i don't know if i'll say kroos owned us, we lost on penalties. i always see this "player x dominated team y" thing, and in a bunch of those games, the player may have just scored a goal, or had a decent game running things in midfield. owning would be say what ronaldinho did to us. even then, if we're to go by that analogy of him owning us (i thought ribery, robben and alaba had better games), he played infront of schweini and gustavo if i'm not mistaken

him going further forward (even though i may like the decision) could be detrimental to us on the backfoot. i've seen people slam bale and cristiano for not helping out back (which i don't mind, i want my forwards up front and available), but now we want one of the midfield trio to bomb up front? if it were in his forte, i'd definitely be okay with it. heaven knows we need some creative help in the final third. but doing an isco, then losing the ball, only to see us get hit on the counter is a huge risk

as you said, they are central midfielders, i'm not sure if any of them has the requirements you want them to have. i can't speak on guardiola's city because they've not even played up to ten games. carlos queroiz' madrid looked like the most beautiful thing ever until the monaco mishap and ronaldo's injury, which was late into the season. none of those 3 are di maria type players; remember kroos was brought in to replace alonso; modric was brought in as an understudy to alonso (mou would usually play alonso and one destroyer)

to expect two players brought in to mirror alonso in some sort of way (who just for the record is the best of the 3, i was a fan of alonso's football), to start roaming further forward is a bit funny. i think it has all to do with their style, and not zidane. besides, zidane strikes me as a manager who hardly restricts his star players.

we agree and disagree in some ways. we are in agreement, in terms of them basically recycling possession even when we need to make inroad to goal. i mentioned that during the game. we disagree with regards me stating its just the way they are, and not necessarily the strategy, all zidane can do to curtail that is hope for hungrier legs on the bench.

the best assets kroos and modric have is passing the ball; long passes; not dribbling, not bombing into the final third for a slick one-two, not pace. they both like to play from deep, i doubt zidane can all of a sudden change that without sacrificing the defense.

we just have to hope the front 3 can make up for it, or plug an attacking midfielder in the game infront of the 3 CMs and make it a front two. But i bet, many on here can list at least ten reasons why that will not happen

sportsczy wrote:Pep is Pep.  So ZZ hasn't lost a game in any competition since March and our criticism is that he's not Pep?

I'm sure Pep would trade in his Bundi and cup trophies last season for the CL that ZZ won with Madrid. Without Benzema and Ronaldo, with no summer signings, and with Marcelo/Ramos being in fine early season crapense.... we've been perfect in terms of results.

Are you guys insane?

Quite insane but I also know I specifically didn't mention Zidane in my post since it wasn't not about him. Was more about how our current players would fit in a Pep-esque system and I still sort of stand by it. Just don't see our guys being like that and we certainly don't have a Lionel type to dribble past 4 guys. Well, not anymore.

As for Zidane, he knows what he is doing and whatever strategy he has (I can't actually pin point it) is clearly working with the players he has. I guess it is good the can be expansive enough to adjust to whatever conditions that is happening in a match.

So, relax nah. Not on Zidane's case.

It's really Serie A tactics doc... namely, play defense hard and making sure you don't concede the first goal.  The idea is to suck the opponent into attacking and then hitting them with the counter attack.  

The issue is that we don't really have that piercing CM that can run with ball to get the counters going when a pass isn't available.  So if the opponent blocks the passing lanes when they lose the ball, our counter attacks tend to not work.

We're really very very dependent on the front 3 to create for themselves and score too.  I personally think our midfield play is pretty meh... will probably get roasted for this opinion.  But I don't see them excelling at anything.  We're not that great in ball recovery or creating offense.  They just kind of pass the ball around, which makes for nice passing accuracy but no end product.

Titto agree with that point. Midfielders are not given freedom because basically the forward contributing in defense is not expected. We saw Kronos hitting the box alot more when CR and Benzema were out in first few games.


It's not about personnel in midfield. It's about the lack of any kind of positional play. Doesn't matter if Modric or Kroos ( latter is king of positional play but somehow Zidane have no interest using it).. It's the same when Kovacic,Isco,Casemiro or James is playing. They are not tactically instructed to create triangles, appreciate the space and importantly build through the middle. They, all of them looks to pass to fullbacks if that option is available. Our team is poorly coached offensively.. Relying on individual brilliance and athletism is not great coaching. Giving players too much freedom is not great coaching, not defined roles in midfield are not and more importantly I have yet to get a clear response for what exactly is our offensive strategy?

counter attacking is our primary strategy. always has been since mourinho. we have a midfield of two alonso-like players; if you want short triangular passing then you need to ask the front 3 for something different. btw one of the most difficult things to do when a team sits back is build through the middle. you've heard certain midfielders from our eternal rivals complain after a loss that "they had more possession", and they play the triangular passing i think you want; and once again a lot of times they've been bailed out either by moments of individual brilliance or more recently their current front 3

i agree with sportsczy's last post, i think he hit the nail on the head.

