Yeah... Zidane is in charge of tranfers at Madrid.  Right.  Once again, let's completely ignore the entire history of Madrid and Flo Perez in general.  Other than Mou (who was able to put it in his contract), NONE of the managers have any say.  It's all at the discretion of Perez and, FIRST AND FOREMOST, he listens to his business advisers, then his heart and the manager is a very distant 3rd.  Only because he has such a relationship with Zidane... did he not just ignore him.  But he also wasn't going to go against his business advisers. So it ended up being a stalemate.

But hey, believe what you want lol.

Not a case of believing what one wants. It's your opinion vs my opinion. You can stick to your "fly on the wall" theories or even that history always rules and I'll stick to the actual statements we have heard from Zidane himself.

sportsczy wrote:Yeah... Zidane is in charge of tranfers at Madrid.  Right.  Once again, let's completely ignore the entire history of Madrid and Flo Perez in general.  Other than Mou (who was able to put it in his contract), NONE of the managers have any say.  It's all at the discretion of Perez and, FIRST AND FOREMOST, he listens to his business advisers, then his heart and the manager is a very distant 3rd.  Only because he has such a relationship with Zidane... did he not just ignore him.  But he also wasn't going to go against his business advisers. So it ended up being a stalemate.

But hey, believe what you want lol.

Again, these are just your theories again.

You can't dismiss what other people say when you are advancing theories, with next to 0 confirmation. Theories about how madrid run in the inside run deep, everyone have their spice.

Unless Real Madrid or Zidane come out and publicly state what happened...  Everything anyone says, especially the media, are just theories.  This is mine.

Only difference is that I'm basing mine on how Madrid has historically functioned all the way up to Zidane.  Others are saying that Zidane, a noob manager no less, suddenly became the emperor or at the very least the Cardinal of Richelieu?  Which one is more likely?

sportsczy wrote:Yeah... Zidane is in charge of tranfers at Madrid.  Right.  Once again, let's completely ignore the entire history of Madrid and Flo Perez in general.  Other than Mou (who was able to put it in his contract), NONE of the managers have any say.  It's all at the discretion of Perez and, FIRST AND FOREMOST, he listens to his business advisers, then his heart and the manager is a very distant 3rd.  

The way Madrid is historically run (at least according to what we can see)

sportsczy wrote: Only because he has such a relationship with Zidane... did he not just ignore him.  But he also wasn't going to go against his business advisers. So it ended up being a stalemate.

But hey, believe what you want lol.

Or should we ignore history?

I'm suggesting that history says that Flo will do whatever he wants...  so saying that Zidane is now responsible for transfers is absolutely ludicrous.  He's a new manager with no experience whatsoever.  Because of Flo's respect for Zidane, he probably listens to him more than he would some stranger he has no prior relationship with (like anyone would)...  so the LIKELIHOOD is there that Flo allowed Zidane to influence him some.   I also think that Flo personally wants Zidane to succeed individually moreso than another random dude.

But it's absolutely crazy to suddenly think that Zidane either plans the transfer strategy or has final say on it.  Flo does.  Whether he decides to listen to Zidane, his advisors or his mistress is up to him.  But since absolutely nothing happened...  we can assume that there were very few players where there was unanimous consent, those players weren't for sale... and Flo did not want to make decisions that were entirely contrary to Zidane's wishes.  Hence the stalemate.

Keep in mind that Zidane was trained in the French youth system and coaching school.  His bench coach was a youth player development coach for his entire career.  So it's also feasible that Zidane asked Flo to let Castilla players get a chance as opposed to signing players he didn't want.

But I'm theorizing just like you are.  I would, however, suggest that my theories are more logical than the ones saying that Zidane decides everything and the squad we have right now is entirely his doing lol.

Yeah it's your theory or opinion vs mine, but yours is more likely the correct one because of logic (yours)!!!


That's totally ignoring all the player statements Zidane has made for the past 5 months. Not to mention the numerous posts you made of your insider version of facts!

I think the facts of the offseason activity is pretty clear that no major changes were made for two reasons,

1. The three dreams that Zidane said he had were not available or in one case not at a reasonable costs. And if they were it would have meant someone on team would have to be sold.

2. They both have stated that they didn't want the chance of getting new players that might not work out in a year that they may not be able to "undo" that move and wanted to keep players they knew.

That is the reason behind no changes to starting lineup, despite the ban!

As to the backups, it has been Zidane's statements that have said the backups would be Morata, Coentrao and Kroos.

The fact that most of us do not agree about Kroos and Coentrao is all on Zidane. I can't believe that if Zidane had said I need a 20 to 40M player that his desire would have been ignored.

