seems he has Danilo back to form and is in rotation for both CBs and laterals. Not bad.

Re CL draw, I figure it will be amongst Barca, Bayern, Atleti, PSG, City, wolfsburg or Zenit / Benefica.

The latter two are the obvious preferred opponents, but I think we still have a chance to progress against City, PSG or even Atleti. The ones to avoid are Bayern and Barca.

I dont think Bayern will cause us any problems. If there is an overrated team out there they are definitely it. I would like to avoid Atleti and Barca. Atleti because they are so damn efficient even if we have their number in knock out competitions and Barca because id like them in a final rather than a 2 legged tie. If Juve progress then i'd like to avoid them too not because of last season but because like Atleti they are an annoyingly solid team. PSG i dont mind as long as we man mark ADM they will cause us no trouble

Basically if i had to rank them teams in order of preference it would be:

Wolfsburg
Benfica
City
Bayern
PSG
Juve (if they go through)
Atleti
Barca