Yeah this definitely is an over reaction over CR7 though I just hated when he always tried to dribble past Alves but always failed [In the first half]. That was because no Marcelo was there and Coentrao didn't make the right runs.

Anyway Ronaldo ALWAYS remained a threat, he never disappeared in the game. Barcelona definitely feared him that's why they always tried to isolate him. He went to the right in the final 10 minutes which didn't help us tbh.

If only Callejon started, I personally think he would have been an upgrade, he doesn't try to dribble past player and knows passing is the solution.

It's only showing that our team isnt yet structured enough around the midfield, and it's a bit of an issue against Barca.

Frankly, I think Mourinho is making a very poor use of Ozil, having him to play as a SS for most of the game. Ozil is great on the ball, but we play with such sense of urgency when we attack that there isnt much time to construct something, it's all about getting the ball, as high as possible.

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:It's only showing that our team isnt yet structured enough around the midfield, and it's a bit of an issue against Barca.

Frankly, I think Mourinho is making a very poor use of Ozil, having him to play as a SS for most of the game. Ozil is great on the ball, but we play with such sense of urgency when we attack that there isnt much time to construct something, it's all about getting the ball, as high as possible.

Good point, but who are the main culprits for this over urgency when we have the possession? Ronaldo and Di Maria. Most of the other players are relatively adept at building a play properly. In a big game, as soon as the ball gets to the feet of either of the two in question, 90% of the time they lose their f(*king minds, try to over-dribble and eventually lose the ball. I've said this before, especially of Di Maria, he is one of the most deadly players on the counter I have ever seen.. though in a team that wants to impose themselves properly on the game and dominate possession, Di Maria is not as effective. Ronaldo in not as bad, but he seems to flip a switch in his head when we play a big side, the "ME" switch.

I do not respect the attitude that an individual within a team is above scrutiny. Players come and go, no more quicker than at Real Madrid. Do not idolise players to the point where you are to delusional to admit that they could be playing better. I do not enjoy expressing an opinion and then being told I'm not a true Madridista. Don't disrespect the club or the badge, that would constitute being a charlatan. Players are overgrown man-children, whiney over payed babies- If they do not produce the goods, I'm going to call them out on it.

Giovanni I think you and babun are losing the plot TBH.

Lol babun, Ur crazy...

k so i missed some of the first half due to stream lagg but ronaldo had a fine game imo

CR7's problem is only with Barca... and i saw instances where he looked very good. Not a lot; but more than before.

We just need to win one of these things and everyone's a hero again lol.

ZsG7 wrote:
k so i missed some of the first half due to stream lagg but ronaldo had a fine game imo

sorry bro but that video omits all the times he got dispossessed I'd suggest you watch the match to get a better insight on it

babun1024 wrote:

Crimson wrote:I like how people kneejerk so much but refuse to admit the amount of easy goals Benzema missed over the last two games.


Seriously though who cares, its still pretty much preseason, we have closed the gap alot and I am very impressed

Instead of crying like a bunch of women be proud of our team and have confidence came el clasico we "should" win, baring any problems of course.

Before the last match at Camp Nou we had managed to score 1 goal in our last 5 games at Camp Nou. Now we have scored 2 in one single match.

Have faith and confidence, stop the b$%^#ing, moaning and crying.

Are you guys Madridsta's or what?

You won't get far with your populism with me
I'm not b!tching about something non existent, his selfishness in big games is real. It's present since his arrival to Real Madrid.
How am I not a Real Madrid fan when I want Real Madrid instead of Cristiano Ronaldo CF? I don't want to argue with you or anyone else about being RM fan or not, cut out the unneeded BS.

Don't post in the thread if you have nothing to say. I made my point, he is a selfish ballhogger who makes our game one dimensional. Is it true or not? If yes, justify, if not, justify. If your too emotional about your opinion, go and open a thread about it. Nothing to do with being men or woman.

I'm a man because I'm not afraid to state a very unpopular opinion here. You don't even have one. All you do is to complain :lol!:

Yes because we were so much better off without Ronaldo in the team.....

