Uefa Super Cup| Real Madrid vs Sevilla

Having won the EL last season Sevilla get to taste what it really feels like to play champions before they go back to Spain and open up their legs for Barca.

We have a host of absentees so line up will most likely look like this:


Sevilla come into this game with a brand new coach and a brand new attack. It is going to be an interesting game no doubt

Lets start our season with a win

How did Benzema get injured? From sitting on his couch all summer? Unbelievale! Looks like now, we have two coentraos.

Anyway, Ronaldo won us this trophy in 2014 against Sevilla with a brace. I hope now somebody else steps up.

I really respect Sevilla and I know how dangerous they can be. So I really hope our guys won't take this lightly and give everything they have.

At least this time we have a real CF as a back up and dont have to put midfielders up there

I am not feeling too confident tbh.

Benzema, Bale and Kroos are all back in training. Don't think any if them will be ready for the Supercup

i don't think we should risk benzema in the super cup, last thing we need is for him to get a bigger injury. let him rest and prepare for the season ahead. the la liga games are much more important to me than a "super" cup. same goes for bale and kroos. if they're not 100 percent, and could risk bigger injuries, let them rest, our focus should be on the season ahead, the season ahead supersedes super cups and world club cups. i'm not prepared to see us relying on morata week in week out if benz' injury gets exacerbated. our first game is on the 21st, the injured guys need to take it slow

Zidane left Bale out of the squad. Bale has been trying to stay fit during the holidays and report has it that he returned back to training in peak condition.
I know he has only had a few days of training but it would not have hurt to put him in the squad just in case.

Bale was so eager to play and I believe it is because he made it to the final three UEFA players of the year.
He would have liked to make a case for it by performing well in the "UEFA" super cup and i believe a good performance would at least have pushed him to second position since its obvious first position belongs to CR and second belongs to Griezmann.

I also believe his participation could have caused a stir in madrid if he played while Ronaldo remained injured because it would feel like Madrid is undermining Ronaldo's ambition.

Had Bale known he would make it to the final three, he would prolly have resumed much earlier to make a shout for the starting XI...

This is the part where the bench boys show that they can be alternatives and not just substitutes.

My prediction
I expect a big performance from Marcelo, James and Morata...maybe Kovacic too..
I hope we win

Benzema got called up.

it's still a decent line up,

season start

Shade if Bale really really really wanted to play. He should have come back earlier. Every living soul bar Bale himself knew he wouldn't make the team arriving to training so late

Just one more day. Can't wait tbh. Time to start the season with a bang

I expect us to crush Sevilla for the scrubs that they are.
Especially given new coach new style plus the loss of Gameiro. we should have the advantage here.

Too bad we don't have CR. He loves to play against these jokes

I wouldn't be so sure- I regard Sampaoli pretty highly. They have brought in some decent talent on the pitch and I think Sampaoli will be ready to prove himself.

I expect a pretty gritty match tbh, not to mention we haven't had the best preseason.

Meh without Kyrchowiak they will be very weak in midfield an area we can exploit

vanDEEZ wrote:I wouldn't be so sure- I regard Sampaoli pretty highly.  They have brought in some decent talent on the pitch and I think Sampaoli will be ready to prove himself.

I expect a pretty gritty match tbh, not to mention we haven't had the best preseason.

Sampaoli is good but his tactics require time to implement.
Real Madrid with half a seasons worth under Zidane with the team itself hasnt changed much vs Sevilla new coach, previous system probably torn asunder as well as new faces. I like sampaoli but I dont like his odds.

Don't feel very good about this game tbh.  We're missing Kroos, Ronaldo, Bale and probably Benzema.  That's a lot.  Not sure how we're going to score goals.

i'd much rather we miss them now than late august when the season starts. you're not sure how we are going to score goals imagine all those guys missing in games where 3 points are extremely precious. i'm not so worried about this, let them get rest and come back fit in time for la liga. in january we'll still have to play in the useless world club cup, so the team better mind how they pace themselves

Thing is that Morata has been very underwhelming in preseason imo. Hope it's just a preseason thing. We need him to cover basically all of BBC since he's the only striker we have on the bench now.

Buying Morata just to turn around and sell Jese did nothing for me. We added nothing. We were short a striker last season in terms of depth and we're still short a striker.

sportsczy wrote:Thing is that Morata has been very underwhelming in preseason imo. Hope it's just a preseason thing. We need him to cover basically all of BBC since he's the only striker we have on the bench now.

Buying Morata just to turn around and sell Jese did nothing for me. We added nothing. We were short a striker last season in terms of depth and we're still short a striker.

From what has been seen of Asensio I think he can fill Jesé's role to the same level Jesé did last year, and that's at the very worst. Jesé never got back to the great level he was before he got injured against Schalke.

Asensio is a midfielder though. Jese is a striker. We need strikers.

yup, asensio is a midfielder, not a striker, not a forward neither, and nobody should bring up him or anyone playing "false 9", we don't use that here, and its not a role one can just throw any random guy in, and expect they fulfill it. i am not confident in morata neither, which is why i don't want anyone rushed back for some "super" cup when we have more pressing games at hand.

if i'm being honest i don't think morata's much better than jese. they're pretty much equals, jese sucks at his movements off the ball, and his finishing can be off, morata isn't all that with the ball, and he's probably a better finisher. maybe i'm being overly critical, but neither is near perfect at anything. they're just opposites on a lot of things and average at best on the things they can do most.

i hope morata proves me wrong, i'm more than happy to accept i was wrong but, if we really turned down 60 million to keep plain ol morata, then damn...zidane should really let him know what we turned down for him, maybe that will light some fire

Jese at least showed that he was something special pre ACL. It usually takes 1-2 years to get back to full speed after a ACL tear... so this was going to be the year for Jese. We'll see at PSG. He's going to get a chance. My guess is he will be the preferred left side striker with Cavani as the central one.

Didn't Jesé play on the wing before his injury though? I'm pretty sure. Asensio has also player on the wing during pre season. I feel Asensio is more of a Jesé replacement than Morata is.

Asensio usually plays in the central attacking midfield. But him being Jesé's replacement doesn't have to be a direct replacement but more of a roster replacement. Him fitting in centrally can always push another player out on the side, where Jesé played his best games.

The issue is striker.... not attacking mids who can play wide. We have those in James, Isco and Kova if we need it. But other than BBC, we only have Morata. Given the injury issues of Bale and Benzema, only one backup striker is madness to me.

We play a 3 striker system. We can get away with 2 if need be. But we can't survive with only 1 striker unless we entirely change how we play. Namely, with a 1 striker system, you need a AM and you need wing players capable of scoring consistently too.

sportsczy wrote:The issue is striker....  not attacking mids who can play wide.  We have those in James, Isco and Kova if we need it.  But other than BBC, we only have Morata.  Given the injury issues of Bale and Benzema, only one backup striker is madness to me.

We play a 3 striker system.  We can get away with 2 if need be.  But we can't survive with only 1 striker unless we entirely change how we play.  Namely, with a 1 striker system, you need a AM and you need wing players capable of scoring consistently too.

Sure we need another last option backup at striker. But Jesé is way too good to have as a third option back up, even in Madrid. At least in this point of his career where he probably wants to play as much as he can. A good 32-34 year old striker should be an option to get for cheap. Someone who can offer a different dimension.