i damn near lost my mind when i saw ramos and marcelo standing over that freekick. ramos has scored some i know, but damn, marcelo? when kroos is playing those two shouldn't be anywhere close to anything set-piece related. i've seen ramos use the 'ramos time' approach to even get cristiano to step aside and let him hit one....as much as i've criticized some of cristiano's free kicks, i'd rather have him take 30 in a row, than have mr ramos even take 1....

not to mention marcelo. when marcelo can put in some good high crosses, then he can stand close to whoever wants to take a free kick. and when he defends better, the squad can allow him take one in a kings cup game against a small side when we are already like 4 goals ahead

chad4401 wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:So we are playing somekind of 4411 to give freedom to James, no thank you, some kind of high level garbage formation where james and benzema do nothing off the ball. such shit stuff

You literally don't know what your talking about, stop kidding yourself just butthurt the players you want to fail aren't failing at all, benzema started 2 attacking moves and scored from one of them, and pull off magnificent volley give up on tactics and players your awful at it.

i agree with you, you are so smart chad

Tbh Ramos does this for the NT too. There is a meme out there somewhere with Xavi facepalming before Ramos has even taken a penalty. But Marcelo though we weren't in danger of conceding though so I'll let it go

Oh thank you nick nice of you to be so understanding.

You are welcome Chadito, i have always followed your career, ever since you started defending this lad in his underage sexual case, to his struggle with obesity, and now in his involvement in a sexual blackmail case.

I wish one day i am as blinded as you, it truly is my dream

Defended him? when the girl and ribery both admitted he had nothing to do with it? How desperate for laugh can you be?

Anyway let's not talk about blind when your the king of being wrong about players and flip flopping like a fish, remember them isco games? Or Rafa=Carlo, you see things so clearly, how pobga doing?

titosantill wrote:
not to mention marcelo. when marcelo can put in some good high crosses, then he can stand close to whoever wants to take a free kick. and when he defends better, the squad can allow him take one in a kings cup game against a small side when we are already like 4 goals ahead

Those conditions

Heard Ramos was great again

Well, I wouldn't say he was bad but it was a typical Ramos performance. Full of gusto and lacking some thinking elements.

Ramos isn't a bad FK taker tbh. Not worse than Ronaldo at least. Don't know about Marcelo as i've never seen him take any

Oh forgot to say benzema was our most dangerous attacker in the second half, scored a great header with his first chance unlucky he was offside, good performance from him, would be unplayable if he missed all his chances and dribbled more oh well .

You guys are *bleep* two faced for Calling out sports for being "bias". Just in the last thread, the one that guest7 started, you called guest an idiot for saying zidane was a terrible coach. Now, after one game, everything changes.

You guys gang up on the poor guy and he usually ends up being right in the end. I don't always agree with him but it seems that it's cool to talk shit to him "just cause he likes ZZ". This section is the king of over reactions. What a joke

chad4401 wrote:Tito what most Madrid want are certain players to be benched or play like poor mans barca, to ever feel good about team, its only when the team wins a trophy everybody wants to support the team its disgusting tbh.

I actually find myself agreeing with you. Granted your romance for Benz is annoying but shit man, you hit the jackpot with this post. We seriously have some posters with two opposing opinions and an agenda out to provoke sports in whatever way possible. Whatever I guess

No one ganged up on Sports. We all have a certain view on how Madrid should look like and some disagreed with him on that. Part and parcel with forum life, Sport himself is pretty guilty of having an opinion and not backing down from it.

I never back down... even in the face of overwhelming evidence that I am completely wrong. It's one of my charming personality traits people tell me

My point is simple: The main goal is to win. We're winning at a record pace. Once we win the league and ZZ has cemented his place as the manager of Real Madrid (as much as such a thing can be cemented lol)... then we can talk about him taking some risks that would jeopardize the winning potentially.

Zidane is letting success guide his decisions. As long as we're winning, he won't make changes. Why should he? It's common sense.

FennecFox7 wrote:You guys are *bleep* two faced for Calling out sports for being "bias". Just in the last thread, the one that guest7 started, you called guest an idiot for saying zidane was a terrible coach. Now, after one game, everything changes.

You guys gang up on the poor guy and he usually ends up being right in the end. I don't always agree with him but it seems that it's cool to talk shit to him "just cause he likes ZZ". This section is the king of over reactions. What a joke

Your comment is wrong on so many levels, with all due respect.

