Tomorrow is one of the most important games of la liga. There is a great rivaltry between both teams. I think that in the last years the most hated team for Valencia supporters is RM, and the Valencia stadium is very similar to the hell when RM goes there. It 's very important to have a strong personality to suport the pressure. A very bad news. Raul a very important player for the team in all the games, but specially in this kind of games won't play. He hasn't traveled with the team. Helguera has not traveled either. He has flu. Zidane hasn't train with the team after the game of tuesday, because he was a problem in his left. But it seems that he play. But i don't know in which conditions. With all these problems the starting team could be: Casillas Salgado,Pavon, Raul Bravo, Roberto Carlos Figo, Beckham, Cambiasso Zidane Guti, Ronaldo Jurado a great young player of 17 years old player of RM young teams has traveled for first time with the first team. And he could be one of the surprises of these season. Other players that have traveled to Valencia are: Cesar, Ruben, Borja, Nuñez, Solari and Portillo It's very important to win or at least tie this game because Valencia is a direct rival, and because in case of have the same points at the end of la liga, the team with more goals in direct games, win. For example, if tomorrow the result is 1-1 and in madrid the result is 2-1. in case of have the same points the RM would win. It would be like to have a extra point. Finally, there are rumour about that Ayala could play the game. We will see if it is true. it would be an extraordinary recovery of its physical problems.
interesting that Queiroz seems to have made Guti the first substitute striker, ahead of Portillo. I think Guti brings a better all around game than Portillo and has the capability to create as well as score so I'm fine with this, but if Zidane is not well, Guti can also drop back into that role and Portillo can have his run out. Finally, la liga, on TV in the US, and a great game at that.
2-0 Horrible Real Madrid game. I haven't seen the RM play as bad in many many time. I think that Zidane have played the worse game since he is RM player. The rest of the team played at the same level. The defense didn't exits, the midfield didn't exit, Ronaldo didn't recieve a "good" ball in all the game, Guti played horrible, Roberto Carlos played horrible. A game to forget. In the first 25 minutes Valencia played really good, but the rest of the game they don't played very good, but like RM was playing as bad, they didn't have any problem. I hope that the team change its play against the oporto or we will have very serious problems.
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundodeporte/2003/09/28/liga/1064700356.html So how much of this can be attributed to the absences of Raul and Helguera?
Anyone have stats that show the Win-Lose-Tie ratio of when Raul is not in the lineup? I think Madrid would have won the CL last year if Raul had not gotten injured at the end...
The game itself is disappointing. Valencia didn't play well either. Vicente was too fast for the Real Madrid defense. Portillo has been silent so far this season. I missed the first few games. How did he do?
An absolutely horrible performance from Real Madrid. The team played with no desire and Valencia, while Aimar was in the game, ran rings around them. Frankly it was one of the worst performances I've seen from Madrid in along time. I'm not a fan of Figo but I'd say he was the only Madrid player who showed any heart yesterday. The rest just mailed in their game and in Madrid's first test of the new season against a quality team they failed. I still maintain the absence of a ball winner like Makelele will really hurt Madrid this year. Aimar was able to find a lot of space between Madrid's midfielders and defenders. Yes, missing Raul and Helguera hurt Madrid but with the quantity of stars on their team their absences shouldn't have that much effect. Valencia's midfield won the game as they closed Madrid down and didn't give them the time or the space to play. Full credit to Valencia for a tactically well played game but Madrid's play is worrying. They just strike me as being an unbalanced team.
The last time Madrid played with Makelele in Valencia for the league, they also lost that game. Valencia is one of the better teams in la primera (the best at the moment ) so losing against them isn't the end of the world. Plus it's only the 5th game. Yes, I always look on the bright side of life. At least Depor lost as well so they don't get too far away up front.
First, Raul is tremendously important in this type of games. He never fails in the big games. He is the type of player that play even better when the circunstances are worse, due to his great mentality/personallity. He would have said to other players " what f#~# are you doing, lets go to f## them!!!" . How as say Zidane and other players have said many times "when Raul plays the aptitude of the team change". Yesterday i didn't see any player that carry the team over his shoulders. As Martin said, the only one that at least try something was Figo. Guti played as captain, but he played horrible and he didn't defend when he lost the balls . He as captain must be a example for the rest of the team. Queiroz should think the same and changed Guti in the 5 minute of the second half. Guti always has been one of my favourites, but yesterday he disappointed me very very much. Zidane played without train all the week, and in the first half he played bad and in the second half he was dead. He is the only player that have a "excuse". Maybe, Queiroz should have change him. But he should think that Zidane at 30% is still Zidane. I always have said that in my opinion Raul and Zidane are the two most important players of the team. Without they playing, or not playing at 100% the team change very much. Probably with Raul and Zidane on the field and playing at 100%, the team also would have lost. But i'm sure that the play of the team wouldn't have been so bad. About Helguera, he is very important for the team and he has a big experience for this type of games - that maybe are still too big for players like Raul Bravo. But Helguera hadn't played in 1 month and i think that he wouldn't have played at his best level. The problems of Raul and Zidane were more important. And bad news for the game against Oporto. It seems that Raul have very dificult to play that game. And Beckham has problems in one of his feet and he also has very dificult to play the game. At least i hope that Zidane could train these week and recover his level for that game. His participation could be even more essential, if Raul and beckham can't play. Anyway, we musn't be too pesimistic. The team had a bad day yesterday, but i hope that they take note of the errors for the future and play as they know in the next games.
What´s going on with Raul , he doesn´t look at 100% since a time. Zidane seems not to have so much strenght to resist tackles, injuried too. And again Pablo Aimar had to leave the game early, he´s injuried too. Hey, David Beckham is receiving missile from public,water bottle (and a lot o tackles) that was the second time people throw him bottles, he better get used to this.. Ja, I wonder how it will be when Madrid face Barca at Nou Camp.
Beckham and the bottles: Here´s an article mentioning this and the injuries http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2002390000-2003450087,00.html
I hope that Raul can past the test of tomorrow and he play against oporto. Thriller, i don't know if you have seen what happened with figo the last year when RM played in Barcelona. But what happened in Valencia with Beckham is a 0.00001% of what happened with Figo in Barcelona. Barcelona had a sanction of two games without play its home games in its stadium. But they are untouchables and many months have past and nothing has happened.
LINK Raul will be part of the selection against Porto, so he's able to play. The coach will still decide if he will start from the beginning or not.