Carlo said he supported the sale of Ozil and Di Maria as well at the time...  and then, once he left, he said how he never wanted either of those players to leave but he wasn't in charge, when he was asked about the reasons for Madrid's struggles in his last season.

I mean come on.  A manager is the figurehead for the club.  He carries the corporate message on a daily basis.  If he doesn't want to get terminated, he will vocalize his differences in private...  but in the public, he will say exactly what the club wants him to say.

That's the reality of the public discourse of a manager.  He a spokesperson for his club in public... he doesn't speak for himself.  That was (and remains) one of the reasons for Mourinho's downfall.  He spoke according to his agenda, not the club's.  So although you tended to get a lot more insight on the actual internal drama within the clubhouse, it also created discord because these differences were meant to remain private...  they weren't supposed to be put out there for public dissemination.

Players are just as two faced as managers and presidents. That's no secret either.

Let's not be naive here.

Naive!!! Let's also not be blind with one's agenda!

It's your opinion vs mine, which we are both entitled to, no need for your insistance that yours is the correct one.

You know I respect you Bill... we've been at this for almost 5 years now I think. If I didn't respect you, I'd just ignore your posts like I do many others.

And that goes for everyone btw. I debate my positions hard (sometimes over the top). But if i'm debating with you, it means that I'm listening to what you have to say. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother to respond.

I'm with Sports here. How can anyone believe Zidane controls anything? Flo is judged jury and executioner. If course Zidane will lie. He is a company man. Why would he throw management under the bus and put mire microscopes than there al ready are at Madrid.

The only coach that had any power at Madrid in my lifetime is Mourinho and after that whole debacle, you can bet Flo is more cautious than ever.


I'm sure Zidane is well aware he was hired to take pressure of Florentino as he was getting booed before he gave rafa the axe. Once Zidane got the job he began the slow walk to the guillotine.

Both scenarios lead to Z being guilty to a certain extent.

1. Scenario A: Z has no control over the transfers and he does whatever he's told. This would mean that Z is a man without dignity, self-respect, or even principles. It would mean he's an opportunistic gold digger whgo doesn't care about strengthening the team and he's just happy to be here and he would do anything to stay. This is wrong on so many levels because it's a lose-lose situation.

If Z thinks he'll stay just because he's agreeing to everything Florentino tells him, then he's sadly mistaken. When things go wrong, his head will be the first one to roll. So this strategy, as history shows, is not an efficient one. And if he's doing it, then he should change his mindset because he'll get fired anyway. At least get fired while doing things your way.

2. Scenario B: Z has control over transfers or at least has a say in it. This would mean he was content with the squad he already had. And contrary to the first scenario, we have a direct quote from him to back scenario B: "This squad is very difficult to improve on". This would mean he's a naive coach and unfit to manage such a big club.

If I was a die-hard fan of Z, I would pray to God scenario B is the correct one because I would rather my favorite coach be naive and incompetent, than to be a shameless, spineless, gold-digging yes-man, bereft of all principles and values.

I'm with sports on this-

And bill weren't you the one that stated you had insider knowledge that Perez was confident of the courts overturning their judgement allowing us to sign players in the January transfer window?

If that really is true, it's possible to reason that Perez didn't see it necessary to make any signings this past summer.

Deez, I had talked with a board member and he had said that Perez was confident his appeals would overturn the ban. that still is the case and Flo recently said same in a socio assembly. However, it does look increasing likely that ban will stick, but at least most of the kids are now playing and it doesn't look like that part of ban will be in effect.

So bottom line , I wasn't reporting any insider info that hasn't been made public.

MY beef with Sport is essentially he constantly claims of internal conflicts based on his so called insider info and none of that has ever been revealed publically. Bottom line on this subject is we just don't know why there were literally no changes this past summer.

So you can either take his opinion or mine, but we will never likely know what version is correct.

meh... I wrote this long post but screw it. No point belaboring everything that was posted and happened during the summer.

But blaming Zidane for lack of foresight during the transfer window is galling to me... especially when you consider how many CMs he professed admiration for over the transfer window, all of whom ended up at other clubs.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying Zidane lacked foresight during transfer window.

I say it was his assessment of Coentrao and Kross as alternatives at LB and DM that is the issue.

The club not signing big for upcoming transfer ban is in my opinion the fault of both Flo and Zidane, primarily because they said / believed that starters would be difficult to improve upon.

But the issue at hand for this season is the bench strength, specifically for DM and LB. And that repeatedly was stated by Zidane as sufficient with Coentrao and Kroos, when required.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Both scenarios lead to Z being guilty to a certain extent.

