Real Madrid v. Valencia - Copa del Rey - Quarterfinals- First Leg - 1/15/2013

Khedira has shown a softer first touch of late and I hope it continues but I won't pretend he has regularly demonstrated this in more than two years at the club. That might be down to Mou anyway.

 

I thought Ballack retired because he lost his captaincy and all the controversy that followed. Ballack was a beast in his day and almost single handedly carried Bayer Leverkusen to a CL final and Germany to a WC final in the same year. Total nonsense comparing him with Khedira as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to get into the history of the position with Germany because I don't follow the league or teams very closely and you will probably come back with a quote from 2007.

I'm talking about the players current form or at least since Khedira became a Madrid player. Ballack hadn't been on our radar since circa 2005, LOL.

 

Which is another valid point, not every team plays with a player of Khedira's position whatever that may be called. At Juventus Vidal is closest to that although he is not nearly as physically imposing he brings much more on the ball efficiency than Khedira. In the end these are only opinions and I have my own (which happens to be the correct one ) .

 

A player who is a regular for a major NT,
and also happen to play for respectable club
well he must be one of the best in the world in his position.
In the next couple of years Sami will get even better.

 

Lol @ Khedira comments. He is average at best.

 

At lest he can run with the ball at his feet for more than two meters without tripping himself .

 

Sure

 

Khedira has a job to do and he does it. Every restaurant needs buss boys and dishwashers but Khedira is not the chef, the barrista, or the concierge of Real Madrid.

 

And every village needs an idiot, thankfully we have plenty...

 

I gotta say, I was hating on Khedira a lot, and even though I still think he got logs for feet, he has been one of our most impressive and consistent players this season. I like him now that he is let loose by Mourinho, I wish he would be a bit smarter in his distribution and calmer in his finishing.

 

[in denial of current form]Has Khedira really become better, or does he look better because everybody else got worse? [/in denial of current form]

 

Quite the standards we set at the best club in the world for a starting midfielder, at the best club in the world.

Aslong as he's not "f'ing terrible" he's coo?

This is Real Madrid, we want to be Number1, Khedira isnt that caliber of player.

We're the team that wants to topple Barcelona, and Khedira is good enough? Wtf are you people talking about?

 

He's great and all, but I wish he was a lot better too..

We going up against Xavi's & Iniestas with Khediras..

 

In all seriousness though, it seems it is more of a tactical switch. Khedira pushes much higher up now, and makes those late runs into the box which got him many goal scoring chances.

 

Khedira is always a solid player for us. He isn't doing anything that he hasn't done in the past season except going forward a lot more which everyone seems to be excited about. Got to give him tons of credit for his impeccable positioning. However, while his stats in term of goals and assists is improved, I don't see he's that much effective going forward in the sense of how much he could capitalize from it. Due to his limitation, for everytime he got into dangerous area in the box, it's more often he failed to do any damage instead of actually made life harder for the opponent. For every goals and assists he made recently, there were more moment where he missed a perfect opportunity to shoot or spot his teammates. I cringed everytime I saw those, hoping it was a better attacker, for example: Benzema, who's there instead of Khedira.

His contribution in attack is improved, but in comparison to how many times he got into the box and got an opportunity to do damage, it doesn't seem too effective to me. Especially with some of our true attackers who likely would do better with Khedira's opportunity playing too deep for my liking. Wouldn't it better to give the role to the ones who's best to do it? Especially Khedira is much more valuable further back. Sure Khedira going forward adds the element of surprise to our attack, but I would like him to do that just occassionaly while focus on midfield solidity, the build up, ball recovery, and protecting defense. Hence our true attackers could and should attack the box more often and not too worry much about the build up, etc.

 

You make some very good points that I agree with however this still leaves a hole in your argument. Benzema and Ozil do not make these runs into the box either because they don't see the channels or they are to lazy. I think it has more to do with their style of play where they like balls to the feet and not to be chasing them at full speed. They seem to prefer a slower more methodical approach.

Higuain and Kaka making those runs into the box very well. They know how to time their runs and they know where to make the runs. Now throw Ronaldo into the mix and you have three players who will start their runs from different positions and finish in the same place at the same time. Ozil and Benzema provide the throught balls without which those runs into the box would be for nothing. We need a Ronaldo would be more willing to pass and a Benzema more willing to run. For the time being however we've got Khedira looking like the bull in a china shop.

This is why Di Maria had looked so good and had been so useful. Ditto Marcelo. They can both drible the ball under pressure, find the open man, and make the final pass in addition. They can completely open up and exploit a defense plus they get back and defend well. I think everyone saw the other night how much of a difference Marcelo makes. He hustles back on defense and going forward he's just as good as any of our attackers. Marcelo gives us something no one else in the team can.