First of all, defending Z against the statement that his football is the worst we've seen in recent years and then criticizing him (and rightly so) for the lackluster performance the team had against Espanyol doesn't mean we're two-faced, it merely proves that we're not biased and we don't have ideas set in stone.

If you, for instance, tell me that Z is the worst coach you've ever seen, I'm going to defend him because that's simply not true. If you, however, tell me that he's a cross-breed between Pep and Bielsa, I'm going to respectfully disagree because again it's simply not true. That doesn't mean I'm two-faced, it only means that I try to only use reason and logic when assessing a situation. I try.

Regarding Z, make no mistake, we're grateful for all the positive things he brought to the table, and we're very thrilled that we're winning. But, as fans, I believe it's within our right to criticize him or at least express great concern for what clearly seems to be a deeply flawed system where individual brilliance and set-pieces are usually the catalyst to winning.

A team with this much talent and potential should at least be able to take over the midfield against a team like Espanyol, create the necessary triangles and enter the opposition's final third with more regularity and precision. Instead, we got locked up in our own half, unable to pass cohesively as a unit or advance past the halfway line. And we had to wait for a moment of brilliance from James to score.

And it's not like this wasn't a common occurrence. We were also unconvincing at home against Sporting, so much that Sporting themselves came out later and said they were robbed and that they are looking forward to beating us in Lisbon. If we had smashed them with no mercy, they wouldn't have felt they were entitled to something.

This is the problem, we always give unconvincing performances and we have come very close to losing on multiple occasions. If we keep playing like this, we'll lose, because there will come a day where set-pieces and individual brilliance won't be able to bail us out. You want to have a plan for when that day comes.

I'm not going to speak on behalf of everybody here, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm not provoking anybody here. What I try to do is not let bias make its way into our section. And when I see someone coming up with ridiculous excuses to justify what is clearly unjustifiable, I make sure to point it out.

We played poorly yesterday, against an inferior team, just like we did against Sporting, just we did against City, just like we did against Wolfsburg and just like we did against Roma. We have to acknowledge that and try to improve instead of burying our heads in the sand and gloating about a pointless record that will be broken the second we meet a half-decent team.

Sporting was a poor performance.  That I agree with.  The team generally underestimated them... it happens.  But yesterday was a good performance for me.  We almost always drop points when we're missing both Ronaldo and Bale... yet we only faced a couple of dangerous situations defensively and took over the game in the second half to win with a clean sheet.

Mission accomplished and we did it while playing disciplined football away from the Bernabeu.

Take the top two attacking stars off any team and see how good they look on the attack.

I am returned. Been very busy lately.

Wtf is the crap that has been posted for the past 5 pages? It's early in the season. We will struggle more than we will go out styling. With recent injuries, fitness. rotation and other variables. Zidane has done a fantastic job.

We look like shit on the pitch? okay. Did we WIN??? yes? Then looking like shit don't matter. You punks have a weird fetish criticizing this great Real Madrid team when we are winning and maintaining our place at the top of the table.

The bottom line for this club is always to win every game. How we go about that on the pitch matters not so as long as we win. we're top of the table right now. I trust Zidane to ensure we keep that spot. What is there to complain about that is legitimate? none. we need only to keep winning and that is what we're doing now.

The way some criticise our team you'd think we were playing cattenacio

sportsczy wrote:I never back down... even in the face of overwhelming evidence that I am completely wrong. It's one of my charming personality traits people tell me

My point is simple: The main goal is to win. We're winning at a record pace. Once we win the league and ZZ has cemented his place as the manager of Real Madrid (as much as such a thing can be cemented lol)... then we can talk about him taking some risks that would jeopardize the winning potentially.

Zidane is letting success guide his decisions. As long as we're winning, he won't make changes. Why should he? It's common sense.

could you please explain to me how improving this team discipline and ability to play from the back is a form of "risk taking"? That's what boggles my mind.

The problem is when you guys lump all things we say about playing better into that equating to playing with a high line and pressing a lot. Besides even when you look at our attacking phases you can see us attempting to press high and even that is poorly executed, there is no organization mainly because there is no method in coaching.

