Re: Preseason discussion

by chad4401 Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:50 pm

benzema cares like any top player and wants to be in top form going in, he expects to start he has earned the right, and Rafa must respect that, regardless of what you think, benzema isn't some second rate player that can be benched.

prime cr sucked at cf but declining cr is gonna muscle cb's all game, that fantasy.... Proud

, name 5 games where cr was lone striker and he was great/elite.

cr as lone striker is nonsense and cr himself knows it.

by Onyx Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:58 pm

Ronaldo will play on the left, but move to the middle when we have the ball. Marcelo provides the width on the left and Bale in a free role imo.

by halamadrid2 Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:05 pm

Apparently Benitez sees Jese as a forward and not a winger.....watch this space

by Valkyrja Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:43 am

I agree with chad that CR's instincts and runs are suited for the second line and not as a poor striker but he has rarely played as a9 and maybe he can bang more from that position. We shall see

by titosantill Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:47 am

halamadrid2 wrote:Apparently Benitez sees Jese as a forward and not a winger.....watch this space

yeah i think that's the plan, considering we brought in lucas vazquez and cheryshev who ply their trade on the wings, and we haven't brought in any forwards. my guess is that jese will be tested up front either as a back up or in rotations. it will make no sense after how fatigued we were in the second half of the last two seasons to still only have one forward. so my guess is jese will be the main back up/competition for benzema

by RealGunner Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:54 am

Madrid slowly creeping towards a Bale-Ronaldo up top partnership.

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 2:51 am

According to AS we might try this line up today

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by sportsczy Sat Jul 18, 2015 4:06 am

Bale playing AM Laughing

All he did at Spurs was take long distance shots... couldn't pass it to save his life. Since it was Adebayor and Defoe, nobody complained and he did score quite a bit. But wtf. We're never going to win anything if we're keying our PLAYMAKING from Bale. i mean ffs, we have Isco, James and Benz... and you pick Bale as your creator!!!! Laughing

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:18 am

I think it will shape up to be a 4411 to be entirely honest. At least he is not playing rw thank god for that

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:38 am

Second half will be:

Pacheco; Carvajal, Nacho, Ramos, Marcelo; Modric y Lucas Silva; Odegaard, Isco, Cheryshev, Jesé

This is definitely a 4231 with Isco at AM. All our creative players in one line up lol. Poor Benzema

Wonder if Benitez is trying two defensive fbs vs two offensive hmm

Lucas playing CDM but Illarra likely CM unless Benitez sees Kroos more of a CM

by Valkyrja Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:18 am

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:29 am

strong line up. Illarra playing in his strongest position which is nice. Looks like a 442 with Jese and Bale up top

by Valkyrja Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:31 am

halamadrid2 wrote:strong line up. Illarra playing in his strongest position which is nice. Looks like a 442 with Jese and Bale up top

Ronaldo in midfield ?

by terrance511 Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:50 am

nice, almost miss this match.

interesting to see how things play out.

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:56 am

awful half. Passing has been horrendous and the defending by our wingers has been pathetic

A few stand outs:

Odegaard-The only one more cringworthy to watch than Bale. Dude need to realise his potential and play for our juvenil A team. He isn't good enough for any level over that

Ronaldo- Did the dude do anything right?? if he doesn't want to play then don't fcking play. Stop screwing up our attacks

Bale- Alot more involved. Would like to see him more in this role. Intriguing

Illarra- After a shaky first 15 mins he really grew into the game. Dem Xabi esque ling balls :bow:

Keylor- Although he made some good saves he really needs to command the box better there was a time when Ronaldo headed the ball to a corner when Navas was right behind him. Clearly a work in progress

That left wing- Same problem as under Mourinho. Roma doubling up on Marcelos side because they know Ronaldo won't help him

cross field balls that opens us up- We really need to work on pressing hogh up to prevent teams switching wings in our half

Roma- Played extremely well, need some fine tuning in the final third but up to that point they play excellent

by Thimmy Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:27 am

halamadrid2 wrote:awful half. Passing has been horrendous and the defending by our wingers has been pathetic

A few stand outs:

Odegaard-The only one more cringworthy to watch than Bale. Dude need to realise his potential and play for our juvenil A team. He isn't good enough for any level over that. I agree that he's been really poor, but I think it's more due to him not taking any risks at all. Couldn't wait for him to get taken off.