He took us to the semi finals, scored us the winner in the CdR final and broke not only the R16 curse but the trophy domination by Barcelona/Our trophy drought as well.

Some people are so naive, just look what Barcelona did to the best team in the EPL ffs and compare how we are standing up to them, be impressed ffs

I would consider us to be very lucky to have Ronaldo in the team

Crimson wrote:

babun1024 wrote:

Crimson wrote:I like how people kneejerk so much but refuse to admit the amount of easy goals Benzema missed over the last two games.


Seriously though who cares, its still pretty much preseason, we have closed the gap alot and I am very impressed

Instead of crying like a bunch of women be proud of our team and have confidence came el clasico we "should" win, baring any problems of course.

Before the last match at Camp Nou we had managed to score 1 goal in our last 5 games at Camp Nou. Now we have scored 2 in one single match.

Have faith and confidence, stop the b$%^#ing, moaning and crying.

Are you guys Madridsta's or what?

You won't get far with your populism with me
I'm not b!tching about something non existent, his selfishness in big games is real. It's present since his arrival to Real Madrid.
How am I not a Real Madrid fan when I want Real Madrid instead of Cristiano Ronaldo CF? I don't want to argue with you or anyone else about being RM fan or not, cut out the unneeded BS.

Don't post in the thread if you have nothing to say. I made my point, he is a selfish ballhogger who makes our game one dimensional. Is it true or not? If yes, justify, if not, justify. If your too emotional about your opinion, go and open a thread about it. Nothing to do with being men or woman.

I'm a man because I'm not afraid to state a very unpopular opinion here. You don't even have one. All you do is to complain :lol!:

Yes because we were so much better off without Ronaldo in the team.....

He took us to the semi finals, scored us the winner in the CdR final and broke not only the R16 curse but the trophy domination by Barcelona/Our trophy drought as well.

Some people are so naive, just look what Barcelona did to the best team in the EPL ffs and compare how we are standing up to them, be impressed ffs

I would consider us to be very lucky to have Ronaldo in the team

He missed 4 chances in CDR final before scoring. Good that he scored in the end but I'm not going o kiss his feet for that... 'Insert any top striker' would have scored more than one in that game A fit Higgy would be one of them.

ZsG7 wrote:
k so i missed some of the first half due to stream lagg but ronaldo had a fine game imo

That vid was made by his fanboy, still, even with perspective, he wasn't impressive at all

It's not like top teams have success against barca, they completely wacked united last time they played them.

truth is, style beat barca, not level of opposition.

I have a very high respect towards Ronaldo, and I really admire the way he has progressed all these years; he's a hell of a player. The thing he needs to work on as everyone has noticed, is his teamwork though.

I will say, that when Mourinho got appointed as a coach, in most of the games Cristiano did pass the ball a lot more than he used to; I won't blame a player for having confidence on his strenghts and will choose to shoot 2 out of 3 attempts, instead of passing the ball.

The issue at hand is, when he plays against Barcelona especially, I have noticed that he is trying to prove something or idk what exactly, and he will rarely, if ever pass the ball. That is a huge fault, yes, a very big one.

But a team goes down as a team, so. Personally, I believe he's one of the most essential key team players, so I won't go as far as say he is a 'cancer' to the team.

Welcome skyhigh! Always nice to see more madristas (in this case, a madrid/arsenal-fan right?)

skyhigh wrote:I have a very high respect towards Ronaldo, and I really admire the way he has progressed all these years; he's a hell of a player. The thing he needs to work on as everyone has noticed, is his teamwork though.

I will say, that when Mourinho got appointed as a coach, in most of the games Cristiano did pass the ball a lot more than he used to; I won't blame a player for having confidence on his strenghts and will choose to shoot 2 out of 3 attempts, instead of passing the ball.

The issue at hand is, when he plays against Barcelona especially, I have noticed that he is trying to prove something or idk what exactly, and he will rarely, if ever pass the ball. That is a huge fault, yes, a very big one.

