This season versus last season

I'd say that the football we played in the first half of last season has been the best we've played since 02/03, completely dominant, due to Carlo for the most part. But also due to his lack of rotations we were jaded in the second half and couldn't keep up the pace. We peaked at the wrong time, pretty much like Barca this season. That 3-1 against Barca is one of the best clasico performance I've ever seen from us. We didn't reach that level this season tbh, but we peaked at the right time. We have been very good since ZZ took over.

I'm sure Carlo would've been able to cut through Roma, Wolfsburg and City like carving a cake.

You'll have your answer after the CL final.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I'm sure Carlo would've been able to cut through Roma, Wolfsburg and City like carving a cake.

You'll have your answer after the CL final.

Good answer. the season is still on, and the final for me determines everything. to be honest, i was never thrilled about last season. even when we went on the run of unbeaten games, i was still very skeptical, my problems last season were two folds; i hated our summer transfer- i wanted us to keep di maria and get suarez, nothing against james, but i didn't know him prior to the world cup. two i hated having a midfield trio of offensive players

this season would have been way worse until things improved after we got rid of that clown benitez....he basically lost us the league. but i'll have to wait till the ucl final to give my verdict on the season.....on the pitch, let's not lie to ourselves, the football hasn't been great, but somehow the players have managed to play with pride, and our stars, especially cristiano and bale finally started stepping up in crunch games when we needed them

I don't really feel you can compare last season to this one! You may be able to compare the halfs! On the whole year, no this year has been overall disappointing, judging by the constant negative posts, all season long.

However, i do believe that Z was put into the job to salvage the team, to bring back some respectability. That he has done. I don't accept those saying Carlo would have had us a same position. He may have, but I highly doubt it, given the injuries we had this year and his highly visible flaw of only playing 12 players. What Z has given us (and why I feel he may in the long run, be better (at least for us) than Carlo) is use of the entire squad (too bad he wasn't given reserve CF and LB) and his insertion of a defensive mid fielder has been brillant even if Casemiro is not the world beater we need. And if Z does beat Atleti, the he will have equalled Carlo's results in just half a season after a huge disadvantage at start!

But even if we do win CL, I don't think you can say this season is better simply because of the many disappointments we have had to endure.

Carlo definitely would have found a way to *bleep* league up if he was still here.

I think the real reason we can't win the league is our non existent transitional defence.

Can you believe that Real Madrid is the worst counter pressing team (ability to win the ball back before 7 passes of opponent after losing the ball) in the entire La Liga?

Both Atletico and barca are in top 5. No wonder our gks are motm every single match. We can't win the ball, actually it's more matter of dont want to expend energy defending than about ability. This is where CR, Benzema and to an extent Bale badly affecting the team, winning the damn ball back.

All those matches where we struggle the first half goes by nothing happening... Why,? Because we are chasing the ball more than we should be doing. If we can't sort out the ball winning mechanism we won't win the league, simple as that.

We didn't win the league because Zidane inherited a 7 point deficit when he took over inJanuary...  end of.  Since he's taken over, we've been the best team in La Liga by a sizeable margin  +6 over Barca and +7 over Atleti in terms of points.

Also, we always finished the seasons limping under Carlo.  We could get ourselves up for cup games because we basically mailed in the league games at the end...  only prepared for cups.  Zidane made us compete equally hard for league and cup games while winning them almost all.

Finally, our record against our top rivals was downright pathetic.  In the end, this last part clinched Carlo getting fired.

Carlo was great in cups...  but he couldn't win a league to save his life.  He gifted away La Liga when Tata was Barca's manager and they were dropping points left and right...  He is a legend manager with cup competitions but a complete failure in leagues.  Just to remind of his failures:
-  Incredible Milan team that couldn't win despite Juve being out due to Calciopolli
-  Chelsea blew a massive lead in the second half of the season.
-  Only time PSG lost the league under Qatari ownership was with Carlo... and he was handed a lead halfway through the season
-  Couldn't win La Liga despite Barca being in relative turmoil with their manager leaving due to cancer and a novice in Tata Martinez taking over.

titosantill wrote:

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I'm sure Carlo would've been able to cut through Roma, Wolfsburg and City like carving a cake.

You'll have your answer after the CL final.

