http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/gabriele_marcotti/news/2003/05/15/marcotti_insider/ A bit harsh, but a good article. He also makes a good statistical point about the lack of squad rotation, something we have mentioned a lot without having the statistical dada behind it.
For me just more of the Bla, bla,bla, bla usual to hear and read after a big one´s falls. Football is football, greatness can turn into crap in one match (Even more talking about the dream team, los Galácticos) no ones can guess exactly what was wrong, as players says, thing goes wrong and that´s all and we have to accept rival knew how to block us and played better. I don´t blame anyone at all even tough maybe Del Bosque could change strategie, maybe give chance to other players, but look the fact was Juventus just blocked Real Madrid players, and blocked very well. Also two of the Magníficos were injuried, Ronaldo and Makelele missing that was negative for Madrid. Anyway, football is football, what else can we do.
Yes, enough of the excuses. Sometimes you just have to admit when a team is better than you, and Juventus was better than Real Madrid in this case.
Thanks for the link anirbanblah. it is a good article. I too think he is a bit harsh in describing Madrid's season and ignore's the difficulties of competing in La Liga but where I agree with him 100% is in his criticism of Madrid's failure to rotate players. I've been saying that all season long. If Madrid had given more time to players like Cambiasso, McManaman, Solari, Tote and Morientes then they would have been in better game form to have helepd out in crunch time. Plus this article ignores another key to Madrid's loss against Juventus and their other late season problems-Hierro's loss of form. When Pavon played, Madrid's defense was good. When Hierro was in their the level of defensive play dropped.
There is absolutely no denying that Juventus was better than us, and there are no excuses. All the fans are doing is analysing how we can get better and what we have to improve so that if we are in the same situation next year, we don't get the same result. In fact the point is that Juventus deserved the win, and we need to improve to beat them. So the obvious next step is to see how we can do that. And a lot of the points that are being raised are not new, they are not the result of this one match. They are points that we have been making for a long while, like the need to rotate the squad, the need to improve the defense and the defensive midfield, the need for Pavon to start ahead of Hierro... it just so happens that the Juve game was a perfect demonstration of why we have been saying these things for so long... since the beginning of the season if you remember! This weekend's game should be a cracker by the way... hope il fenomenon has recovered and will be fit to play... i had read he may miss this week as well.
Nobody is trying to search excuses. For me "la liga" is the most hard league in the world. The champions league is very hard, too. The last year the Real Madrid bashers said that "la liga" was more hard to win than the Cl, this year like the real lost the Cl seems that some of them had change. I personally prefer the CL, but many many people prefers to win la liga (principally in spain). Anyway, it's very dificult to fight for both competitions at the same time. If you see this year, almost all the big teams have fail in this objetive. Bayern Munich which was a big favourite this year after sign Ballack and Ze Roberto, the stars of Bayer leverkusen (Last year Cl finalist), fall in the first Round. They could concentrate in their league, and they had won their league easily. Manchester United, finally won their league, but fail in the CL. Milan, could win the CL, but they fail in their league. Inter, fail in both. Arsenal, fail in both. Liverpool, fail in both. Barcelona, better don't speak etc, etc. The two teams that have fight until almost the last moment for the two competitions have been the Juventus and the Real Madrid. With the happy diference for the Real MAdrid supporters that the Real Madrid had been fighting or had won both competitions all the last years and the Juventus not. does The Real Madrid have team to fight for both competitions? Yes. must The Real Madrid fight for both competitions? Yes. But if you want all, you can lost all. I think that the Juventus was better than the Real. But i also think that with both teams in perfect conditions the Real Madrid is the better team. Someone can say, if the Real would had rotated some key players the team would be in better conditions for the last games", But maybe the team would be in better conditions but many points behind the real sociedad/Depor or the team would have been eliminated in the CL. We all know that the Real Madrid big problems are the defensive middle and the central defense. Del Bosque had said all the years that he need players in those positions. But they don't come. The team have played all the year with only three central defenders, and one of them a player like Hierro, that can support play all the games. About the middle, the games that Del Bosque has given rest Makelele playing with Flavio and Cambiasso the team has played bad.