But a team goes down as a team, so. Personally, I believe he's one of the most essential key team players, so I won't go as far as say he is a 'cancer' to the team.

It was a stylistic tool You can't just call him selfish and await a reaction (People are used to it, already) for a proper discussion. I exaggerated a little bit to hit the nerve
It's not only against Farca. He plays this way against other stop teams as well, the problem is you won't get away being an egomaniac against Farca...
Welcome to the boards by the way Is it Seamon in your sig->Englishman?

babun1024 wrote:
It was a stylistic tool You can't just call him selfish and await a reaction (People are used to it, already) for a proper discussion. I exaggerated a little bit to hit the nerve
It's not only against Farca. He plays this way against other stop teams as well, the problem is you won't get away being an egomaniac against Farca...
Welcome to the boards by the way Is it Seamon in your sig->Englishman?

Well, like I said, Ronaldo is not exactly the best teamwork tool, but most of his 'ego' attemps, end up in the back of the net, and frankly, that is what the team needs, goals to earn points. Let us not forget he was the top-scorer last season, and how some of his ego-attemps saved us from what could have been, dozens of draws.
I suppose judgement comes from result; like, if his attemps towards Barcelona ended up as goals, everyone would praise him, now that they did not, a lot of people feel uneasy towards him.

At any rate, in my opinion, Real does need Ronaldo in the long run.

p.s it was Seaman before and now I changed it to Alan Shearer, I hold high respect for the old school England national team.

skyhigh wrote:

babun1024 wrote:
It was a stylistic tool You can't just call him selfish and await a reaction (People are used to it, already) for a proper discussion. I exaggerated a little bit to hit the nerve
It's not only against Farca. He plays this way against other stop teams as well, the problem is you won't get away being an egomaniac against Farca...
Welcome to the boards by the way Is it Seamon in your sig->Englishman?

Well, like I said, Ronaldo is not exactly the best teamwork tool, but most of his 'ego' attemps, end up in the back of the net, and frankly, that is what the team needs, goals to earn points. Let us not forget he was the top-scorer last season, and how some of his ego-attemps saved us from what could have been, dozens of draws.
I suppose judgement comes from result; like, if his attemps towards Barcelona ended up as goals, everyone would praise him, now that they did not, a lot of people feel uneasy towards him.

At any rate, in my opinion, Real does need Ronaldo in the long run.

p.s it was Seaman before and now I changed it to Alan Shearer, I hold high respect for the old school England national team.

+1

CR7 is just the perfect CF... i mean he would be incredible. He wouldn't have to change a thing about himself.

skyhigh wrote:

babun1024 wrote:
It was a stylistic tool You can't just call him selfish and await a reaction (People are used to it, already) for a proper discussion. I exaggerated a little bit to hit the nerve
It's not only against Farca. He plays this way against other stop teams as well, the problem is you won't get away being an egomaniac against Farca...
Welcome to the boards by the way Is it Seamon in your sig->Englishman?

Well, like I said, Ronaldo is not exactly the best teamwork tool, but most of his 'ego' attemps, end up in the back of the net, and frankly, that is what the team needs, goals to earn points. Let us not forget he was the top-scorer last season, and how some of his ego-attemps saved us from what could have been, dozens of draws.
I suppose judgement comes from result; like, if his attemps towards Barcelona ended up as goals, everyone would praise him, now that they did not, a lot of people feel uneasy towards him.

At any rate, in my opinion, Real does need Ronaldo in the long run.

p.s it was Seaman before and now I changed it to Alan Shearer, I hold high respect for the old school England national team.

That's simply not true, he took the most shots out of anyone in the league by far with over 350+ shots and his shot to goal percentage was quite low, just saying.

Ronaldo was missing Marcelo on the night yet he proved to be very dangerous, Valdes had a hard time dealing with his shots he nearly let one fierce shot in,was saved by the crossbar, Ronaldo could have done better, but let's not forget that he scored on the night and kept us in the game. He can only get better, can't wait for the season to start.

