Preseason discussion

Good thing the front two are good with their backs to goal. Literally the key to this 352 working smoothly. I'd play it in the opening game tbh

With Isco?

Honestly, I would like to see James in that role. Better vision.

halamadrid2 wrote:When Casemiro declines we are done. He is a lifesaver in this team

Our best halves this preseason have been when Hazard has played next to Benz up top.

Militao has been great. Very assured on the ball in his pseudo LB role.

Bar one slip when have not let in any attacks in our box. It helps to have 3 athletes aa CBs, maybe the 352 is the way forward, it protects Kroos, Casemiro and Marcelo perfectly

Offensively there has been a few miscommunications and misplaced passes but this is by far the best we've played this preseason. Very complete defensively and offensively

you would think this club sees the value of Casemiro and would double down on him by signing a prolific back up. Instead we waste money signing Van de Beek lol

Casemiro has always been the glue in the midfield. No surprise that Zidane decided to drop James for him which was followed by 3 CLs. I get his criticism that hes not technically gifted as Modric and Kroos but why hate him for something he is not?

My only problem is theres no back up once again. Llorente is reaching his prime years and had to leave to be a starter, that's unfortunate but its reality. Still, it left us with a problem. Casemiro goes down and we're screwed.

Lol Zidane wasn't the first to play Casemiro un midfield. And when he arrived he tried playing Kroos as DM and it sucked lol

You don't need a DM in a 352...  one of the CBs should play the "libero" position (likely Ramos).  As an example, at Juve, Pirlo and Marchisio played the deep role in the midfield with Bonucci as the "libero".  

I actually think the 352 suits Kroos the best as he could play that deep role in this system.

Problem is that you need good some athleticism with the wide mids like Juve had in Vidal and Pogba.  Modric is fine...  but we need another mid.

Casemiro is not good enough with the ball in a 352.... biggest issue is his passing range.

Salzburg is one thing...  La Liga teams would completely break our team in half if we had a 352 with Casemiro.

Without Casemiro our team collapses. Pray to God he doesn't get injured this season

Jovic played very well i think. Unlucky that he didnt get a goal. Very good off the ball and on it

Don't even know what role Lucas played honestly. Was it as an AM or something?

Lucas is player coach

halamadrid2 wrote:When Casemiro declines we are done. He is a lifesaver in this team

I think Casemiro is getting overrated now. He has been anything but a lifesaver in past 2 seasons.

The attacking midfielders have no problem to easily pass through him & make chances.

Funny how quickly people are forgetting bad seasons when it comes to their favorite players.

Mariano, James and Bale left out yet again

If i was Neymar I'd be scared. When ZZ doesn't like you, you're done, there is no way back

I'm guessing Eriksen is no longer a target for us. He had a very good game off the bench today. Even assisted Ndombele for his debut goal. Perhaps predictably, Ndombele looked good as well, which bodes well for my fantasy team Hope to see a similar level of impact from our veteran midfielders against Roma tomorrow.

CONVOCATORIA DEL REAL MADRID:

Porteros: Keylor Navas, Courtois y Toni Fuidias.

Defensas: Carvajal, Militão, Varane, Nacho, Marcelo y Odriozola.

Centrocampistas: Kroos, Modric, Casemiro, Valverde e Isco.

Delanteros: Hazard, Benzema, Bale, Lucas Vázquez, Jovic y Vinicius Jr.

Bale in the squad. Not James or Mariano

We don’t have the wing backs to play 3-5-2

You need serious athletism to play that role

Mendy and Carvajal could play it. But wed reslly miss Marcelo build up play. If we play 352 I'd only do it if Marcelo started tbh. Or else we have no use for it

Our back have always played like wingbacks anyways lol

Thibaut Courtois; Nacho, Raphael Varane, Eder Militao; Dani Carvajal, Fede Valverde, Casemiro, Luka Modric, Marcelo; Karim Benzema, Eden Hazard.

Playing a 352 again. Probably going to be our formation going into the season

what the fuck is he doing playing with a 3 man backline, we dont even have enough CBs to sustainably do that

ALINEACIÓN del @realmadrid @officialasroma #RomaRealMadrid https://t.co/bWfS0N73qh pic.twitter.com/zkHB0yHSoL

— El Bernabéu (@elbernabeucom) August 11, 2019

ZZ wants to bring thr best out of Marcelo and 3 CBs behind him is the only way we wont leak goals left and right. When Mendy starts i suspect we'd go back to 433

if he wanted to play 352 then he should have kept Vallejo around. i thought he did this last game to experiment but what the fuck is he thinking now

They’ll buy a CB then and Mendy has the size to play one of the 3.

we also allowed Hermoso to go to Atletico. This is clearly not what Zidane had in mind when he came back.

Mr Nick09 wrote:we also allowed Hermoso to go to Atletico. This is clearly not what Zidane had in mind when he came back.

It’s clearly not. It’s an audible. I’m just glad he’s trying something instead of insisting that the old dudes will figure it out soon.

Hermoso would’ve been great for this formation though

It's actually not a bad idea.  You don't need only pure CBs to play centrally in a 352.  You can have Mendy and Casemiro fill in there.  Then there's Nacho (sigh) of course.

Assuming you play a 3 man back with Varane-Ramos-Militao, it does 3 big things:

Ramos can roam as part of the scheme (he does it anyhow)

Marcelo doesn't need to cover so much ground as a fullback and play further up (he does't it anyhow too lol; so not much change there).

Hazard is also better when he's near or around the box.  So playing next to Benzema is actually better suited for him.

IF we sign Neymar, you can put him right behind Hazard and Benz while putting two of Casemiro/Modric/Kroos as deeper playing mids.

It's not bad. We don't have any forward who's comfortable playing on the right with or without Neymar. This scheme eliminates that need too.

Not to worry ZZ will scour the french league for a CB on deadline day

It's not a bad idea but it clearly was an idea that was not part of his initial thoughts. In my own cynical point of view, I think after he saw us actually put down a good performance vs Redbull, he is now going with a 3 man backline. Don't mind we are only equipped for a 2 man backline for an entire season.

I expect another CB signing or at least a loan option.