You know, just occurred to me Nick underestimates Zidane as a coach as I underestimate the team to follow specific instructions.

As for "better coached as a unit", understandable when you consider the achievements Atletico made under Simeone and I wouldn't consider Zizou to be a better coach than him.

However, Zidane took this talented yet fragmented group of players, shook off the madness that was Rafa and got them to play good enough football to:
Win the UCL (albeit through a relatively easy path)
Stay unbeaten after the Atleti loss to tie with Barca on points in La Liga last season
Stay unbeaten this season

I wouldn't say we are "less coached" than Atleti at this juncture but you know, that's my take on that.

Exactly I look at where simeone took them as a team over the last two years.

@doc maybe I do but I look at last year situation as a group that hated Rafa to death, did not want to play for him and came alive when Zidane took over. It has more to do with psychology than coaching

psychology alone doesn't get you the results that Zidane is getting... and before Rafa, RM was inconsistent both under Carlo (even in his CL winning year) and Mourinho's last 2 years.

It's not the CL win that really impresses me. It's the fact that we show character and stick to the plan until the end... because of that, we don't lose games. We just don't. In the past, as soon as things weren't perfect, we lost. Now, we either find a way to win or manage to get a draw.

That's all coaching to me.

What character ? We stoop to what ever level the opponent is, that is our character. When we played City we became their level, when we play Atletico we play their level, then you play Sporting you play their level, that scrub team in cl ? No problem we will stoop low to their level. Hell of a coaching it is.

So are people trying to tell me/us that this team is coaching itself and ZZ is sat on the bench like a rubber mannequin looking pretty?? If you want to see a team that tried to coach itself look no further than us under Rafa. There are plenty of videos on YouTube of our players giving eachother tactical instructions despite having a coach on the bench. ZZ has done an amazing job apart from handling the front 3. I know the media are ruing Morata's absence but knowing ZZ he would still have played Benz anyways and that's the only criticism i have got of him along with over playing Kroos of course. He has us playing to our strengths and managed to get results even in dire times. Having as many injuries to KEY players as we have I am surprised we haven't lost yet

psychology does get us where we are, we gave the team a manager like rafa and they pouted. we replaced him with zidane and everything improved and dont tell me it's because Zidane is a better coach lol.

No matter what has been said about Zidane, both pro and con, he is still a rookie coach. Let's talk about his status of a coach after this season. Let's see how he handles big opponents? Let's see if he can show he has tactics against a coach that always seems to have tactics right against us.

But more than anything else, stop with the excuses.

DoC is right, it's games like this one that shows whether the team has championship character or not.

Psychology in football is overrated, everyone is probably motivated enough from their fat paychecks.

Zidanes strongest attribute is his tactics and his weakest is his football style.

If he screws up this golden opportunity to go 4 points clear, that's it from me.

How many times are Barça going to screw up and we don't capitalize on it.

Win tonight, I don't care how, just win.

I have faith guys. We got this.

Let's hope Benz and particularly Ronaldo (who has looked like he picked up a bit of form against scrubs) are up for it.

We better win this match.

Ramos has been ruled out of this game. Well lets see how Nacho deals with them

Confirmed Lineup: Navas; Carvajal, Varane, Nacho, Marcelo; Modric, Kova, Isco; Vasquez, Bale, Ronaldo.

The best line up given our absences. Time for Lucas to get the tongues rolling. Need a massive game from him

Apparently they have deemed Benz capable of only 45 mins, so it will be a second half appearance for him.

Speaking about talent (as per Sports), did you see how Alcacer played today!!! Sports had labelled him much better than Morata!!!

Paco has been absoulte garbage. No, seriously, he's a statue who has no movement other then in the box and he can do nothing but score (and he can't even do that). Futbol, it will be munir and morata as the future of the NT. Not him

Good half. We're doing really well

I wanna state my opinions but I'm scared of a jinx

I really want this win

Defending is infinitely better than it ever was this season. I wonder why

Yeah, I think this is the only first half where no one here can find anything to complain about. Excellent stuff.

Atleti is gonna up the ante 2nd half, hopefully our guys can cope. By the by, that long ball from Marcelo and the take down by Isco would have been the play of the day if the linesman realised it was actually onside.

People can moan and groan all they want about us scoring from a FK and not from a 500 pass move that we passed all the way to goal. We have been absolutely amazing both in attack and in defence. Isco in this free role is making them confused. He has been tremendous. Still you don't know if Varane will gift them a goal or if one of their billion crosses from the right will actually make its way to one of their guys. Bale and Marcelo aren't as physical as Lucas and Carvajal on the other wing. Believe it or not all of Marcelo, Bale, Isco, Nacho and Kova are defending our left flank and yet still Atletico are getting crosses in. We need to push them away instead of waiting for them to make their move

Isco missed the shot anyway

Kovacic has been very good defensively adit. Athletics have not been able to do anything in the middle infrong of our CBs because of this (Isco and Modric, although playing higher up are putting in a shift) Nacho over Ramos this game is showing.

Isco and Varane have been fabulous. The Frenchman is the best CB in the world by quiet a margin

Vazquez getting away with his scrubness