1. Scenario A: Z has no control over the transfers and he does whatever he's told. This would mean that Z is a man without dignity,  self-respect, or even principles. It would mean he's an opportunistic gold digger whgo doesn't care about strengthening the team and he's just happy to be here and he would do anything to stay.  

i think those are extremely harsh conclusions to reach even if that scenario were true. i'm all for a coach having a backbone, but "golddigger" and "no dignity"? remember zidane didn't even want to manage the club to begin with (at least not yet). his intentions were to start small, he wanted to manage bordeaux, until either carlo or flo talked him out of it....so gold digger or lacking dignity aren't phrases i'd associate him with. he's had his temper issues as a player, but other than that, he's not done anything whether as a player or even coach to be addressed as a gold-digger of some sort

i have a question though? coentrao has come back, the reserves are getting minutes and doing alright. in the event everyone returns, the teams depth becomes a non-issue, and all these backups start blossoming. in such a scenario who will we give credit too?

will it be florentino? for not listening to zidane by not signing back ups

or will it be zidane, for thinking the team is good as is?

...the reason i ask is, everyone seems so staunch on their position that i wonder if they'll be willing to give the side they're opposed to credit if the whole thing flips

Personaly, Tito, I don't think Scenario A is true. I think that Flo has the final word, but Z has his say on the matter and he could've brought in players had he wanted to.

Instead, he spent the whole summer repeating the same thing:" This team is very difficult to improve on".

He either meant it or was just simply lying to please his superiors. Either way, it makes him guilty to some extent.

@ tito.  Even when Casemiro comes back... we still have no depth behind him.  We haven't played a top team without him, which has lessened the blow of his absence.  

The only GLARING issue of the summer transfer window was the lack of CM depth.  We keep buying AMs or promoting Castilla AMs with the absurd idea that they can play CM.  

If it works out, we'll need to be lucky and ZZ do a great job of hiding the flaws if there are injuries in the middle of the pitch.  Still won't excuse the fact that the issue is there and it wasn't addressed while it easily could have.  The bigger issue for me is if the ban holds,  we will continue to count on luck to be on our side OR a castilla player like llorente to really come up.  Unnecessary and, frankly, irresponsible risk for a club like Madrid.

I'd expect this type of decision-making from Wenger.

who are the Castilla AMs that you keep referring to?

Kiko - he's a gk
Dani - he's a lateral
Nacho - he's a defender
Morata - he's a CF
Lucas - he's a winger
Mariano - he's a Cf

That's all the canteras on the club.

If you are referring to Asensio or Isco, neither are canteras.

I said that Real Madrid are counting on AMs, whether bought or from Castilla, to become proper CMs.  The only reason I even mentioned Castilla is that I have a feeling that Asensio will soon be asked to play CM  I also remember Medran being played as a deeper playing CM by Carlo in a game.

But my true targets were Ozil, James, Isco and Kovacic on the current squad and recently... and also playing Kroos in the deep position. The only one it worked with was Di Maria.

I won't even go through the wonderful history of Perez with CMs in the past.  They're well document in the galactico period.

I repeat, Asensio is not from Castilla nor a Cantera

All of the AMs in recent history have been bought, none of them have been Canteras

And if you want to get into history both Figo and your beloved Zidane were AMs that played as CMs!

Figo was a winger... playing him at CM was a mistake. Zidane was always a CM.

Beckham, Zidane, Figo and Guti were the mids. Wonderful ball recovery and defensive skills.

Ignoring the fact that you don't know a Spanish purchase from a cantera!

and also ignoring that Figo, Zidane and Guti were all more AMs than CMs.

i considered zidane more of an attacking midfielder than cm. the ability to slow the game and dictate tempo doesn't automatically mean you're a cm. you have to play defense. figo was a winger, but back then the distinction between winger and attacking mid wasn't that vast. figo becks nedved cameronesi pires all wingers who could still pass off as attacking mids, considering the old 4 4 2, didn't mean they were just perched on the flank throughout.

back to topic, i doubt we're going anywhere with this, we didn't make transfers and we're facing a ban, and that's what it is. unless someone in the backroom actually comes out and says who is responsible we won't know....even then, whoever reveals any such info may or may not be lying. the argument about whose fault it is, seems to be yielding no conclusions so far

He was a deeper playing CM at Bordeaux before taking a more advanced role... which made Juve think that they could play Zizou as a DM in his first 6 months there.  After a few red cards and Platini calling out Juve, they moved him to CM and eventually more of an advanced role.

By the time Zidane got to Madrid, Zizou was 29 going on 30 and his work rate wasn't what it was... so he wasn't dropping as low as he used to for balls.  

People tend to forget that Zidane's best years were prior to Real Madrid.  His 5 years at Juve were, by far, his best.  As great as he was at Real Madrid, he was a ton better at Juve believe it or not.

Anyhow, I agree with Tito...