Honestly I can't remember the last time Cristiano beat his defender using a dribble

*Looks @ Thread title and OP*
Not really but it will become an issue if cr7 doesnt change his mentality.
Goals are nice and all but if u cant score 'em against farca the least u can do is build up play and create chances. Look at Benzema for best example.

1.Benz screws up chances throughtout the game.
2.Benz makes a assist to redeem himself.
3.???
4.Profit for team.

Benz may not score at times, but he will at least create an chance for goal frequently shud he not score. I cannot say the same for cr7.
Having said this, CR7 is selfish, wut else is new? cr7 is cr7. he helps us mentally on the pitch and is a leader in attack. he inspires the team to attack.

only real criticism he shud get is when he goes to dribble mode. Benzema, Ozil, Di maria and maybe even Higuain can dribble better than him. and by better i mean more successful in beating his defender with dribbling. alves is average yet cr7 made him look world class with his fail dribbling. cr7 shud stop dribbling lol its been awhile since ive seen him beat anyone with dribbling or the success of his dribbling is far too inconsistent to be worth doing.

What has changed Ronaldo from being a good dribbler to an average dribbler ?
I can't get this, he was still good in the first season under pellegrini but last season he has started to decline, sometimes he couldn't dribble a sevilla's defender and the situation is getting worser for him.

You are entirely wrong babun,CR did ok last night.But didnt you notice our team was depended more on wing play than midfield? Barca realized that and double teamed our wingers every time.What did barca wingers do in the entire match again? If any thing was to blame it was our error prone defense and ball allergic midfield.


stop giving "lionel messi troll " food.

Yeah, I did feel we played depended more on wing play than midfield in second leg game. That was not the case in the first leg though. I don't know whether we intentionally did so in the second leg or we're just forced to do so.
However when got double teamed, Ronaldo should know better that it's probably not the best idea to opt to dribble by himself, especially after failed time after time. He could have tried to cross the ball into the box or even just passed back to the midfield rather than got disspossessed again and again. Jose too should notice that the wing play was not that effective when the wingers got double teamed and he should realize that he needed to adjust whatever tactic he's using.
But other than that Ronaldo indeed did ok in second leg game.

Let's think this through a little.

Ronaldo deserves some blame for the way he goes at players and corner himself, sure, that's how we have seen him play all along.

But if he did it so often in the clasico with no adjustment from Mou, then i have to deduce that he is following the plot, which is to attack straight down to wing, and providing the option, cut in or cross.

We have been able to retain more possession that usual, but we also bypassed the midfield quite lot in the build up of our attacks. To bring the ball out of the defense, we were mainly using passes along the touch line, or crossfield passes to the opposite wingers, Ronaldo or Di Maria, which resulted in those solo runs we saw.

Very few times did Pepe or Carvalho used the CM's to bring the ball out. In the very same way, When Ronaldo was running down the wing, important is to note that he was forcing down the whole barca team, the midfield was providing the best form of support, which in turn made it difficult for Ronaldo to back pass.

It's a whole support system which is at fault here. Mourinho's reluctance to play Ozil in a deeper role, closer to the CMs to improve that midfield control, proved hurtful in those periods of play we didnt like. And Alonso and Khedira's lack of technical skills on the ball dont always make them the preferred option to pass to in a crowded area.

So to me it comes down to a team tactic, our lack of control in the mid can be a little hurtful to own our game, there is no doubt ronaldo lost way too many 1v1 but i also blame the tactic.

My belief is that with an heavier midfield, 3 men, players that support the forwards just by making runs forward in the box and creating options for the cross. Instead of committing per default 4 men to attack, we do 3, and having support runs from say, Sahin and Khedira, we have the ability of creating unpredictable set ups in attack.

