Real Madrid

A last-gasp goal by Guti spared Real Madrid’s blushes and prevented the indignity of extra time at the Bernabéu against a side currently playing two divisions lower. In a devalued competition where the odds are stacked in favour of the bigger sides with the return legs of ties being staged on their turf, there are question marks about the depth of Real Madrid’s squad.

Coming so soon after certain triumphalist statements in the press about aiming for the “treble” (League, Cup and Champions League), it highlights that one good game does not make a season, and one bad game can help ruin it. This is not the same side that played against Barcelona. It featured precious few of the same players. As in the first leg in Alicante, Schuster provided an opportunity to some of those players getting less minutes in the league to show that they are a valid alternative to the starting eleven. Given their performances at Madrid and Alicante, the manager will have to reconsider if he truly wants to give this competition a chance.

The headlines should have all been about Arjen Robben’s first goal for Real Madrid. His technical qualities have been overshadowed by his physical fragility and he has been threatening to turn into an expensive mistake on the scale of Jonathan Woodgate (whose time at Middlesbrough has been recently hampered by mysterious bouts of cramp). The goal came from a delicate chip from Higuaín over a defender to set up Robben for a good finish.

Instead, it was a catalogue of missed opportunities (Soldado was clearly trying too hard to impress; we know he can put those kinds of chances away) and a lack of commitment and focus once they’d scored, that allowed Alicante to fight their way back into a game they should never have had a hope of winning. The usual headlong rush in the last half-hour to get a winner almost let the visitors maintain their hitherto unbeaten record against Real Madrid, but Guti’s touch of class 10 seconds from extra time served to paper over the cracks. As would have you believe that the reserves did their job well. It must be said that a couple (Balboa, Higuaín) had decent performances, but, as for the rest… well, As must have been watching a different game.

The draw for the next two rounds is on Friday [Update: Real will face Mallorca, first away and then at home], and the ties will be played in mid-week for the next 4 weeks to determine the semi-finalists before January is out. The treble is on… but only just.

It may be the season of peace and goodwill, but all such thoughts of truce are soon put aside when it comes to a game of football between Barcelona and Real Madrid. For only the second time since 1984, the Madrid side emerged victorious and dealt a hammer blow to Barcelona’s league hopes, putting seven points between the two sides and ensuring the honorary title of “Winter Champions” at the championship’s half-way point. It is by no means a decisive result; they never are this early in the season, but the psychological fall-out at the Nou Camp may become apparent once the winter transfer window opens on January 1st (is Ronaldinho now officially Ronaldo Mk. II?).

Plenty has been said elsewhere about the game itself (check out Steve’s Liveblog and Corey’s review at The Offside). Having watched Baptista’s goal countless times, I am still not sure whether his final touch was a stroke of genius finishing or slightly fluffed. I was also really impressed by Pepe’s certainty at the back (and even coming forward occasionally!), taking some (but not all) of the heat off Casillas.

Meanwhile, back in Madrid, Schuster can eat his turkey and turrón, and even his grapes on New Year’s Eve having bought himself some breathing space (that is all he can ever do at the helm of this turbulent club). The seven league games before the Champions League restarts in February will give him a chance to consolidate the league leadership.

Real Madrid’s second-string side failed to impress after being given a run-out in the competition that time forgot. Their opponents, Alicante, have never lost against the Madrid side, although their win in their only previous encounter, a friendly in 1956, is hardly the stuff of legends. A collection of the marginalised (Dudek, Drenthe, Soldado), the out-of-favour (Guti, Saviola, Salgado) and those coming back from injury (Metzelder, Heinze) did little to convince their manager to consider them for the upcoming Clásico at Barcelona.

The manager publicly defended his players, claiming in the face of all the evidence that Alicante’s goal came from a “gift” penalty from the referee that should never have been given and that it’s unfair to judge the players on this performance, as they were not used to playing together (there’s no minnows any more, eh Bernd?). Schuster hinted that some of those who played today would also play on Sunday (Guti, perhaps?) but he said nothing about whether they would be starting.

In the end Balboa saved the team’s blushes with a header off a corner kick in the last minute of the game. The return leg will be played at the Bernabéu on January 2nd.

