This is it boys. This is the day we suffer in hell for daring to beat Napoli at home

Kroos, Carvajal, Marcelo, Ronaldo, and Bale all didn't play against Eibar so I should expect to see them at the top of the distance covered charts. We have no injuries in the team bar Varane

Both Modric and Ramos are a yellow away from missing the QF first leg if we make it. I don't think we'll have to worry about Modric but Ramos is a yellow card magnet so we should already prepare to play without him, not that it'll be any sort of loss to us lol

Napoli are coming in after a morale boosting victory over their rivals Roma so their confidence will be sky high. Sarri made a massive mistake in the first leg of avoiding the right wing and trying to attack through the left. Every team in Spain no matter what division attacks us from the left because they know Marcelo is a liability in defence so I'll fully expect them to pepper our left wing. Ronaldo should stay there like he did in the first leg. We can't have Marcelo all on his own on that wing like against Las Palmas. Mertens might be an injury doubt for them after hobbling off injured this weekend. That'll be a massive loss for them as he has scored pretty much most of their goals this season.

Their defence is turtle like slow so I am confident we can score at least one goal especially with Bale trying to make up for his brain dead moment last week. If we score early it'll force them to play in a fast paced up and down kind of game which suits our front line as opposed to patiently playing the ball between their midfielders and defenders watching our front line crawl around "attempting" to press (how insulting right)

Anyways line up is set in stone:

I expect a triumph. No offense to Napoli but We're not Roma.
From march onwards there can be no more excuses. I trust us to secure our path properly with a win.

This is CL footy this is what these boys get lazy against Eibar for, they will deliver

Let's hope Ramos' brain is working well for this one... the last 2 games for him have been horrendous even by his standards. That's the one way I can see us messing this up.

Yeah, we all know these ass hats are gonna show up tomorrow. Ramos is gonna be defending like Nesta, Ronaldo would like like prime Cristiano and Benzema is gonna get at least a goal.

They'll go back to being a frustrating team over the weekend though.

I heard a stat that in the past 6 CL knock-out stage ties where RM were up 3-1 in the first leg, 4 of those times RM ended up going out.

33.33% staying in the competition after being 3-1 up is not great.

cristiano is so annoying.

napoli are pressing and he is not even jogging back, yet as soon as madrid are in possession of the ball his hands are up demanding the ball, throwing a tantrum if he doesnt get it.

waste

Zidanes Madrid

Consistency awful through out the year.

If we get eliminated here zidaneneeds to get his bag ready

What an embarrassing half

What a horrific half

Can we take out one of our useless attackers and put on a midfielder please

All these longballs are just going back to Napoli ffs

Adit remember the winning streak we were great

Seriously this is such a joke. We are barely coached. Look at our ball winning ability, it's either a goalkick or save from Navas or a last ditch tackle winning the ball back.

Cristiano and Benzema both need to go. Awfully bad workrate.

Time to quit supporting these clowns

Awful football

Well, that was shit and there is Morata and Isco rotting away on the bench, the latter we could really REALLY use about now. Anyway, Zidane, as usual, sets up his team to waste an entire 1st half doing fk all to realise that his initial "strategy" is not working.

Bale is incredibly static and can actually be replaced by a cone and no difference would be made. Ronaldo should have scored and Benzema is doing La Liga Benzema things. We have 2 fine midfielders in Modric and Kroos and we insist on long balling, to the left, ALL THE TIME. Seriously, I'm not a coach by any stretch and it is so easy for Napoli to just crowd the left because it is gonna go there anyway.

Sigh, 2nd half and we really need to get our shit in order. Also, Zidane needs to get his head checked.

Strategy!!! Can anyone tell me what the game plan was?

Plan Ramos

The strategy as always is to sit back for 60 min then when the opposition is tired we attack.

This is supposed to be the strategy

Away CL games... it is a sound strategy. In fact, any tough away game, it's a sound strategy.

Carlo did it this way too.

Strategy is basically pray for Ramos scoring one of those headers.

Don't give me that rubbish Sports, it was a shit strategy that did not work at all. And I say strategy while giggling because Lord know what the f that was. Zidane is really fortunate Ramos knows how to score from corners.

Napoli really did all they could have in the 1st half, football Madrid can't seem to do apparently but set pieces are still part of the game and one needs to defend those. All I can say we got the win and I would move on with that. Whoever wants to put this as a plus for Zidane, be my guess but to me, he got away with it dearly.

Pepe is absolutely priceless. What a defender

Our pressing and being able to string 3 passes together coincided with the subs. Napoli were no longer able to pass to a free player between the lines because everyone bar Ronaldo pressed as a unit.

I hope we never buy overpriced galacticos ever again. Worst primadonnas I've ever seen.

halamadrid2 wrote:Pepe is absolutely priceless. What a defender

Our pressing and being able to string 3 passes together coincided with the subs. Napoli were no longer able to pass to a free player between the lines because everyone bar Ronaldo pressed as a unit.

I hope we never buy overpriced galacticos ever again. Worst primadonnas I've ever seen.

Say their names!

Ronaldo was garbage Bale was terrible and Benzema was benzema.

Doc... I know you've watched Serie A and Italy NT over the years.  That's what they do.  They get a lead at home and look like a pub team away... because they sit back and invite pressure.  The idea is that, at worse, you concede a goal.  They also had a great counter attack so they expected to steal a goal in that period too.  They were terrors on set pieces.  Heck, Germany NT played this way too until the 00s.

If the game escaped them (and it rarely did), Italian teams changed tactics on a dime and went on the attack.

Not saying I agree with it or like it.  I hated Italy NT for playing this crap... and making it work.  But it's about playing the odds to win, quality of football be damned.

I ain't Nick or Adit, I have been more than open minded to Zidane's young tenure here and he has gotten the Serie A esque performance right on a couple occasions but today, it really didn't pull off at all. It was as bad as I can remember seeing and Zidane should kiss Ramos good night for coming up with 2 big goals.

Of course, we can talk like this because we got the win, which is what matters at the end but I can't agree with this performance, with what Zidane wanted. Honestly can't.

my point is that I don't think Zidane gives 3 shits about how we look as long as we win...  what he won't like is the effort of some.  But what he can do really... the effort issue is with some of the galactico players that he has no choice but to play.

It's not coincidence that once some of those galacticos get injured and younger, less talented BUT more active players take their place... we look a much better team.  

And I include Kroos in this btw.  At his current form, were much better with Isco.

In fact, I think that we'd play far better if Morata, Vasquez and Isco were starting.  But they can't.