Bale, Asensio, Mariano out

Possible line up:

You're kidding right? As much as I would like to see Benz on the bench. it isn't going to happen.

benzema could have scored a first half hattrick.

woeful finishing.

This MAdrid team is too complate. They have pace, aerial power and technical players. It's just hard to beat them tbh. Still one of the best counter attacking sides as well. Arguably the most complete RM I have seen. I can see them retaining the cl tbh.

Our midfield combined 17 interceptions and managed to find the target on 26 out of their 30 long balls. Absolute fabulous our midfield is. Casemiro and Kroos' crossfield balls are like they are throwing darts and hitting the middle without trying

We will have Bale back for the return leg so I would be extremely surprised if Napoli advanced. Their defence is terrible and the tracking back of their forwards is so half arsed lol.

Now lets pray to God we don't get any more injuries.

And I also want to mention that the tracking back of Benz and Ronaldo was excellent today. Too bad they will be back to walking this weekend

Ronaldo and Benzema have proved today that they can play well if they want to. So the question is, why do both of them insist on being lazy most of the time? It's such a shame because we would win most of our games with ease if they played like this.

Also, I must admit that we are lucky to have such a strong bench. James, Isco, Kova, Nacho...

We better not let them go.

Keylor is giving me those Iker feels the season he left

Yup, it really was a fine victory all round. Would have been a clean sheet too if Navas didn't pull an Iker on us. Speaking of which, Navas really chose the wrong season to look shaky, totally gonna be replace now. Shame, really like his attitude and he actually is a really good goalie.

Anyway, as the more pessimistic DoC mentioned, our forwards actually played well which tells me that those 2 ass hats simply ghost through matches and put minimum effort. Don't appreciate that at all. Or maybe they just have great matches and poor matches like everyone else. Either or.

Our midfield, once again, showed they are sublime which of course annoys me more considering we let Barcelona's midfield get the better of us. Kroos took a whole half to get into the match though.

James got better as the match went along as he too needed an entire half of football for his OS to start up. Defense, um, Varane is a walking calamity this season isn't he? Pepe comes on and looks way more solid than him and Ramos, minus that crazy ass yellow he received (not sure what he was doing so far up the field) was solid as he has been for most of the season.

Marcelo did Marcelo things and Dani is clearly a top 3 RB nowadays. Personally think he is the best one but I'm obviously bias. All in all, a nice lead to take to Italy where Napoli has to attack and they already couldn't defend well while defending deep.

This team went they turn up for big games is so damn good. I was never worried about this tie.

And yes they definitely coast in la Liga

keylor navas needs to hold a press conference to tell us what the hell he was thinking. carvajal's technique is silently brilliant, i remember some goal he scored last season as well, and he actually defends. huge difference between him and danilo, gap is just too bloody large.....zidane must have really appreciated casemiro's goal. the young zidane was hitting those in similar fashion

Great result and great first 60 minutes. We had many chances to score at least 5 but didn't take it. I thought the defensive structure was poor due to the 442 but Napoli couldn't take advantage of it. Zidane have no idea how to kill a game off. He should've brought Lucas for Benzema much before. With out Bale our formation is disjointed. Marcelo alone at left wing and Carvajal alone at right wing.

Na not yestrday, for a good hour Ronaldo was on the left, after that he became a striker because he wanted his goal. James on the other hand was rarely on the right but he tracked back so that's a consolation. Defensively we were very well structured, in order for us to be able to pressure high up the pitch our whole team pushed up and you could see Ramos above the half way line alot of the time. When Napoli had the ball they were trying to create triangles on the left side but we are strongest defensively on that side so they weren't getting anywere

ZZ got his tactics spot on this game and as a result rendered Mertens pretty much useless. Callejon I didn't even see bar that header to Mertens when Marcelo lost him. Insigne again I didn't notice bar his goal.

In the return leg it'll be harder because their fans are pretty loud but we have played at Galatasaray's stadium and Bayern's stadium and they told we'd play in hell too. So we shouldn't be affected by the noise. Also Uefa are alot more stricter in regards to stadium trouble so we won't have to suffer abuse like we do when we play in front of the sorry excuse of inbreds we have grown accustomed to while playing in Spain

Ronaldo and Benzema were superb! but on this forum, we cant be fooled by one performance. We always knew what these two were capable of but in football, we do not need your potentials, we need performance.
We can only wish they give half of their Napoli's performance everyday.

Ronaldo was at his creative best, giving accurate crosses, passes and link-up play.
The moment he switched back to Ronaldo mode, trying to get a goal by all means, he became useless and the team suffered for it.

Only if Ronaldo could make that sacrifice and become the auxiliary player who scores goals once in a while but delivers such performances, we would be totally undefeatable!

its insulting to have Danilo has a competitor to Carvajal, Carvajal is just insane.

as for casemiro, i would be his foot mat for a day

Navas has turned to Casillas.

Not surprised by this. Kroos had alot more rest than the other guys and Carvajal always notches a high distance coverage.

I was more surprised by the pass stats. Diwara had 99 passes, I literally don't know where they came from, Napoli were never on the ball for long. Also surprised by the low quantity of passes by Kroos. He usually has the highest

shadexticos wrote:its insulting to have Danilo has a competitor to Carvajal, Carvajal is just insane.

as for casemiro, i would be his foot mat for a day

Navas has turned to Casillas.

you guys need to lay off casillas for a bit....we've had way more good times with him than bad, way more.

titosantill wrote:

shadexticos wrote:its insulting to have Danilo has a competitor to Carvajal, Carvajal is just insane.

as for casemiro, i would be his foot mat for a day

Navas has turned to Casillas.

you guys need to lay off casillas for a bit....we've had way more good times with him than bad, way more.

Recency bias. Iker was monstrous in his prime. Shame he had such a pitiful end like most recent Madrid legends seem to have.

Recency bias is more common than ever, these days. If you believe what people say, then football is now better than it's ever been in the past, and there's GOATs all over the place