Adit wrote:

titosantill wrote:i don't think it has anything to do with zidane laying out a plan. the sides guardiola has managed, and this side are very different in terms of personnel, and individual skill-sets. i'd go out on a limb to say, we were lacking that piece of individual brilliance prior to the last 30 minutes of the game, because when we have little space to counter, we pass the ball around, and hardly go attempt to beat defenders....only bale and marcelo tried that.....albeit unsuccessfully at times

only thing zidane can do more of from a tactical standpoint, is try and get our defense to defend better, which, considering our senior defenders have gone through years of playing this way, will be hard to do. As far as offense, once again it has nothing to do with a "guardiola" approach, ask yourself how many of our players from the front 3 to the 2 CMFs are brilliant dribbling the football? probably bale, and even with him, he needs speed and space to do it, he's hardly efficient dribbling in tight spaces....and NO, this isn't a job for isco, he is worse at holding the ball, and dribbles without sense most times

a lot of "guardiola-esque" plans have just involved certain players like messi, villa, robben, ribery et al, beating players to go for goal or make a pass...we don't have the personnel for that right now in the starting line up, i'm not sure we have that on the bench either

disagree. Guardiola's main weapon is his positional play and teaching his players to appreciate space. It really has nothing to do with Personels as he is again proving with Man city. He will laugh if he saw the flat midfield Zidane set up despite having some of the best midfielders to play passing game. Guardiola despite having fernandinho,silva etc as CMs strictly focuses on creating triangles despite their players being crap at it.

Guardiola has a plan with the midfield but Zidane's plan is that midfield is there to cover for fullbacks and wingers and recycle possession. Our midfielders are not given any freedom to go forward. How many times have we seen Modric,Kroos,isco or Kovacic in dangerous position near the box? Barely. At least not consistent enough to call there is threat from midfield.

Zidane's plan is give freedom to forwards, push fullbacks higher up, cross and goal. Stop the counters using the mids and CBs. Recycle the possession back to fullbacks, cross,...

It is very predictable but effective because our aerial threat in the box is by far best in the world. But when a team like Sporting which tightly marked the fullbacks and had very tall CBs our game plan was effectively nullified.

I agree with this 100%

You can't possibly guarantee that this approach will work all the time. If Ronaldo hadn't scored that free-kick at '89, we would've lost the game, and most of you would've had an entirely different opinion.

Just understand that some of us aren't actually complaining about anything here, it's way too early for that. What we're doing, however, is voice our concern about the apparent nonexistence of a tactical plan, especially offensively, and our excessive reliance on set-pieces and individual brilliance to win.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to cast doubt upon this approach without coming across as overly critical, especially when it has been the case ever since Z took over. It's clear he's not trying to fix it nor does he intend to.

I'm ecstatic that we won the Sporting game and we were able to turn things around in the dying minutes of the game; really, truly. But I'd be lying if I told you that I was completely satisfied. That was not a performance worthy of a European champion playing at home.

Ronaldo came out after the game to say: "This was a warning, Real Madrid can't be so soft"

Varane also added:"We shouldn't get used to winning like this because it involves too much suffering. Real Madrid have to be at its best because opponents are always extra motivated to face us."

And if the report (link) published by Marca today is to be believed, Z himself apparently berated the players for lack of intensity.

There will come a day when our players will face an opposition with a hedgehog of a defense where crosses will have little to no effect and they'll have to create chances from open play to score. You don't want to wait for that day to happen and then say "If only...".

I'd also like to add, hoping that I won't come across as arrogant (and if I do I apologize in advance to any non-Real fan reading this), that this is Real Madrid. Any other fanbase would be content with luck, set-pieces and individual brilliance as long as they're winning. But this club is held to very high standards; and what may be perceived as "acceptable" to others should not be to us.

If you're the Real Madrid manager, you'll be criticized here more so than anywhere else in the world, and rightly so. That is the price for coaching the most prestigious club in the world.

Also, ZZ realizes that players who are coming off of no preseason and injuries will perform poorly to start with... that's just how humans work. But, if you don't play them and allow for form to return, they'll never get it back... neither the practice field nor the bench is going to get your game sharpness back.

I don't think he expected Sporting Portugal to give us so much trouble at the Bernabeu and he saw it as a good opportunity for some players to work their way back in.

The big elephant in the room is Marcelo tbh. And we have no alternatives other than Nacho. I'm starting to warm up to the Nacho alternative tbh.

I read thatBarcelona scored more counter attacking goals than Real Madrid last season. which is pretty evident from our play, we are no where near a counter attacking side since Ancelotti. It has to do with Ronaldo slowing down to playingPossession based midfielders.. Whatever I don't identify the current teams game plan as counter attacking. Current team really has no plans going forward other than crossing to oblivion.