Nutmeg Maestro With an Afro : Viera Marcelo

The Demon of Carthage wrote:
I maintain that defensively speaking, he's one of the worst LBs to ever wear the white of Madrid..

no he's not. i'm one of his biggest critics from a defensive standpoint, but its not like we've had a history glittered with amazing left backs. carlos and camacho are the top, we've had a lot of terrible LBs, some as bad or worse than marcelo defensively; heinze drenthe raul bravo come to mind. i never liked heinze in particular, his hard-worker act i think blinded many to just how poor he was at LB for us, both on offense and defense. that guy was a nightmmare

i didn't see the "one of the" part, i thought i read "he's the worst". but heinze drenthe bravo have to be on such a list

Well, I don’t know if Marcelo is the worst or one of the worst defensive LB in history of club, but he surely is very poor defensively.

Offensively, Robert Carlos was way better than him, but he also had problems defensively. The difference in my mind is Robert Carlos was good defensively when he was back, his issue was being caught upfield. Marcelo if truth be told is not really a LB, more of a winger.

But I agree with Tito, that Camacho was probably our best overall LB. I however prefer RC as he was able to be a game changer time and time again.

I think Marcelo would have been a better contributing player if he played in Italy!

In reality we are playing with a 3 man defense which is so popular in Italy. Difference is our club has not recognized that and instead of playing with a shifted left defense to compensate, they would have been better to play 3 CBs.

i actually think carlos was our best, he made that wing back spot attractive for a lot of young footballers. btw didn't marcelo used to play left wing at one point for us, under juande ramos or pellegrini or am i mistaken?

Just for a few games just to give him playing time. He also played there a couple of times under Mou.

Yes, he played there for Juande Ramos and also a couple times with Mourinho. They chose to play him there because he wasn't reliable defensively and they felt he was too good offensively to be left on the bench, so they tried him there. The result? He was below average.

Marcelo can dupe people into thinking he would be an amazing winger because he's a walking horror-show defensively and a beast of a fullback offensively. But there's a reason he didn't explode in that position. He lacks all the reflexes and vision a winger should absolutely have in order to succeed.

Basically, if I had to paint the perfect description for him, it would go something along the following lines:

He's a fullback with the defensive reflexes of a false nine and the attacking hunger of a CF. In that I mean, he doesn't mind running his heart out during an attack or a counter-attack, but he'll leisurely jog back (or even walk at times) when the team loses the ball and it is his duty to win it back.

He simply doesn't have as much desire to defend as he has for attacking. Which is a shame because it's the only reason that has kept him from being mentioned in the same breath as the best fullbacks of all-time, and not just for Madrid but in world football as well.

Attacking-wise though, he's an absolute monster and second to none as far as I'm concerned.

https://streamable.com/zs0af

Marcelo doing the #inmyfeelings challange with his son Enzo

Adorable *insert heart eyes emoji*

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn1t2ckH6iD/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1qwiqd8yf76gk

Wish he loved defending as much as he loved this club

Kneejerk reactions aside... GOAT of fullbacks imo. Still the best, if he put more energy on the field he would defend well... But right now he looks not motivated.

He is fat imo. can't run without the ball. that's a no no for fullback.

Very interesting interview of Marcelo is the brazilian media. i recommend everyone to have a read https://www.marca.com/futbol/real-madrid/2019/02/11/5c61bb50268e3ef5198b45b9.html

he talks about feeling alone in the locker since CR and Kiko left, i guess the closest people to him. Talks about potentially leaving as if he accepted it's a possible outcome. interesting...

Marcelo (google translate) wrote:"I had a very good relationship with Cristiano, with his family, his girlfriend ... I played 9 years with him, it's normal to be sad, but with Kiko, who was sitting next to me, I also felt empty, sad, I was all day "how about Kiko, how are you doing" and now I have no one by my side, I have Bale on the other side, but Bale does not speak, he only speaks English, we speak with gestures and I say "hi, hello and goodbye "[laughs].

Sigh, Kiko was not a good goalie and I'm still glad he was sold/left/whatever. But at the same time, this part, sigh, his friends are no longer there.

Marcelo has been underwhelming but at the same time, I've grown too attached to certain players which includes Marcelo. Makes me not criticise them with any real venom.

Good read, very good read actually.

Also, what is wrong with Bale? Just learn the fking language!

Omds did Marcelo just confirm that Bale doesn't know Spanish. How long has he been with us????????????

lol it seems Bale doesn't care. on or off the pitch.

Difference between Solari and ZZ laid out bare in Marcelos interview:


Zidane’s exit: “It was weird. It was a letter and most of us didn’t know because everything was going great and to me it was a shock. We had a wonderful relationship, talked everyday, he looked after me, he defended me, asked if I was ok... to me, Zidane was a great one, a professional, not only for the titles, but because he defended me a lot and I did everything for him, run, fight, playing injured. I practically gave my life for Zidane.”