Ronaldo- Did the dude do anything right?? if he doesn't want to play then don't fcking play. Stop screwing up our attacks. Correction * International Champions Cup. He's there to sell tickets.

Bale- Alot more involved. Would like to see him more in this role. Intriguing. He's still making a lot of silly mistakes, but at least he's taking more risks and showing more enthusiasm than anyone else on the team.

Illarra- After a shaky first 15 mins he really grew into the game. Dem Xabi esque ling balls He's been alright.

Keylor- Although he made some good saves he really needs to command the box better there was a time when Ronaldo headed the ball to a corner when Navas was right behind him. Clearly a work in progress. Poor guy most likely won't be our starting GK any time soon, anyway.

That left wing- Same problem as under Mourinho. Roma doubling up on Marcelos side because they know Ronaldo won't help him

cross field balls that opens us up- We really need to work on pressing hogh up to prevent teams switching wings in our half

Roma- Played extremely well, need some fine tuning in the final third but up to that point they play excellent

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:58 am

Excellent second half what a half, damn. Need to fine tune our finishing but that was great

A few points:

Our defending- :bow:

That was some of the best defending I've seen of our team. Navas was practically a passenger all game. No more opened up by cross field balls. Iturbe had no time to run at our defence after always getting doubled up by Cherychev and Arbeloa

Vasquez- Surprisingly very very good. Pleasantly surprised by that. Hope that continues

The one touch between Benz, Isco and Kroos was great to see. Nice to see their excellent chemistry

Benz seems a little rust so needs to work to get his fittness up but apart from that nice showing from him

Danilo has some really nice crosses so hopefully he can teach Carvajal a thing or two about that. Thats probably going to be our best side with the rotation

Isco ffs :bow:

Its going to be impossible to bench the Isco Disco

Pepe :bow:

does he ever age??

Anyways I've probably missed a little of the shootout writing this so gonna get back to it later

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:08 pm

excellent penalty shootout by both sides. Not too fussed about Vasquez missing it because he's never taken one anyways. Dat Nacho penalty doe :bow:

by Cyborg Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:07 pm

For those who missed the game

by Doc Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:59 pm

1st half was like a typical friendly, the 2nd half was ridiculously better. Clearly Rafa lit a fire under the players. Navas is awesome...

by Rebaño Sagrado Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:51 pm

I thought Navas was out for like a month? I guess he'd rather get a head start on the battle for a starting spot than the Gold Cup. Not that I blame him.

by halamadrid2 Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:01 pm

Navas is an awesome shot stoppers but for his size he really is a tame keeper on corners

The zonal marking Benitez has us doing doesn't look very convincing but I was impressed with our defending in the second half. Not sure we will ever see that though with Ronaldo playing on the left

Coentrao seems to be fake injured again. We should really start charging him for injuries that he comes up with

This looks to be our final squad/line up I think:

Navas/Casilla
Carvajal/Danilo-Pepe/Varane-Ramos/Nacho-Marcelo/Coentrao
Modric/Casemiro-Kroos/Illarra
James/Vasquez-Bale/Isco-Ronaldo/Cherychev
Benz/Jese

with formation changing between a 4231 and 442

by chad4401 Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:56 pm

For the first game of preseason, thought the team defended well, corners are still shaky and midfield looked good, attack was rusty should be much better next game.

I thought illarra was pretty good, first time i have seen he looked truly comfortable on the pitch, positioning was good and forced a lot of turn overs, some nice long passes from as well, rafa looks to trust him which great, can finally see what he is made of now Proud

.

by Perucho21 Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:23 pm

Was really impressed with Lucas Vasquez.

Navas should command his area more

by Doc Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:40 pm

Iker sucked at corners as well so it seems to be a thing with us. Nor was he commanding like Kahn or Gigi.

Re: Rebs
He probably was injured to not be available for selection and only recently recovered but your explanation seems more believable.

by sportsczy Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:54 am

One thing that we all need to consider... the past few years, we've asked our player to come into the season at 100% and play really hard from the start. There are just too many games to do that in today's football for a team like Madrid. So i would like to "conserve" players for the second half of the season. What does that mean?
- play the big games fill tilt of course
- for the lesser games, scheme in subs or have some of the starters take on less responsibility
- tactically manage players so you're building up their form for the second half of the season... don't really need them until January at full form imo.

Just tired of fizzling out every March/April/May recently.

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