Good answer. the season is still on, and the final for me determines everything. to be honest, i was never thrilled  about last season. even when we went on the run of unbeaten games, i was still very skeptical, my problems last season were two folds; i hated our summer transfer- i wanted us to keep di maria and get suarez, nothing against james, but i didn't know him prior to the world cup. two i hated having a midfield trio of offensive players

this season would have been way worse until things improved after we got rid of that clown benitez....he basically lost us the league. but i'll have to wait till the ucl final to give my verdict on the season.....on the pitch, let's not lie to ourselves, the football hasn't been great, but somehow the players have managed to play with pride, and our stars, especially cristiano and bale finally started stepping up in crunch games when we needed them

this is utter garbage rafa holding players accountable should be normal, that doesn't make him a clown, just like how carlo  getting along with players doesn't mean he was coaching, the players like cr and ramos cost us the title, why can't people be honest about what happening on the pitch?

ramos is always average majority of the season, usually one of the main reasons why the team drops points, why can't the coach say anything to him?

cr has been salty all season clearly faking it with zidane, just because his strike partners aren't his slaves anymore, anybody with a brain know damn well that why he is was upset.

just because rafa is an easy target doesn't make the garbage being said about him right, zidane clearly benefited from a lot thing rafa had left in place, if the team aka cr and ramos went a long with what he was trying to do from the beginning instead of whining about carlo for half the season, who knows what could've happen.

agendas is making discussions on this forum unbearable, its just saying something negative about a certain coach or player, is cool no matter how stupid and baseless the argument is.

the same fans giving rafa crap for how he handled the players, are the same ones who loved mou even to this day, when he was treating benzema like shit after every game, but rafa asking ramos to stop being a moron and cr stop taking stupid shots is a clown

agendas and sheep mentality are a bad combination .

Well ,CR tried to get Rafa sacked and won eventually. Rafa making Bale the go to guy didn't sit well with CR but the hilarious thing is James, Benzema, Ramos also sided with CR to get Rafa sacked... I have never seen a more walkfest than the clasico under Rafa which I'm pretty sure they intentionally walked to get him sacked.

Bale was disappointed at the sacking and only him... We all know why.

Truth be told, if we don't win the UCL, only technicalities would separate this season from last season and we should try not to get into those.

Also, Rafa's genius and out of this world tactics were indeed too amazing for our dunderheaded players especially Ronaldo. Shame he got fired, he would have done the same like Zidane.

Chad, I think you're the most honest and intelligent Madrid fan around. I don't think you should waste your time arguing with biased, simple-minded sheep with agenda-driven mentality like us. What I think you should do is create your own forum and let your matchless, brilliant logic flow free with no one around to read it. After all, I don't think we're even fit to read your wise words.

I totally agree with you btw:

1. Rafa is a brilliant manager, probably the best in the world, and he was unfairly sacked.
2. Benzema is the best CF in history.
3. Typical Madrid fans; this forum,...

I'm sorry...... what the f are you people talking about.  Benzema and Bale were fantastic under Rafa.  In fact, i would argue that both's forms dropped under Zidane (mostly due to injuries). Yet somehow they sides with CR to undermine Rafa? ffs Only Marcelo, Pepe and James may have done this... and who cares about James.

The biggest significant issue with Rafa was his line gaps that left 2 midfielders to handle 50% of the real estate.  It failed miserably both on the attack and on defense.  Second issue that relates to the top one was that, other than the midfielders, the other players weren't in great shape since they were covering so little ground BY DESIGN.  Once Zidane fixed the line gaps and players had to run more, they needed time get their fitness up.  Final issue was man management... Rafa was pathetic at it.

I feel like I'm reading fiction here

As far as Carlo's last year.... we won nothing, weren't in the race for La Liga in the last month and didn't make any cup finals.  To boot, we were in horrible form in April and May mostly.  So how is that the same as this year?  Please enlighten me.

