Barcelona vs Real Madrid

If he lacked decision making skills, he would not have beautifully set up Isco against City this week.

He bossed barca last season, and bossed them again this season.

He has put players like Pique, Samedo, & more on their backs like turtles, at the tender age of 19.

Him and Brahim, are the only two players (Except Hazard ofc) that have any dribbling ability in this team.

Rodrygo flopped over and over again, that's why he's in Castilla, despite being of same age as Vini.

Rodrygo can't beat an opponent 1 v 1 if his life depended on it.

Vini has all the confidence of the world in his feet. You never know what he is going to do next!

Rodrygo is the same cancer that passes back to Carvajal at every opportunity.... he simply lacks two things that Vini has.

2 Balls.

Zidane had no answer about dropping Jovic for Mariano other than "I'm the one that makes the decisions"

Qué sorpresa! In my defense, I keep forgetting how bad both Barca and Atleti are this year!

So look like there will be a race for liga after all. It will come down to which team will be trophyless and who will have la liga!

My only complaint, is why is Benzema not only continuing to start and playing 90 minutes when it’s obvious he has regressed to last year's form! I still say the problem with Jovic is he isn’t being given enough quality minutes to get his confidence back. Instead Zidane puts him out to the dog house!

people are right, vinicius shouldn't be starting, same with rodry. not because they are bad or anything , but this should be the time to learn , NOT learn by fire as starters. a team like madrid should have guys in their primes starting, not desperately clawing to teenagers, i agree with that. but its the policy flo has turned to. my thing is, i cannot expect the world from them, not at this age. its not their fault that florentino doesn't want to spend on primed players yet. so they're basically learning by trial and error.

varane was a kid when he was put to this fire

carvajal was a kid when he was put to this fire

raul & iker were kids when they were put to this fire

Ramos was 19 when he came from seville.


Messi was 19 when he scored hattrick against RM.


Cmon !!

TANK!!

completely agree with AlphaBeast, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough. problem with vini and rodry imo is that they are not good enough and they’ll probably never be, only if we could mould them into one

AlphaBeast wrote:varane was a kid when he was put to this fire

carvajal was a kid when he was put to this fire

raul & iker were kids when they were put to this fire

Ramos was 19 when he came from seville.


Messi was 19 when he scored hattrick against RM.


Cmon !!

messi had played off the bench for a whole year before that game, and whether one likes it or not, not everybody is messi. that's like saying kobe bryant and lebron came out fresh out of high school so everyone should be like that

ramos had played a full year in sevilla, coming up under what was a successful sevilla youth set up, and even in ramos' first few seasons at madrid he wasn't all that. his second season is probably madrid's second worst season ever (last season was our worst). we were getting knocked out of the second round every year and ramos was having frequent defensive lapses

how many rauls and ikers has there been since them? how many people have madrid promoted to the first team (not loans, not buy backs) who have had the careers iker and raul had? none. carvajal and varane had played a full season in a european team before madrid

these two kids are extremely young and have come from a totally different continent. the football culture is totally different especially in brazil. they should not be starting, but you also should not be expecting them to be an 18 year old el phenomeno. even if flo over spent on them, us as fans should know better than that. i've always said madrid isn't the right place for molding, and these discussions prove my point exactly

add to that, all those guys mentioned played multiple years in european youth leagues, that makes a difference, and even iker, people forget, iker was dropped. iker didn't just get promoted and stay promoted, he got dropped after his first season and cesar took the reigns until that final in glasgow which was iker's third season. so iker wasn't even lighting it up when he started. i may be mistaken, i'm going off memory but didn't iker even concede like 4 goals on his debut or in his second game?

I’m just amazed at fans of both clubs talking about poor players and their team’s decline in the other thread. Reality is both teams have declined badly and are no longer anywhere close to best in Europe.

And thus we are on to how best to recruit in this new world (i.e. Huge transfer prices and youth recruitment restrictions).   Barca have chosen to pay the price and go after hottest hyped talent while Madrid have chosen to go after best youth available and only take proven experienced players for what they believe is fair value purchase.

