This season versus last season

When you say "the CBs under Carlo played a lot lower" which example are you using the support than argument? second half home CL game vs city? or last game of the season away at depor?

Just overall...   Because Alonso/Kroos was the holding mid, the CBs were playing it very safe.  It's pretty typical because holding mids in Serie A are often the playmakers (Pirlo, Marchisio, Motta), etc.  

Zidane tried that a little bit but, because Kroos was out of form and our fullbacks were defensively poor generally other than Carvajal...  he switched up.  He put a DM in there allowing the CBs to be more aggressive and push up.  The DM also provided cover for errors from the fullbacks.

That's something I didn't understand with Rafa.  He did put Casemiro in there... but didn't adjust the scheme at all.  He just wanted him to play like Kroos.  Well, he can't do that.  Zidane brought all the players closer together so that Casemiro could quickly and safely move the ball to either Modric or Kroos when he got it...

I'll say it again...  Carlo was headed towards a Rafa level failure...  Di Maria saved his arse.  We were terrible in the first 3 months of his tenure.  But kudos to him for finding the solution and kudos to the players for recovering.

lest we forget, rafa actually played bale as an attacking midfielder ....let's not act like he had some elaborate plan/good intentions that players just misunderstood. he played bale as an attacking midfielder in a "formation" that defied description and we all complained about it....yes, his tenure here was a bunch of clown sh** and even those who wanted him to coach us have admitted it. let's not rewrite history

I agree with Sport that our CBs play higher up under ZZ than Carlo. Pepe has alot more freedom to run up with the ball much to adit's dismay i might add. But I also have to agree with Nick, ZZ just went back to what we played under Carlo, he just added defensive solidity by sometimes being Rafa level defensive but it is his first few months in a top league so I'll overlook that, clearly he is being proactive and understandably so

It is easy to say, well we had an easy run, Carlo would have gotten us to the final too but who are we to know that, we may even have finished 2nd in the group under him and taken a different route, who knows. But what I do know is that rotations this season has been much better than the last 2 and we have a bunch of cantera players on the bench. I know for a fact that Carlo would not have trusted them. Heck ZZ started Mayoral in important game. That's one think ZZ has over Carlo along with better defending

Rafa tried something new when he should have just continued with what we knew best. Bale is not a playmaker, lord knows why he played him as an AM. I like what he did with Benz but he had the most awkward man managememt ability, it is like everything he said was taken as an offence rather than constructive critiscism. He just mismanaged the whole team starting from the back:
-Telling the best CB in the world that he is nothing more than a third choice
-Putting Carvajal as a back up to flipping Danilo
-Blaming Ramos in the media rather than privately
-Asking Isco to score more
-The whole James debacle
-Playing Bale as an AM over the 50 AMs we already have in the squad
-Trying to show a goal machine like Ronaldo how to score goals
-Playing Catenaccio whenever we went a goal up be it we scored in the 1st min or last it did not matter

And now he is walking around saying he has to work extra hard because he isnt a former player (subtle dig at ZZ who has done in 3 months what Rafa couldnt do in half a season). But what I will give him credit for is trusting our bench. Because imagine if ZZ had never seen them play prior to his appointment, he is unlikely to have played them then imo

sportsczy wrote:That's not what happened...  CR was upset because Rafa made Benzema the primary goalscoring target as opposed to him.  So you saw CR's totals go way down while Benz went way up.  Pouted like the child CR is, stopped playing hard and started his little insurrection with Marcelo, Pepe and James.  Once Zidane came on, he re-emphasized CR as the primary goalscorer and Benz took a secondary role per usual.  CR's goals went way up while Benz' dropped.  ZZ didn't do this because it was the right thing to do tactically... he did it because it was the only way to unite the locker room given how selfish CR is.

It was very obvious.  That's the cancer CR can be.

Our attack is a zero sum game.  You can't score more than 110ish La Liga goals per season.  That's already amazing as it is.  So if someone is going to score more, another player or players have to score less.  You can't just say that one player needs to step it up and we should score 130 goals for a season.  It's impossible.  Even Barca only scored 112.  Heck, we scored 118 last season and it was absolutely crazy (Barca had 110).