@demon, leave that guy alone; the only thing consistent about him is his admiration for his fiance, and dislike for isco- granted the dislike for isco's a bit warranted, but it started when isco was signed and people on here where proposing that isco start in the false 9 and have "you know who" seat on the bench, once again, in fairness, such suggestion was ridiculous, would have never worked

the same guy was also quick to say rafa out

chad4401 wrote:horrible game, zero organization and rubbish teamwork... rafa out

 and this

chad4401 wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:Benzema had something to prove in october against Armenia? lol, he ended up not proving shite, and scoring 5 vs them would not have made any different. Pretty stupid

you know why he opted to play 90 mins with a possible knock, no injury=benzema scored a brace in 70+ mins.. rafa is an idiot for the sub, that how the spanish media was ready to spin it.

benzema already said he is gonna play harder not to be subbed as much, rafa can't ignore that cause he spoke publicly and france match was the statement game, no need to be all cynical when posters like you always ask for these things.

no back and forth between benz and rafa, this would just be a typical injury from a NT that it.

the only reason he defends rafa now is cos he believes rafa's the reason "you know who", got into a bit of goalscoring form earlier on in the season; cos rafa set a goal target for him. i think by christmas only 1 or 2 players where ahead of him in la liga goals. imo if a player is that good he doesn't need a coach to tell him what to do.

and for those who say guys like bale and co where better under rafa, based on stats, don't forget it was a period when playing against minnows was what the players looked forward to and we dropped points against all big sides excluding psg. for me, i'm more impressed with bale's recent performances when cristiano was out. and i'm more impressed with cristiano's roma, barcelona and wolfsburg (no matter how much people want to downplay that hattrick) games, where he stepped up big time, than any of those stat stuffing games under rafa, e.g. getafe, the team we beat in ucl immediately after we were embarrassed in that clasico,even though we had already qualified and they were out and the 10-2 win against mighty mighty rayo

yes, he and his formation aka 4 2 4 or whatever we want to call it were clowns. and he had the nerve to go on tv and act like florentino told him what formation to play in the clasico....get your facts straight before u correct other fans. we are still waiting for where we "hyped" lucas silva

That's not what happened...  CR was upset because Rafa made Benzema the primary goalscoring target as opposed to him.  So you saw CR's totals go way down while Benz went way up.  Pouted like the child CR is, stopped playing hard and started his little insurrection with Marcelo, Pepe and James.  Once Zidane came on, he re-emphasized CR as the primary goalscorer and Benz took a secondary role per usual.  CR's goals went way up while Benz' dropped.  ZZ didn't do this because it was the right thing to do tactically... he did it because it was the only way to unite the locker room given how selfish CR is.

It was very obvious.  That's the cancer CR can be.

Our attack is a zero sum game.  You can't score more than 110ish La Liga goals per season.  That's already amazing as it is.  So if someone is going to score more, another player or players have to score less.  You can't just say that one player needs to step it up and we should score 130 goals for a season.  It's impossible.  Even Barca only scored 112.  Heck, we scored 118 last season and it was absolutely crazy (Barca had 110).

The idea is to have as many players in top form as possible so you have multiple threats in the big games.  It's not about how many each score in a season unless our team totals are low... which they are absolutely not.

That's always been my issue with CR.  He needs to sacrifice himself and only score 40ish goals per season so the other guys can get their 30.  If he's going for 60, well that means all those opportunities and shots are going to him, not the others.  Hence Bale and Benz are at 20-25... not to mention our attack isn't diversified.  Come the big games where he flopped, we didn't have any of the other guys ready to step in since they were playing such secondary roles... not to mention the team wasn't used to looking to set up the other guys.

You can't just change things and ask players to play different roles like a light switch.  It's a team game.  So the team has to practice and practice the manner in which they attack and how they identify scoring opportunities.  If they are primarily used to looking at one player for 95% of the games and he's not there for those 5%...  well, the team isn't ready to cope.  If the team was more balanced and the scoring load was carried by 2-3 guys all season, then when one is having a bad game, it's not a huge problem to compensate.

whatever rafa did or attempted to do, it clearly did NOT work, and so far, zizou has been able to keep us in the fight and in the final with his system. granted it's not fun to watch at times, but i prefer us being able to grind out something than losing in crunch moments and having guys score 5,6, 7,8 goals against mighty rayo, getafe and that team we played in ucl....which was what happened. i feel bad that i've forgotten what team it is, but i was so ashamed; we just lost clasico, and in a game that didn't matter, it was like guys decided to up their score card.....but yes, whatever rafa did or planned on doing did not work, and everyone here felt we were doing a bunch of clown sh** under him...let's not act like he had some dynamic plan that he wasn't given time to execute.