Results - the majority of the 100+ signings have not worked out, either because the player was over hyped, played at wrong position, too young to handle the hype or injuries (or in one case, player would rather be off playing golf!) then there is the issue that proven players that are signed for 60+, do not expect to be bench players.

And with the youth recruitment, the earliest you can get a SA kid, is at age 18 and in Europe in general and specifically in Spain, the youth systems at all clubs is on a near par with the academies at Barca and Madrid. It used to be both Madrid and Barca could get any kid anywhere in the world for next to nothing at an early age. But no longer. As a result, the cost of that recruitment has gone up (and usually there is competition for these kids such as Neymar, Vinicius, Rodrygo and even the Asensio, Ceballos etc of this world). Then comes the issue of developing them. Just because they played for Betis or Espanyol for a spell does not make them developed. And because both Madrid and Barca’s academies have deteriorated, they can’t get to level 2 futbol and that’s a full level of futbol development missing.

So bottom line, neither approach is working. What Madrid needs to do is send all the kids out on loans until they are deemed ready (by the coach since if he is not convinced the kid won’t play) and they need to pay the price for starters and bench strength, say 16 players, but avoid the overhyping and purchasing players not suited for position required. Fill the rest of bench with the Nachos and Lucas’ of the world.

titosantill wrote:people are right, vinicius shouldn't be starting, same with rodry. not because they are bad or anything , but this should be the time to learn , NOT learn by fire as starters.  a team like madrid should have guys in their primes starting, not desperately clawing to teenagers, i agree with that. but its the policy flo has turned to. my thing is, i cannot expect the world from them, not at this age. its not their fault that florentino doesn't want to spend on primed players yet. so they're basically learning by trial and error.

To be fair, we are only starting Vini due to the fact that Hazard is out for the season and a certain Welshman is simply m.i.a. God, I really dislike Bale in this team. He is the one we are suppose to be really depending on but here is this 19 year old noob, lacking real footballing acumen which takes time to develop, having to be our spark against teams full of seasoned professionals coached by men who know what they are usually doing.

Sigh.

It’s shameful that our most dangerous attacker is a guy with 0 football IQ and that can’t shoot at goal

We need attackers, at least a striker and a (right fckin) winger while keeping Benz and counting more on Jovic, maybe also Mariano as a another bench option

When is Asensio due to come back?

The right wing is his.

But is this new system thay Zidane plays, he doesn't need a right winger.

Asensio has never shown to be good enough to be our right winger. Lots of potential and he flipped when called upon.

Next summer, if we manage to offload Bale somewhere, put all you have on Sancho. That's your right winger, specially when PSG won't sell Mbappe this summer.

Asensio was not great last season last season. But no one was.

But in Zidane's first stint, he was excellent. Zidane loved him.

He was going to be a starter this season. The only reason bale stayed and rodrygo got promoted was because of his injury. Imo

Madrid aren't buying Sancho, with all the young wingers in the team already. It doesn't make sense.

It makes sense because he is far better and more accomplished than any player we have off the right wing. It's. It particularly close actually.

There needs to come a time where we make a leap forward instead of trying to develop players who are not in their natural role off the right wing.

Asensio’s potential is made of long shots

he has no qualities suited for that RW position and his vision and passing are below the requested level for that AM role

poor mans Griezmann

Mr Nick09 wrote:Asensio has never shown to be good enough to be our right winger. Lots of potential and he flipped when called upon.

Next summer, if we manage to offload Bale somewhere, put all you have on Sancho. That's your right winger, specially when PSG won't sell Mbappe this summer.

Flopped? wtf

He has scored multiple screamers against Barca from that position

and also he is UCL final scorer... and scored in multiple important games

Asensio has flopped. His injury was a real shame but last year it was his opportunity (and all of the forwards opportunity, for that matter) to step up and claim the LW for his own. That didnt happen obviously, and he ended up being outclassed by Vinicius who wasnt even supposed to be on the first team.

Also didnt he famously come out and said in an interview that other needs to step up and carry the team, when he himself wasnt doing so and playing like crap? What a beta.