It was the trophy the galácticos could not win. The Copa del Rey, the oldest football trophy in Spain, has seen its status increasingly devalued over the years. Whenit was originally conceived in 1902, it was the only national football competition; this remained the case until the creation of the league championship in 1928. Winning it now “merely” grants access to the UEFA cup, which is presumably why most top clubs, Real Madrid included, field an under-strength side until the semifinal stages. More recently, Michel Platini, now UEFA president, had to postpone his plans to persuade national federations to nominate cup winners for entry to the Champions League, a move which could have helped to revive ailing cup competitions around Europe.

More importantly, unlike the FA Cup in England, the rounds involving top flight sides are played over two legs, with the second leg always played at the home ground of the team in the higher division. This clearly tilts the balance in favour of the bigger clubs and diminishes the chances of an upset, one of the beauties of any cup competitions as opposed to the league championship, which rewards consistency.

None of the current members of the Real Madrid squad have ever won the Copa del Rey. You have to go back to the 26th June 1993, nearly 15 years ago, for the last time the club won this competition. The squad list for Real Madrid that night is like delving into the history books: Buyo, Chendo, Nando, Sanchis, Lasa, Míchel, Hierro, Milla, Villarroya, Butragueño, Alfonso. Ramis and Esnáider came on as substitutes in the second half and Butragueño and Lasa were the scorers in the 2-0 win against Zaragoza. Curiously, Real’s starting eleven was composed exclusively of Spanish players, unthinkable these days (it was pretty rare even then). Only after Argentine Esnáider came on for Alfonso in the second half was the symmetry “broken”.

Real have reached the final twice since that day. In 2002, the club somehow managed to persuade the federation to stage the final at the Bernabéu to celebrate Real’s centenary. Deportivo played party poopers that night in the infamous centenariazo where they came off 2-1 winners. More recently, in 2004, a galáctico-laden side (including Roberto Carlos, Figo, Beckham and Zidane) lost out to revenge-fuelled Zaragoza after an extra-time winner put them 3-2 ahead. That 17th March game marked perhaps the beginning of the end for the galáctico era, as Real Madrid was up until then on course to win three competitions (they were leading the league championship and still in the Champions League) and ended up 4th in the league and knocked out of the CL by a Morientes-led Monaco a mere three weeks later.

On Wednesday, Real will play Alicante, a side who have never played in the top division and who have spent most of their 90-year history in the lowly Tercera División (actually the fourth tier of divisions in Spain). They currently play one step above that, so are expected to pose little trouble to Real’s reserve side. But then again, it is the beauty of cup football that a “lesser” highly motivated side can always upset a more skillful side who does not take them or the competition seriously.

In a report in Spanish daily ABC earlier this week, it was revealed that Real Madrid captain Raúl has been making use of a hypoxic chamber to simulate atmospheric conditions at altitude to improve his stamina. Scientific studies show that reducing the concentration of oxygen in the air breathed stimulates the number of red blood cells produced by the body, which in turn improve athletic performance after returning to normal oxygen levels, as more of the oxygen is made available to working muscles.

According to the paper, Raúl now sleeps (or spends up to eight hours a day) in one such chamber in his house. One wonders whether his wife is inclined to join him in the experiment.

Three years ago, Florentino Pérez’s then sporting director, Emilio Butragueño brought the idea of using such chambers for the first team players from his time in the USA, where they are more commonly used for athletes. The club looked at acquiring several but discarded the idea as too costly (around 20,000 euros each) and too hard to properly monitor their use.

The idea seems to have stayed with Raúl who has apparently been using one for the past year, possibly explaining his much improved recent level of fitness (and perhaps related to why Schuster has been reluctant to include him in his rotations very frequently). Raúl’s also improved form, on the other hand, probably owes more to the fact that he’s been played in his more natural position for the first time in several years. The fact that he also no longer features in Luis Aragonés’s plans in the national side has reduced his playing (and travelling) commitments somewhat.

The ethics of using device such as hypoxic tents or chambers to simulate altitude training have been discussed by the World Doping Agency, who, in 2006 decided not to prohibit their use citing medical evidence, although it has been suggested it may have also had something to do with the logistics of testing and enforcing a ban. They are however banned in both Italy and France.