One other thing i saw people complaining about was the lack of runs. Well, to make runs, you need a player deep in the middle commanding the ball and monitoring things, which is something we arent doing, a drawback from playing Ozil as a CF/SS. 3-man midfield would facilitate that. It's easier for a midfield to retain possession when they have quick passing options they can differ to. A line of 3, plus wingbacks coming up on both sides, the wingers making themselves available, and a CF coming deep, increase significantly those passing options and makes it easy for the CMs to move the ball around. The longer you can hold the ball in the midfield the more dangerous you get, and runs can be made. It's the whole point of having midfield control, you suck pressure in, and the midfield can make the right passes in spaces to forwards making runs.

And last but not least, the defending aspect of a 3-man midfield would make our high tempo, high pressure style even deadlier. THe way we would occupy space, with support from corner players in both attack and defense, will create easy double teams, without breaking formation and pulling a defender way out of position without someone covering him.

I truly hope mourinho put it in motion with Sahin coming back, it's the most important step forward we can make imo. We have figure out the style we need to have defensively, now we need to match it with the formation. Our strength will come from the fact that we have midfielders that can attack, press and defend both, while we had quality, intelligence and passing from the midfield area.

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Let's think this through a little.

Ronaldo deserves some blame for the way he goes at players and corner himself, sure, that's how we have seen him play all along.

But if he did it so often in the clasico with no adjustment from Mou, then i have to deduce that he is following the plot, which is to attack straight down to wing, and providing the option, cut in or cross.

We have been able to retain more possession that usual, but we also bypassed the midfield quite lot in the build up of our attacks. To bring the ball out of the defense, we were mainly using passes along the touch line, or crossfield passes to the opposite wingers, Ronaldo or Di Maria, which resulted in those solo runs we saw.

Very few times did Pepe or Carvalho used the CM's to bring the ball out. In the very same way, When Ronaldo was running down the wing, important is to note that he was forcing down the whole barca team, the midfield was providing the best form of support, which in turn made it difficult for Ronaldo to back pass.

It's a whole support system which is at fault here. Mourinho's reluctance to play Ozil in a deeper role, closer to the CMs to improve that midfield control, proved hurtful in those periods of play we didnt like. And Alonso and Khedira's lack of technical skills on the ball dont always make them the preferred option to pass to in a crowded area.

So to me it comes down to a team tactic, our lack of control in the mid can be a little hurtful to own our game, there is no doubt ronaldo lost way too many 1v1 but i also blame the tactic.

My belief is that with an heavier midfield, 3 men, players that support the forwards just by making runs forward in the box and creating options for the cross. Instead of committing per default 4 men to attack, we do 3, and having support runs from say, Sahin and Khedira, we have the ability of creating unpredictable set ups in attack.

One other thing i saw people complaining about was the lack of runs. Well, to make runs, you need a player deep in the middle commanding the ball and monitoring things, which is something we arent doing, a drawback from playing Ozil as a CF/SS. 3-man midfield would facilitate that. It's easier for a midfield to retain possession when they have quick passing options they can differ to. A line of 3, plus wingbacks coming up on both sides, the wingers making themselves available, and a CF coming deep, increase significantly those passing options and makes it easy for the CMs to move the ball around. The longer you can hold the ball in the midfield the more dangerous you get, and runs can be made. It's the whole point of having midfield control, you suck pressure in, and the midfield can make the right passes in spaces to forwards making runs.

And last but not least, the defending aspect of a 3-man midfield would make our high tempo, high pressure style even deadlier. THe way we would occupy space, with support from corner players in both attack and defense, will create easy double teams, without breaking formation and pulling a defender way out of position without someone covering him.

I truly hope mourinho put it in motion with Sahin coming back, it's the most important step forward we can make imo. We have figure out the style we need to have defensively, now we need to match it with the formation. Our strength will come from the fact that we have midfielders that can attack, press and defend both, while we had quality, intelligence and passing from the midfield area.

we've done this against barca only. cr7 has admittedly not been at his best against barca but then who's played well against them in the past 3-4 years?? seeing how the past two games went we're almost there...just need sahin(still praying for kaka to come good!!) to click and we'll pretty much dominate them like we do other teams...