That interview was the last straw for me. Ok, you can play bad but don't justify it by saying you don't want responsibility. Idiotic comment. You only have to look at Vini to see that you don't need 10 years pf experience to show initiative

Nacho ......... Varane........... Ramos ......... Mendy

..............................Casemiro........................

.............Valvarde...........................Kroos........
...............................Isco...................................

...................Benz .......................Vini..............

That would be my line up too. If Ode wasn't injured I'd have in there over Isco

Knowing Zidane though, Modric will be a shoe in starter. Valverde will start on the bench. Depending on what mood he is in he might allow Vini to start

looks like Zidane is gonna go with a 4-3-3 , with Asensio playing on the wings.

Isco loses out in that case.

I am honestly fed up of Rodrygo and Asensio. Both are far from RM material.

Only good young attacker we have is Vini.

I always laughed when I saw people call Rosrygo the superior player because he is a good goalscorer.

Asensio, Rodrygo and Fati are cut from the same cloth. Neither of them would be good enough of it wasn't for Messi/Ronaldo

If Vini continues his growth particularly the goalscoring part he'll become one of the best players in Europe

At this point in time, I think Asensio’s greatest quality is long-shots, and he doesn’t get a chance to take them often anymore, since he’s not a particularly good dribbler, and we rarely ever look so offensively comfortable that he can find space to shoot.

Rodrygo, Vinicius, and especially, Fati have plenty of time to develop their game. I wouldn’t predict where any of them will end up, just yet. Vinicius has the advantage that he can create a lot of problems for the opposition through his dribbling, but there’s so much time left for these things to change, still. Asensio, on the other hand, turns 25 in january. Unless, he’s a very late bloomer, we can already see what he’s got to offer.

It was a bit of a farfetched predictability when I said that it might not be a good idea to fork out so much cash for a, at the time about to turn 28, Eden Hazard. I had a suspicion that his injury record would only get worse with age, but when I said that, I was thinking about his longevity and our bang for buck. We desperately needed strengthening in our dysfunctional attack, and I don’t think anyone expected him to be in a wheelchair from day one.

I actually think our midfield and defense are the least of our problems. We’ve got some young players who won’t look exceptional right away, and may never amount to anything exceptional for all we know, but they mostly do the job, despite our difficulties with scoring goals. When we aren’t capable of scoring goals, we’re forced to defend.

We’re quite the opposite of Dortmund, who have so much young, attacking talent up front, and almost always seem reliant on those attackers to take care of things before their persistently shaky defense inevitably gets exposed. Compared to them, our defense, and even our goalkeeper, who was under heavy fire not too long ago, are quite superior.

A winning team needs balance across the entire pitch, and neither we, nor Dortmund have that, so we can only hope that those issues are addressed sooner rather than later. I don’t know what our plans are for Jovic. Injuries aside, based on how little he’s been featured since he joined us, he’s seemed like another case of James to me.

You guys, Neither Asensio nor Rodrygo are goal scorers. Your comparison to Vinicius couldn’t be further from reality. Vinicius is the best prospect, if he can develop his finishing. There is promise being shown but in no way can you assume he will overcome this (current) liability.

Asensio and Rodrygo are play makers more than anything else. Actually their skill sets are similar to Zidane (not saying as good). They will get some goals, but their strength is making chances. Until you have a more traditional 9 and a winger who can actually score, both of them are exposed.

It’s up to them to prove / convince that they deserve to stay. (As it is for most of squad this year). As Nick pointed out a while ago, if Flo does bring in Mbappe as a winger, then that likely will mean one or both oF Rodrygo or Asensio will go. Plus their is another kid of same skill sets waiting in the wings - Kubo.

We obviously need some holes to be filled in lineup. We have the Isco replacement on Odegaard (more than likely an improvement. Modric and Kroos are likely replaced with Valverde and Camavinga. I see the possibility of a 2 man central midfield with those two meaning they could go with two more forward midfielders in Odegaard plus one Asensio, Rodrygo or Kubo and then two forwards such as Mbappe and Halland.

But....all this is well in future and speculation is just that. In the interim what club is trying to do is determine who deserves to stay and what holes arein lineup. After 5 or 6 games into a new season is way to early to make and determinations let alone to cast players aside!