When Italy beat West Germany in the 1982 World Cup final, few could have predicted that more than a generation would have to pass before the venue, the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, could once again host an event of similar magnitude. The Bernabéu, which turns 60 this December, was recently added by UEFA to their “Elite Stadium” list, making it eligible to host the Champions League final.

The Real Madrid stadium has hosted the final of the top European club competition three times (1957, 1969 and 1980), but only in its previous incarnation as the European Cup, never as the Champions League. The final venues for the 2008 and 2009 editions have already been chosen, and the Bernabéu will face stiff competition from the new Wembley, Munich’s Allianz Arena, Berlin’s Olympiastadion, and Valencia’s own Mestalla for the 2010 final. The decision will not be made by UEFA until March of next year.

The Bernabéu was inaugurated on December 14th 1947, when Real Madrid played against the Portuguese side Os Belenenses. The initial ground capacity was 75,432. Initially named Nuevo Estadio Chamartín after its earlier incarnation located in Madrid’s district of that name, it was renamed in honour of its then president on January 4th 1955, prior to Real Madrid’s unequalled run of success in the European Cup.

In 1953, due to enormous demand from the fans, the stadium was extended with a third amphitheatre (known as the “gallinero”, or “henhouse”). During Real’s golden period, in the 1950s and 1960s, the ground held crowds of up to 120,000, mostly standing. On the international scene, the Spanish national side won its only official title thus far in the Bernabéu, beating the U.S.S.R. in the final of the European Nations Championship in 1964.

In the early 1980s, the ground saw its first major refurbishment to bring it up to the standard necessary to become a World Cup venue. The façade and access to the ground were modernised, and a cover was added, decreasing the capacity to about 90,000. The distinctive access towers were added during further work carried out in 1992. Once again, the capacity increased above 100,000, to 106,500.

However, according to Spanish legislation and new UEFA rules, from the 1998/99 season, all stadia had to be converted to be all-seater. Real Madrid was one of the few Spanish clubs unable to complete all the necessary alterations in time and they were granted a 2-year extension by UEFA to make the changes, reducing the stadium capacity to just under 75,000. Recent work to the stadium has once again increased the capacity to 80,354, but it has been other changes which have brought it recognition from UEFA: The Presidential Balcony was relocated to the East Stand in order to be in the same area as the press zone, the dressing rooms and all the club’s administrative offices. Other changes include the new “Multipurpose” building which houses its own press and board rooms and the new Real Madrid store, the panoramic elevators and the escalators in the access towers.

Curiously, no indication that these changes could bring the desired acknowledgement from UEFA was given at the recent AGM. The alterations have been cumulative, rather than as a result of some heavily hyped grand design (compare with the proposed redesign of Barcelona’s Nou Camp by Norman Foster) and so it is difficult to judge whether they form part of an overall vision to guarantee the stadium’s future as a venue of international renown. They will, however, suffice for now.

Bernd Schuster learnt (or learned, take your pick) something this week: not all football managers are created alike. If on Wednesday, Schuster’s double pivot took apart Óscar Fernández’s Valencia, on Saturday the same starting eleven were comprehensively beaten by Sevilla. So, does Schuster have any idea who is responsible for such a turnaround in fortunes?

However, it’s not the game itself I want to write about, other than to say that Real were not that wonderful against Valencia, and, by the same measure, they were not that wretched against Sevilla. The team is starting to click together better than at the beginning of the season. How far they have yet to go is anybody’s guess.

It was Schuster’s off the cuff statement, in the post-match press conference, that has raised hackles across Spain and left him once again in the media spotlight. He’s been railing against the media for some weeks now, perhaps in a Mourinho-style attempt to take the attention away from the players and onto himself and thus relieve them of the usual pressures. But blaming the referee’s allegedly poor performance on his place of birth really takes the biscuit: “Is he Catalan? Well, there’s nothing more to say“. As Sid Lowe, and many others have pointed out, this is the same referee that gave Real more than a little helping hand in their defeat of Almería back in September, which goes to show that Alfonso Álvarez Izquierdo is probably just not a very good referee, but then, that’s par for the course in Spain. Guti added more fuel to the fire by claiming that it had not been a defeat, but simple robbery. Given that he narrowly escaped a red card for elbowing an opponent, he has little to complain about, other than the fact it was probably frustration at being expertly hacked about all night by Sevilla’s defence.

