UCL R16 2019/20 | Real Madrid Vs Manchester City

danyjr wrote:People will say Guardiola got his tactics right but to me this is more like Zidane went full retard. Still, I would have expected Madrid veterans to do better than this. Other than Benzema the rest were sleeping all match.

Our veterans were Benzema, Modric and Varane. Modric should never have started, in my opinion. I think this season has shown that both him and Marcelo don't have the stamina and explosiveness that they used to have, and are best utilized as subs. God knows why Isco and Vinicius never came on. I would've expected them to bring some urgency to our frontline. Maybe ZZ had his reasons for not bringing them on, but I don't think I'll ever understand his mindset when it comes to substitutions.

Casciavit wrote:
It makes me wonder how awful the tempo in La Liga is these days considering how lax Madrid looked.

Wonder if La Liga finishing so much earlier had anything to do with it. The players looked like they hadn't played a competitive match in ages.

Helmer wrote:did not know that La Liga teams play such shit football, that too in CL

Not even surprised, we've played 3 La liga teams in the past 2 years. Demolished one in the second leg, the other two required brain farts from a goal keeper to decide the game which is probably the worst that happen in a competitive loss.

That being said, brain farts did happen with Varane but it was evident that Real weren't doing enough to take it away anyway.

M99 wrote:

Casciavit wrote:
It makes me wonder how awful the tempo in La Liga is these days considering how lax Madrid looked.

Wonder if La Liga finishing so much earlier had anything to do with it. The players looked like they hadn't played a competitive match in ages.

Surprised how Lyon still managed to knock out Juve

This tie was winnable lost due to mistakes no shame in that, I expect better performance in the CL next season, a league title is a good prize  to close out the season with, varane mistakes really killed any momentum the team tried to build, atleast he stepped up and owned it after the game not really that big of a deal tbh

Chad31 wrote:This tie was winnable lost due to mistakes no shame in that, I expect better performance in the CL next season, a league title is a good prize  to close out the season with, varane mistakes really killed any momentum the team tried to build, atleast he stepped up and owned it after the game not really that big of a deal tbh

"No shame in that."

Yet we Liverpool fans, have to tuck our penises so deep that you can't see to accept the crap posts for the Atletico and Real matches.

Anyways, the better team won tonight.

For sure, this loss is on both Varane and Zidane. But to put things in perspective, this season is always going to down with an asterisk. No team is great, certainly no one playing at the level they were in past years. A lot of this goes down to the season interruption, but even before the pandemic, the level of play was inferior. You certainly can’t believe City, PSG or Bayern are as good as past seasons. The only team IMO, that has looked good this season has been Liverpool and they lost to dismal Atleti!

futbol_bill wrote:For sure, this loss is on both Varane and Zidane. But to put things in perspective, this season is always going to down with an asterisk. No team is great, certainly no one playing at the level they were in past years. A lot of this goes down to the season interruption, but even before the pandemic, the level of play was inferior. You certainly can’t believe City, PSG or Bayern are as good as past seasons. The only team IMO, that has looked good this season has been Liverpool and they lost to dismal Atleti!

Disagree. I think Bayern are the strongest they have been since Pep's last season. Bayern are the best team in Europe for me atm. Liverpool didn't look good. They were winning a lot of games 1-0 and were playing awful football for most of the season. Funny how narratives just take over reality.

Happy about the result, just wish it was more lopsided.

City shit away so many chances. This game should have been a 5-1 to be honest. And that's with me acknowledging that City would have missed some. If I assume they score most of their really good chances, it could have been 7-1

Never seen such an awful game from a team like Madrid in the CL. Poor from top to bottom

CBarca wrote:Never seen such an awful game from a team like Madrid in the CL. Poor from top to bottom

Actually one could argue that the top and the bottom of the team (Benzema and Courtois) were the only players who did a decent job

So happy to see Pep Man C finally get through and knock out Real Bookies are hardly wrong and theres reason why they been making them the favourites for the CL.

Too bad the CL draw has been unlucky in grouping all the best teams in one side of the bracket The final is gonna be anti climax unless the other side is PSG. I wouldnt wanna watch another one with Atletico in it, let alone Lyon or Atalanta lol.

Surprised to read all the comments, sounds like everyone thought Real played bad, but wasnt it more a case of Man C making them play bad? Man C presses so effectively and forced them to make all them mistakes and they werent able to compete since Man C were just quicker all over the field. Dont think many teams have done that recently for sure, to make Real look bad. Praise should goto Man C and Pep for once.

I wonder what Real fans think of Zidane selections for this game though, surely surprised to see Rodrygo start, and Vininus didnt feature, etc.?

BarcaLearning wrote:Surprised to read all the comments, sounds like everyone thought Real played bad, but wasnt it more a case of Man C making them play bad? Man C presses so effectively and forced them to make all them mistakes and they werent able to compete since Man C were just quicker all over the field. Dont think many teams have done that recently for sure, to make Real look bad. Praise should goto Man C and Pep for once.

I wonder what Real fans think of Zidane selections for this game though, surely surprised to see Rodrygo start, and Vininus didnt feature, etc.?

GL will always do everything to downplay Pep lol

they'll die before giving an ounce of credit to the bald prophet

Agreed with Barcalearning. Pep's pressing scheme had Madrid out of sorts and contributed to their individual mistakes undoubtedly.

However, when it comes to individual errors, the attention goes on the player who makes the error rather than the manager who created the setup to cause such error. That's how the game goes. I don't think it's an anti-Pep thing tbh.

Except in this case, the errors that were made were players that undoubtedly would be selected by Zidane or any other coach for that matter. Ramos wasn’t there because of suspension and other than that the others were automatic. The only questionable starter was Rodrygo and he actually played well. The questions that should be asked is why did Zidane wait until 83rd minute to make changes and why wasn’t Vinicius part of the changes!

So the praise of Pep is warranted as Varane and co were surprised and not prepared to handle Pep’s strategy.

Casciavit wrote:Agreed with Barcalearning. Pep's pressing scheme had Madrid out of sorts and contributed to their individual mistakes undoubtedly.

However, when it comes to individual errors, the attention goes on the player who makes the error rather than the manager who created the setup to cause such error. That's how the game goes. I don't think it's an anti-Pep thing tbh.

Last season people blamed Pep for Spurs elimination despite the fact that Aguero missed a PK and Laporte made two unforced errors, his errors were even worst then the ones Varane made.