The idea is to have as many players in top form as possible so you have multiple threats in the big games.  It's not about how many each score in a season unless our team totals are low... which they are absolutely not.

That's always been my issue with CR.  He needs to sacrifice himself and only score 40ish goals per season so the other guys can get their 30.  If he's going for 60, well that means all those opportunities and shots are going to him, not the others.  Hence Bale and Benz are at 20-25... not to mention our attack isn't diversified.  Come the big games where he flopped, we didn't have any of the other guys ready to step in since they were playing such secondary roles... not to mention the team wasn't used to looking to set up the other guys.

You can't just change things and ask players to play different roles like a light switch.  It's a team game.  So the team has to practice and practice the manner in which they attack and how they identify scoring opportunities.  If they are primarily used to looking at one player for 95% of the games and he's not there for those 5%...  well, the team isn't ready to cope.  If the team was more balanced and the scoring load was carried by 2-3 guys all season, then when one is having a bad game, it's not a huge problem to compensate.

Unbelievable! I don't know which is more frightening: you presenting your own assumptions as facts about what went wrong under Rafa, or the fact that you're trying so hard to come up with explanations as to why Benzema isn't scoring as much as you'd like.

I hope you realize the seriousness of the situation here. You present your own assumptions as facts with no proof to back them up, and you tend to cherry pick only facts that fit your pre-existing views. I thought you were a serious poster and I didn't expect this from you.

Let me now, if I may, give my take on this:

1. If there's anybody from our front three who needs to be sold it's Benzema. I have always said that the BBC should be sold. But unlike Benzema, Ronaldo and Bale redeemed themselves and gave us reasons to loosen the grip a little bit.

Benzema is by far the player with the most excuses. When Ronaldo and Bale play bad, everybody, including myself, rains down criticism on them. But when Benzema plays bad, you make sure to blame somebody else. It's either him playing through injury, or Ronaldo taking all the shots, or the hole in the ozone layer making him uncomfortable. But you want the truth? Here it is:

Benzema isn't a goalscorer. In fact, he's isn't a creator either. That's just an excuse his fans invented to help them sleep at night. The only thing that was good about him is his link-up play, but now he doesn't seem to be possessing that quality either. He's a relatively good CF now that the market has regressed, but in comparison to gods like R9, he wouldn't even be a ballboy.

The reason he's not scoring as much as Suarez is because he can't. People like you used to say the same thing about Messi and how the team is built around him and how it is impossible to score more with him around. Then Suarez came along and score 51 goals in one season. The excuse now is that Messi "let" Suarez score all those goals. Yeah right.

Ronaldo is many things, but his goals were absolutely vital for us because nobody else can score as much as him. Even if he somehow were to "let" Benzema score, the Frenchman won't reach 50 goals because he simply can't. He's unbelievably lazy, slow and his work rate is laughable in comparison to Suarez's. He's the weakest link in the BBC.

As for Z, let me tell you something, he made no tactical revolution. You'd like to believe that because he's your idol. What he did was borrowing some of Carlo's blueprints while making some slight tweaks to them and calming the waters. He also made Ronaldo and Bale are track back and defend. Not so much with Benzema because that guy is a lost cause. He's benching high-profile players because he seems to have all the power. And he's loved by the players. But as far as tactics go, he didn't pull out a masterstroke from a hat.

Benzema, along with Pep and Ibra, are probably the most excused people in football today for what it looks like an infinite amount of reasons. And Rafa sucked dog balls during his tenure at Madrid and I'm a fan of his. Not only was the "new" stuff pointless and useless but, not for the first time mind you, Rafa fell out with the majority of his senior players including Isco which I'm surprised was even possible. So the one thing he is really good at (tactics) sucked, his man management was exactly how I imagined and on the field results were dog poo. Benzema and Bale playing decent to good under him doesn't rewrite history.

Quite frankly, all this talk about Rafa is blighting our team and we should focus on the other topics.

Condescending response to sportsczy's post from Demon of Carthage.
This is a forum and its annoying the way some people respond to other people's posts.
Some arguments may be downright ridiculous, but there are less harsh ways to respond. He presented his opinion as facts, and cherry-picked some facts, but you dont need to respond to him in such manner. maybe if it were Chad441, it will be justified...LMAO!