This is the big reason i never wanted CR at Madrid and wanted him gone yesterday. You can't win like this. Messi' strength is that he can become a passer if others are ready to step up... which he has for Suarez and he has in the past for Villa, Pedro, Neymar, etc. CR doesn't have a collective bone in his body to do that.

That's a lot of assumption coming from us fans who aren't exactly privy to these things. Not that I am agreeing or disagreeing with any of those assumptions, just concerned about the validity.

In any case, we are arguing about technicalities suitable for a player vs player comparison. Comparing seasons however, a non UCL win this season pretty much doesn't make this one any different from the last (unless you get into technicalities).

His gameplan was overall crap...  but it wasn't 100% crap.  He just didn't know how to sell his concepts to some of his superstars and the team got fractured... and looked fractured on the pitch.

The biggest thing Zidane did was sell everyone into what he was doing and bring back the rogue players into the fold.

To be fair though, Benitez tried to do something much harder, which was the way our team had been playing forbthe past two years. Why? He alone has that answer but to highlight some points, 433 we were playing last season was out of balance and one of the stars Bale had a terrible season. Benitez tried to sell a new way of playing which failed

With all due reapect to Zidane, he did nothing new. He went straight back to what Carlo had put together for the previous two seasons, and with much higher morale the team started rolling again. Zidane did not sell anything new, he just reset everything to ancelotti ways.

We're much better organized defensively under Zidane than Carlo...  overall 433 shape is the same but the execution is different.  For example, Carlo had Benz dezone a ton to help buildup and Zidane has mostly left him on top while making Bale be the primary guy to dezone out of the front 3.  If we happen to lose the ball, Bale is already in defensive position.  When Benz was dezoning, Bale would fill in on top and he had a long ways to go to recover defensively.  We're also playing a DM as opposed to Kroos back there.  Finally, the defensive line plays about 10 meters higher with the gaps being shorter.

It is a significant adjustment to the same overall shape.  Btw, people used to say the same thing about Pep too when he got started at Barca... he wasn't doing anything new apparently .  His adjustments were similar in the sense that he played defense more aggressively within the Barca system. Zidane has implemented the same initial concept as much as possible. A lot more defensive activity.

So much you can do midseason anyhow.  But don't downplay it.

I dont know what's "better organized" The one difference is the personel in midfield seeing as we play Casemiro a recovery expert with Kroos and Modric. If there is a difference, that's it. Everything else you described in terms of Bale dropping back, we saw that before, just look at the juve game.

We have one more defender in midfield that plugs holes, fights and wins 50/50 balls Kroos never could, and kills counters kroos never could. This version of our team is better due to personel arrangement, not due to a tactical revolution. You want to give him credit for that? i dont mind. But let's remember he started by playing Isco-Kroos-Modric until he realized that was foolish and brought back Casemiro. He hasnt invented lightning here.

I respect the way the team is gathering around him and responding to his orders, but that's his biggest contribution: team management.

I'll put it this way...  the CBs under Carlo played a lot lower.  That's pretty typical of Italian managers.  They all stay at home. But the gaps are larger as a result.  Under Zidane, the CBs play up very close to the midfielders and, thus, the midfielders don't have a long ways to go to recover.  Also, it allows for the CBs to push into the attack once in a while because the midfield is right there to cover...  you see Ramos and Pepe make runs up the pitch which you never saw before. Rafa (and Carlo) also put a lot more pressure on the fullbacks since they had a long ways to go from defense to attack and back. With this setup, the fullbacks are better covered... you don't need a superhuman effort from Di Maria for example.

It's just a lot more of a team football concept than 3 distinct autonomous lines.  

It's different movements starting from the same basic shape.  Zidane took Carlo's tactics and added more total football elements to it.  I think he takes that several steps further next year.  Limited in how much he can change just because of when he took over.  But it looks promising.

And btw, Di Maria saved Carlo's arse that first year. We were headed towards just as catastrophic a path until circumstances forced him to play Di Maria as a B2B on Marcelo/CR side. Once Di Maria left, his defense crumbled in the 2nd year once our attack came back down to earth.

When you say "the CBs under Carlo played a lot lower" which example are you using the support than argument? second half home CL game vs city? or last game of the season away at depor?