Now compare thar to how Solari has handled the Isco issue, even Navas. Tere won't be another ZZ anytime soon. The whole team loved him. I wish he could come back

@hala to be fair to solari, james would probably have a different opinion on zidane than marcelo for example. and we all heard ceballos and odegaard talk about their experience with zizou as coach. every coach cannot be liked and every coach will be scrutinized for being biased or unfair to one player.

fact of the matter is, its not the job of the coach to be best of buddies with the players. their necks are on the line when the players lose, so its not a popularity contest, and any coach who sees it as a popularity contest should not coach.....cos lack of ruthlessness equals spineless. even del bosque, a very nice guy was called a son of a bitch by morientes of all people. and morientes wasn't a volatile player neither. he too can be considered a mild mannered professional

halamadrid2 wrote:Omds did Marcelo just confirm that Bale doesn't know Spanish. How long has he been with us????????????

It was confirmed only last year by someone.. I believe it was Carvajal. "Bale doesn't speak Spanish, but he understands everything".

I'm not going to defend Solari, but he played Marcelo in the El Clasico, when form heavily suggested that Reguilon should start. Marcelo did not justify the decision. It may be true that our veteran players respond better to a player manager than a tactician, but that's just tough luck. I've always appreciated Marcelo's offensive qualities, but if he only performs when he's surrounded by people who make him feel appreciated, then it might be best for him to move to an environment that caters to his needs.

titosantill wrote:@hala to be fair to solari, james would probably have a different opinion on zidane than marcelo for example. and we all heard ceballos and odegaard talk about their experience with zizou as coach. every coach cannot be liked and every coach will be scrutinized for being biased or unfair to one player.

fact of the matter is, its not the job of the coach to be best of buddies with the players. their necks are on the line when the players lose, so its not a popularity contest, and any coach who sees it as a popularity contest should not coach.....cos lack of ruthlessness equals spineless. even del bosque, a very nice guy was called a son of a bitch by morientes of all people. and morientes wasn't a volatile player neither. he too can be considered a mild mannered professional

that exactly why jlo got fired, he is supposed to be an experienced coach way than my more than Solari, yet Solari came in sit who needed to be sit regardless if their embarrassed or not, it's not his job to baby the players fans/media like bully the one they hate lol, it's to position the team to win, I can't understand the Solari criticism for isco when isco was leading the team to 9th place, he gets dropped the rest of the players quickly come together this has been the case every season with isco, pretending not to see it won't change anything, Solari isn't handling anything wrong, marcelo has been bad for years and always out of shape, why should the coach defend him? player like him and isco should take responsibility for their own performances when they suck.

jlo would still have a job right now if he dropped isco, asensio and marcelo when things were going wrong and take the hits like a man the real players in the squad would have rallied behind him, like they did for Solari this team is not that hard to coach just put your foot down in a respectful manner and most of the key players will form in line then the rest of the team will.

At least with Benzema we've got someone here to take responsibility when he sucks

titosantill wrote:@hala to be fair to solari, james would probably have a different opinion on zidane than marcelo for example. and we all heard ceballos and odegaard talk about their experience with zizou as coach. every coach cannot be liked and every coach will be scrutinized for being biased or unfair to one player.

fact of the matter is, its not the job of the coach to be best of buddies with the players. their necks are on the line when the players lose, so its not a popularity contest, and any coach who sees it as a popularity contest should not coach.....cos lack of ruthlessness equals spineless. even del bosque, a very nice guy was called a son of a bitch by morientes of all people. and morientes wasn't a volatile player neither. he too can be considered a mild mannered professional

The last season under ZZ was a strange one imo. We were out of the title race within the first month. And to play catch up ZZ opted for the tried and trusted which resulted in the newly acquired players aka Ceballos and Llorente not being trusted (a mistake imo) but he had no problems playing the inexperienced if the situation came up (Hakimi). In our title winning season we literally had 2 line ups. ZZ had no problems benching players which is why we ended up playing Asensio and Lucas in the CL or his best friend Benz getting benched alot.

Lets not forget that we all agreed with ZZs decision to bench James, he was inferior to all the players who played over him but make no mistake ZZ did count on him alot, it was just not up to what he thought he deserved. And when there were rumours of frictions ZZ would immediately nip in the bud. The media found him boring because they could never create drama from what he'd said. I don't think there was ever rumours of discontent in the team when ZZ was around, well apart from Ronaldo being a dick and he handled that well too

Now compare that to the clown we have in charge now. Who stokes the flame by giving hints and giving the media what they want instead of doing what ZZ did. He's lucky his feud is with Isco and not Ramos because when Benitez did to Ramos what Solari is doing to Isco (bar the benching part) they ended up having a verbal ping pong match in the media

Oh and ZZ handled the Pepe-Varane transition very well too. Maybe Solari should have asked for pointers before he threw Navas to the kerbs

Did you just call Solari a "clown"?

Yes and he ain't the only Madrid fan that thinks that.

the disrespect is unreal. Madrid fans .

I agree, the disrespect is unreal.

Hala, stop disrespecting the clown please.