CL Final: Undecima, here we come!

i think we actually had that conversation either before or after the atletico match we lost @ home if i'm not mistaken...let's not get ahead of ourselves though, this doesn't mean we should expect every castilla to play like him. what i like most about the kid is his attitude, when he stepped up for the first pk i think i was even more frightened than him. i kept telling my girl (who wasn't interested) and our kids "how can u put a novice to take your first pk"? trust me, other youngsters or even professionals would have frozen. you guys got me on that one, touche. james and isco smh, they probably got more talent than the guy but he's got attitude......i hope he keeps it up, so that someone doesn't come next season and say "you were hyping lucas". giving props doesn't equate to "hyping"

Yup we all did and as much as I love James, I love the club more.

No player will change that and Lucas this entire season has been killing it and well deserved praise for him all around

titosantill wrote:i think we actually had that conversation either before or after the atletico match we lost @ home if i'm not mistaken...let's not get ahead of ourselves though, this doesn't mean we should expect every castilla to play like him. what i like most about the kid is his attitude, when he stepped up for the first pk i think i was even more frightened than him. i kept telling my girl (who wasn't interested) and our kids "how can u put a novice to take your first pk"? trust me, other youngsters or even professionals would have frozen. you guys got me on that one, touche. james and isco smh, they probably got more talent than the guy but he's got attitude......i hope he keeps it up, so that someone doesn't come next season and say "you were hyping lucas". giving props doesn't equate to "hyping"

While you can't expect all castilla to play like this, castilla are more likely to give players that want to fight for the team. Sometimes that fight can make up for lack of talent. Either way, it's the sort of thing that should give them first dibs at rotation spots (for the very least) when they're at or approaching a point where they could reasonably expect to be picked for a la liga team. I'm by no means advocating throwing in castilla just for the sake of it, but when they're ready or hinting at being ready, they deserve a chance to make a case.

When I saw Lucas taking the first penalty I knew that we were going to win

Luis *bleep* FIGO

Two-time European champion at 24. I would expect nothing less from the best RB in the world.

BTW the jury is still out on the real reason he cried last night as he was leaving the pitch due to injury: was it because he wanted to bleed even more for his beloved club and was crushed that he couldn't, or was it because he saw Danilo warming up and felt bad for us

But seriously though, that picture and that smile? I'm really happy for him. Enjoy Dani, you've earned it

I have seen a lot of criticism of individual players over this past season and I would like to point out that most of the heavily criticised were excellent yesterday, Ramos, Marcelo, Kroos, Casemiro and Bale. I also thought Modric was great yesterday esp. In first half plus Lucas in 2nd half.

There is criticism today being thrown at Ronaldo and Benz, but they both were injured, in case you forgot, which can explain some of the flaws you were observing. It does seem as if a player playing with injury doesn't even enter your mind when this criticism flows!!

The only players that didn't perform well yesterday were Danilo and Isco and Pepe's embellishments were embarrassing.

But why criticise at all, can't you just enjoy?

Keylor: "I'd like to thank god, the fax machine and my teammates".

futbol_bill wrote:I have seen a lot of criticism of individual players over this past season and I would like to point out that most of the heavily criticised were excellent yesterday, Ramos, Marcelo, Kroos, Casemiro and Bale. I also thought Modric was great yesterday esp. In first half plus Lucas in 2nd half.

There is criticism today being thrown at Ronaldo and Benz, but they both were injured, in case you forgot, which can explain some of the flaws you were observing. It does seem as if a player playing with injury doesn't even enter your mind when this criticism flows!!

The only players that didn't perform well yesterday were Danilo and Isco and Pepe's embellishments were embarrassing.

But why criticise at all, can't you just enjoy?

I think this is a symptom of modern times. too many people complain and nitpick over the silliest things. the standards or rather the perception of standards has changed. With the advent of communication and bloody twitter, intelligible discourse has decreased.

of course, there is a time and place for criticism and some do deserve to be criticized but in recent times such has been blown way out of proportion.

I think the consistency of certain players and the nostalgia of players of old may have bent or twisted our perceived standards or preconceived notions of who or what are world class. elite, gifted, good, etc.

Having said that, these are the facts as I understand them:

We're the european champions once again.
We've proven with the UCL triumph to be the top dog of Europe. To be UCL champions is to be the best. And we are it.

Everyone, even danilo who I thought had a better game in the final than the games before did their very best. and with these champions of ours we claimed the 2nd CL title in 3 years.

CR7 is el comandante, Ramos proves once again that he is the best cb around. Can't complain when the boys bring home the silver. I reckon it's time the criticisms stop. All things considered, we had an incredible season considering how it was started. Won the CL, Lost the league only by 1 point, CDR was management incompetence related. Honestly can't complain how things turned out. could have been much worse.

I think the criticism of pepe is unfair.
He had a stellar game.
He was unlucky that Torres out-smarted him by throwing his leg in front of him.

The only criticism of Pepe was his play acting or embellishment. That was actually embarrassing, at least laughable. Did you see the look on ref's face the second time? But that's not to say there wasn't embellishment with Atleti as well. Pepe just went too far twice!

And I agree completely about Zidane and tactics. And yet in general forum there are those (and Nick) saying Zidane doesn't have any tactics!!!

It's infuriating Bill. Zidane apparently fluked his way to the CL trophy and the 12 straight La Liga wins to end the season

Sports, don't take it too hard, they are just making those statements to troll you! And Nick, he just makes these kind of statements (from time to time) to initiate contraversy and to goat you into predicable reaction. With Nick, we agree 90% of the time so I think he takes these tactics to promote conversation, otherwise he gets bored!

Seems to me you have given me this same sort of advice a few times in the past.

yeah i know...  i'm too emotionally involved here

Going to be an interesting summer mercato.  Since we won the CL...  I fear we will do very little. If this happens, there's very little we can do tactically to change because BBC is very limiting. And then people will say Zidane is boring and unimaginative of course

Agree. BBC will limit every manager in the world. This final again showed they are unproductive and only great thing about the trio as a whole is all of them are aerial threat.. I'm not talking about them individually. They are all world class footballers but collectively they are a tactical disaster imo.

If Zidane with full control on transfers can't destroy bbc once and for all then nobody can.

The one thing that will make an impact is if the midfield is stronger... so it can impose its will on people offensively and defensively. Right now, Kroos is limited defensively and Casemiro is limited offensively. I don't think we should give up on Casemiro because he can develop as he is young. But I think we can upgrade on Kroos.

Other part is Marcelo... i really don't like what he brings. The problem there is that the LB market is so thin. But we need to bring in some real competition for him.

I'd also change one of Ronaldo or Benz but that's just me I guess. Changing both isn't feasible imo.... but one should be.