Glad I'm not the only one perplexed by the decision to take off our best player needing a goal... They very deliberately let Casemiro run free wherever he wanted and I thought he responded very well. It's a disappointing result because there just isn't enough movement off the ball at times, and too often we're squandering possession playing futile passes into players under pressure. I'm much happier losing possession due to a failed attempt to take on a defender 1v1 than forcing a pass into a place where the recipient is being set up for failure. Or pushing it out to the flank to a player who is already double-teamed. Too much of the latter, not enough of the former IMO. (Some of that was due to Bilbao having a really great shape -- but too often our guys are just too conservative about trying to play the killer pass or take on a defender 1v1) Also, Ramos, Varane, and Carvajal were all straight-up bad in this game and were fortunate not to be punished for it.
Pissed off the Mariano wasn't used. Pissed off that Bale was taken off. Pissed off that Ramos took that free kick. But a point here isn't a bad result tbh.
Honestly Bilbao was able to play in such a way because front three basically relapsed into the old ways and were venturing to deep instead of holding positing / depth upfront and as such put pressure on Bilbao. To bad, because Cas had tons of space to win and yet we did nothing meaningful because he did not have any outlets in final third. Eh.
We failed our first significant test of the season. Last season Barca pretty much ran the tables in la liga. Every point conceded is devastating. We should measure our hopes this season because it's a rebuild period. I expect Bale to perform in specifically these types of games because we need him here the most. I was sorely disappointed to not see him score. They suffocated Modric today. He had lost the ball really badly in five or six instances that was very uncharacteristic of him. Hope he puts this game behind him. Our defense is just a buncha forwards who like to pay some defense. I really don't appreciate how easily opposing forwards exploit our halfspaces. Just people switching off their brains.
We are rebuilding without rebuilding. We replaced no one which is fine by me because the quality of the team is obvious. We bought meaningless players on the short-term . To me we cannot hide ourselves if things turn out in a bad way because of a so called rebuild. This is Real Madrid and we should allways win something.
I love how these coaches bring on Lucas V. When they need goals. Are they idiots? Since when has LV ever been good at scoring? He's only good for crosses and drawing penalties.
2 leagues in 7 yrs, man. It tells u where the strong suites are. It's a team that strives on individual brilliance, and now we're relying in a manager that is trying to make it a collective. We'll probably fail a lot before we get it together.
Would have preferred a win, happy to get away with a point, Luka is either not completely fit , or his head is not in it right now, did not look himself out there, not the last game he played to be honest , Toni, Luka ( when fit ) and Casemiro are our best midfield line up and should be used more often than not , especially in difficult away games as has already been noted, i’m still not fully sold on Benz or Gareth, will take a season of consistently good performances for me to believe but I hope for the best, on to the next one
This obsession with Spanish youth might end up costing us. Ceballos over Casemiro and Lucas V over Mariano just makes no sense.
Bale didn't play his A game still I didn't like Lope decision. When Bale left the field our game was over.
He's been a shithead for many years now and is still my most hated player. Scumbag. I don't know how Ramos and the boys can even look that dude in the eye after these matches. Losing points to them is never a good thing, as their supporters hate Madrid and I always want the team to quiet them. Oh well.
Made a slight mistake calling him a “player”, actually he’s just a thug that runs around on the pitch trying to injure people, start trouble or get opposition players sent off, nothing else.
I never wanna wish physical harm on anyone, but sometimes I wouldn't mind Raul Garcia breaking his leg and ending his career. Never say Never, right?
One point from this cursed pitch after NT break with two games - not a bad result. These are the kind of games you need the CR brilliance. Bale is just not there and Benz will never be there.
People complaining about Bale being subbed off, do they know there might be reasons behind this? - Bale doesn't have the gas tank to go after 70 minutes. - UCL is this week and he needs more rest.
I doubt him playing an extra 20 minutes is going to have much affect on his fitness for the next game. Just another footballing trope managers follow but in reality makes little sense. I genuinely believe Julen has no idea who Mariano is, that he is Spanish and had a really good season last year...
Modric was absolutely terrible for Croatia against Spain. So it's very obvious he's not in form. I was hoping before the season started that Lopetegui would dare to rotate more and trust the players who did well in preseason. That hope ended already with the Supercup game where he chose all the players who were in the first line last season. And that's why we lost, suddenly the team stopped pressing i.e. some of them didn't know the new system and they were out of form (Marcelo and others). This game also showed that he he don't trust the squad. If he continues like this we will have the same situation we had with Morata, Kovacic, James and more. Players like Mariano, Llorente, Valverde, Reguilon will be looking for a way out since it doesn't matter how well they do, Lope will still play his trustees. Let's hope he starts rotate more and that it pays off.
These players haven’t proven anything yet though have they? They’ll have to earn their minutes and they will get playing time as it’s a long season. It’s way too early to criticise his rotation policy. If anything he’s rotated she he shouldn’t have as Casemiro should have been starting last night. And I don’t see what was wrong with his Super Cup team selection either. He put the best possible XI he could out there to get the job done. Who could he have put in better than he selected for each position? That was our best team.
I'm happy with the attitude and performance. Should have done better with our chances, but I feel this is a match that we used to lose last season where we huffed and puffed and conceded a ridiculous late goal to throw it all away.
I'd like to see the first off the bench change to Isco, Vinicius and Mariano. Vazquez just doesn't bring any sort of dynamism, he's just a wasted sub every time.