@chad441
seriously, why do you respond to every post in a combative manner.
Its like chad vs madridistas worldwide. We are your friends and we love you..LMAO!! calm down a bit.

@Demon of Carthage
i know you are very hurt ZZ did not come with any tactical revolution and you will go to any length to remove the bias lense through which most madrid fans see him.

I know it hurts to see your greatest rival come up with one, but you have to accept reality as it is or you end up being nothing more than a Perez disciple - searching for an ideal that does not exist, firing every coach, bringing in new players every season, rather than building patiently.

you said "What he did was borrowing some of Carlo's blueprints while making some slight tweaks to them and calming the waters" which is exactly what we needed/need
I believe Perez hired him in an attempt to repair the Carlo mistake.

We do not exactly need a tactical revolution, we can survive without one.
It doesnt hurt to keep searching, to try without fail, all it takes is to fire another 10 coaches in 10 years and a billion dollars on transfers and maybe we will find one.
Seriously, lets just trust ZZ and hope he ends the vicious cycle

shadexticos wrote:Condescending response to sportsczy's post from Demon of Carthage.

Could you please delineate the condescension in my post please? I'll make sure to apologize right away if you could point it out.

to be fair, zidane has only been in the job for a few months....with the state of the squad, and the fact he hasn't had his hands in the transfer market, expecting any sort of revolution from zidane in these few months is too high an aspiration. florentino brought him in for damage control, and he has done quite well. hell, he has surpassed what i expected, even though as some will mention, the footy hasn't been pretty, but we've gotten results, tough ones too

when zidane has a chance to go in the market, sell players he doesn't want, promote players he does, and build a formation to his liking maybe we'll see the 'revolution' people want; as long as it doesn't get in the way of results, i'm fine...i know at a club like madrid, fans want flair. but when you've watched your rivals become the dominant team in the last 11 years, then you can't fault one for being very result oriented

Zidane should get another season based on the results.

Based on football tactics? I'm not sure. I'll give him the benefit of doubt because of the midway takeover. One thing is sure, he hasn't brought any tactical masterclass here, which is understandable.

What I want to see is completely different brand of football than what we are playing right now. I want us to have the tactical advantage the likes of Bayern, Bvb and Barca have currently.... A good tactical structure with very defined roles for players.

I agree with Sportzy on Rafa topic. CR walked half a season to get him sacked. His work rate magically improved under Zidane. Form and work rate is completely different things.

I however think he is clutching at straws about Benzemas lack of goals in second half of season. May be it affected but no way a CF should experience such a drop in scoring rate. It's not like he suddenly started assisting when he stopped scoring, both went down.

Carlo Madrid with the James Isco Modric and Kroos 442 and cr7 benz would obliterate this current team. with relative ease in fact. But by no means is this a bad team. Zidane Madrid still is a great team. but not a dominating one.

We looked good for the most part. Carlo's Madrid when everyone actually played their role and wasnt jaded was a dominating football team. is this thread rhetorical? only reason last year was a bomb was lack of rotation and key injuries. otherwise we would have swept title after title.

what do you guys think of ancelotti's revelation that bale's agent went to florentino perez to complain about the position his client was being played, and florentino in turn summoning ancelotti asking if he could play bale in the middle, to which carlo refused? could that be the reason rafa insisted on playing bale down the middle? to me it's kind of ironic. ancelotti would have been the one i expected to give into florentino's demand, seeing as he was viewed as a 'president's man', one who doesn't rock the boat. and rafa is the one i expected not to give in, based on his reputation for wanting to do things his way...what do you guys think? i didn't know where to post this, and i was surprised nobody had brought it up ever since the report came out

Carlo is fine with the team making personnel decisions... but he won't let anyone tell him how to play the team.  He was like this at PSG and it was the ultimate reason he left.  The PSG president was unhappy with the team's style and results early on and had heated arguments with him. Carlo didn't give in. The PSG president was right btw.

So it's not all that surprising.

But.....  will Flo ever learn ffs

Turns out, Rafa sucked and Zidane is awesome after all.