But now, the media circus has turned into a farce. Against all the video evidence, Schuster tried the next day to deny he had said anything about blaming the referee for the defeat and that it was all blatant misinterpretation by the press. Then, the president of the association of catalan referees (do they really need one?), César Ochoa, wanted the Anti-Violence commission to investigate the matter as it could be seen as incitement to violence. And now, a catalan political party, Convergència i Unió are surprised, saddened and angry at Schuster and want him fined by the Spanish Federation. To be fair, the politician in question also said it was probably something that had nothing to do with the referee being Catalan and more to do with Schuster being a bad loser. He also expressed disappointment that the Real Madrid president had not shown some class by making the club’s position on the matter clear, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.

So what did Mr. Álvarez Izquierdo think of the matter? “It was a heat of the moment thing. It has no relevance for me“. Maybe he’s not such a bad egg after all.

It’s been many years since Valencia lost by such a margin of goals at home (1933, in fact), but then, it’s been many years since Valencia played with a diamond formation in midfield and the defensive line pushed forward to contribute to attacking duties. They didn’t play like that under Cúper, or Ranieri, or Benítez, or Quique. For years the Valencia side has been a byword for solidity in defence. Last night, interim coach Óscar Fernández was given a very public baptism of fire and a lesson in top flight football tactics. It wasn’t an attacking formation designed to give the Mestalla public the kind of spectacle they’d been hoping to see, it was suicide.

Bernd Schuster must have been rubbing his hands in glee. Not only had Valencia lost their more than competent manager three days previously for reasons only Juan Soler, the Valencia president, can comprehend, he was also facing a Valencia side depleted by injuries and a rookie manager who had already made public how his side was going to play. Schuster therefore deployed his forces to make the most of Real’s strengths and to exploit Valencia’s weaknesses.

Diarra and Gago formed a double pivot in midfield, much as Capello did last season, except he used Emerson instead of the Argentine. Together they completely neutralised Valencia’s most dangerous midfield player, Silva and reduced him to a defensive role, continuously fouling Guti to try to get the ball back. The difference with the Capello set-up was that Gago clearly feels more comfortable in this kind of arrangement and was a vital source of well played balls to the more forward positions. Guti had the space and time to put the ball where he wanted, which he did to devastating effect several times. Sneijder, on the bench again, was not missed.

Within 41 seconds of the start, Raúl had put the league leaders in front. Within half an hour, Valencia were 3-0 down with Van Nistelrooy humiliating former team-mate Helguera, who had a nightmare of a game, and deftly chipping over Hildebrand, followed by Sergio Ramos finding an impossible angle to score from. The Dutch number 9 added his second before the end of the half and Valencia’s fate was sealed.

Real took their foot off the pedal after the restart but still Valencia looked completely lost on the pitch. It was sheer persistence by Joaquín, probably the home side’s best player, which saw him beat Marcelo on the wing and cross for Angulo to put it past Casillas.

With his mind clearly on the Sevilla game on Saturday, Schuster decided to give some of his key players a rest, bringing on Baptista and Torres for Van Nistelrooy and Ramos respectively. He had earlier substituted Marcelo, bringing on Heinze, as the Brazilian youngster was on a yellow and looking like he might leave his side a man down. In the end it was Valencia who finished the game with ten men, as Albiol was sent off for bringing down Robinho when he was the last defender. It could have meant Robinho’s second goal, as he had put Real’s fifth goal up on the scoreboard shortly after the hour mark.

It made Schuster’s comments the previous day, comparing Real Madrid with Roger Federer, seem a little less arrogant than they may at first have seemed: “I’m very happy because we are playing like a top side. We toy with our rivals and when we have to go up a gear, we do that and win games. I see Federer and he does the same thing. He toys with his rivals.” It wasn’t quite a tennis score, but it wasn’t far off. Sevilla is unlikely to make the same tactical mistakes, but they are also a team in transition and followed up their 3-0 defeat of Valencia at the weekend with a 4-3 defeat at the hands of Atlético Madrid last night.