The reality we are facing here is that Zidane is not making changes because he can't. Every manager has a mandate to win yet it truly takes tremendous personal resolve to both win while shaping the team to play a certain way. If he is not doing it, it's because he can't or doesn't have the tactical background to make it happen. Zidane right now is "managing" a squad of susperstars and elite players. And from a tactical standpoint he has shown nothing in Madrid.

As to saying winning is all that matters, I remind you of Capello, He won and was fired, twice, all for not playing attractive futbol!

capello was fired once, he left out of free will the first time iirc, (him and sanz had a lot of issues, but what coach didn't have issues with sanz?)....and when he left that first time, the team didn't exactly play anything appealing the following year despite winning ucl. the second time was different. calderon already put the guillotine on capello when in january sevilla, barcelona, valencia and maybe zaragoza were all ahead of us. calderon already made a deal with schuster by the time getafe eliminated barcelona from the spanish cup....he couldn't go back on it. and firing capello and bringing in schuster didn't necessarily lead to joga bonito. he like capello, won the title, got knocked out at home to mallorca in cdr and to roma in ucl

so firing don fabio for his ugly style, didn't exactly lead to the opposite. it was a little more of the same. schuster's wasn't as ugly, at least not in the first season, but you couldn't say his tenure outclassed capello's. not to mention, him tucking his tail between his legs prior to the clasico at the nou camp, and declaring to the media that his team stood no chance before the game....something capello (who met barca sides @ least on paper, better than his) would never have said....yeah, lol really great decision.

futbol_bill wrote:As to saying winning is all that matters, I remind you of Capello, He won and was fired, twice, all for not playing attractive futbol!

Let's put things into perspective.

Are we the team who bought pogba, brings in Zlatan, a slew of other players, and ends up jobbing to Watford 3-1? No.

Did we lose to newly promoted Alaves? No.

Did Capello bring us a title? Yes. And he will be remembered fondly for it. Capello may have been sacked but you can never say his tenure wasn't productive. Adding 2 la liga titles to our great history always merits recognition. You would do well to respect the great managers of old who brought home the titles.

We're not playing as well as we should but we are winning. Winning consistently is what brings titles, not style. Though I do understand style is important... We haven't won la liga in some time. I would figure style would be the least of our concerns right now. Every game counts in la liga. Last year we had some shock losses against scrubs. too many that it cost us the league.

We ain't jobbing to no one. We won 2-0 clean. With these nonsensical complaints, y'all make it sound like we lost. We ain't losing. Why bitch about the result? We're not Manutd. And we're certainly not Barca either.
We're Real Madrid and we're the leaders right now. every point counts and thus every game counts. right now we on rainbow road on our la liga tour. Can't complain.

Zidane doing fantastic work and I expect this form to continue be it woeful or styling. And for all of those who say all this talk of Zidane not doing well or having little tactical acumen... I bring the gift of Turok: Tarnish not who lost el clasico last time around. hint: it wasn't us who lost. Drink it in mannn...

I'm just saying, we could have played a better first half against Espanyol considering we actually played a better 2nd half. Hindsight and all that.

I agree with the over complaining stuff, some of us really should take it down a bit. Or at least complain when we have real problems. Valencia is rock bottom of La Liga, zero wins, zero points (7 losses in a row). Utd spent all that money to still be struggling with not only an identity crisis but even results. Tottenham have to live with the fact they are Tottenham. Real issues these fans have...

Doc wrote:I'm just saying, we could have played a better first half against Espanyol considering we actually played a better 2nd half. Hindsight and all that.

I agree with the over complaining stuff, some of us really should take it down a bit. Or at least complain when we have real problems. Valencia is rock bottom of La Liga, zero wins, zero points (7 losses in a row). Utd spent all that money to still be struggling with not only an identity crisis but even results. Tottenham have to live with the fact they are Tottenham. Real issues these fans have...

Look I understand the complaints on style. Real Madrid is a team that should play with flair and dominance. But its early in the season and some of our boys have been to EURO 2016. Cut them some slack. We will always have hiccups early in the season. that is unavoidable. and its better this way. I rather we dominate in the 2nd half of the season than in the 1st. By struggling now we learn our problems and we work on'em as they come so by the time we need to hit hard from February onward, we will be ready and in form.

Y'all need to chill. Early in the season and we're doing great with zero losses in la liga. complain once we register a draw or a loss.

Kroos and modric can be annoying when they are allowed to play at their own pace. they seem self-absorbed with pass-accuracy statistics and just end up playing loads of backward and sideways pass.