I hate this team even more than Bostonians hate the phuckin yankees. First Figo, and now Ronaldo, I heard they offered Cruyff (not Jordi) millions to suit up for one game just to piss of the blau grana Madrid is stacked this year. Anything less that the CL and La Liga titles should be a huge failure for them. The question is can Romo and LVG's new squad stack up. Can we contain the world all-star team that has been assembled at Berenbeau. Is a European salary cap/luxuiry tax far behind? and yes, I had a few cocktails at lunch and am a huge red wings fan Just hate to see teams "out spend" their rivals
Getting Ronaldo won't necessarily make them a better team. On paper it looks potent but Ronaldo is just another striker nowadays, he is far from when he looked like scoring every time he had the ball (ie during his season at Barça and his first season at Inter). From what I've seen of Madrid this preseason is that Cambiasso is a bigger pickup for the team than Ronaldo is (plus moving Helguera back into defense).
What those three clubs seem to have in common is they spend their money wisely, for the most part. As much as I hate to admit it, RM has a good mgmt structure in place, I really respect Valdano and VdB a lot. Look at the Yanks in the 1980s, they spent a lot of money, but for no return. Now, they offer Giambi $30 million more than MY A's (who have won 20 games in a row as of this writing, I might add, on the third lowest payroll in baseball) and he's having another amazing season. Lots of teams spend a lot of money, like Barca recently. One of the more encouraging aspects of this offseason was their reasonably intelligent spending. FYI, Riquelme is on the cover of this month's World Soccer magazine. Tony
Riquelme might have been a good buy but only if he is used right. So far Van Gaal is very reluctant to use him and if he does he puts him on the left wing!?! If this does show something is that Del Bosque knows how to use his talent and that Van Gaal is fixated on his system.
Good point Juanele, didn't LvG say something like "Riquelme is a great player, but he'll find there are other special players at Barca, like Enrique, Saviola, etc, and its up to him to fit into MY system" I'll dig out the most recent issue of World Soccer at some point and find the exact quote, but I believe thats the gist of it. Tony
I agree that there two ways to invest your money...poorly and with careful planning and thought . Madrid has done a masterful job of this (considering they were on the verge of bankruptcy a few years ago). I am a bit green with envy at their squad, and am interested to see how we will stack up when they press the attack and our D is tested. I too think Barcelona did quite well for very little money (although I still want some fullbacks). As we all know the best TEAM wins not the best players. In the future, I would love to see them continue this. Pick up the young foreigner on the cheap, and let RM pay $40 gabillion for the established star (as long as we beat them this year).
Money is great and the purchase of Ronaldo will sell shirts, magazines, fanzines and every other Real Madrid item that is marketable. It doesn't ensure anything that will happen on the football pitch. I may sound like a jealous Barcelona fan but in all truth and honesty, the move for Ronaldo doesn't in the least bit irritate me because he was a former Barça player. The money that Real spend is their business and if they have such funds, I only hope for their sake that they at least make up the difference. There are skeptics who believe that Barcelona is heading for mediocrity once again. On paper that might be what is suggested. We don't have the stellar line up when compared to the majesty of Real's firmament of stars. And what of it? Louis Van Gaal brings into Barcelona a system that was lacking for the past two seasons. The system we depended on for that time was a Rivaldo-centric system. Now we are back to having a system where the team acts as a cohesive unit whose aim is to keep the ball moving along and find the net. Oversimplified yeah..but I am confident that football based on names and reputation and flashes of individual brilliance no longer win matches. It is a system based approach that has produced consistent results. If we don't win the league this year that's fine.. it took Cruyff a while to get his system in place but when he got it going, we all remember what happened. Van Gaal should have never left in 2000.. if he had stayed the club would be playing under a system introduced when he first came in 1997-98. Money is something but not everything. The same applies to names and reputation.
Good post Almogavar. I may be jinxing us for good, but having followed a separate club (Inter) and Ronaldo very closely for many a year, I want to interject a little: - R9 is about as emotionally developed as a sand crab. At the first sign of trouble he points fingers, he won't own up to any lack of production, etc. - Injuries. While I do admire that he had the courage to come back, Ronaldo will refuse to cooperate with the Madrid medical help if he gets anything more than 'a little knock', he will want to recuperate at home, and he won't follow the team doctor's regimen. He will, hoewever, find an excuse to go back to Brazil during Carnival, no matter how important the upcoming schedule might be. - His agent is a nut. He starts stories like an arsonist with matches, and it begins to affect everyone around him. I could go on and on. He had a great WC, no denying that, but wearing a club shirt and the yellow jersey are two different things and you can bet he knows it. As for the other part of the thread (systems)..no matter how good your system or your players look on paper, it won't work unless the players have been together awhile and get some good chemistry going. Keep the core together, and this team could go pretty far. Get some bad chemistry going (like, by signing a guy with a really bad haircut perhaps?) and it means troubles' a coming. Jay 'big believer in good juju' Clark
Nice one Jay. It can't be more true. You have to admit, Del Bosque did do incredibly well at babysitting a bunch of world superstars last season. I think Ronaldo will be the straw that breaks his back though. Zidane & Figo combined don't seem as high maintenance as Ronaldo. I would love to hear some of the locker room squabbles that'll occur a few months down the line. As long as they stay consistent & healthy, Barça have just as good a chance at all 3 titles as Real do. If Van Gaal can tolerate a little improvisation in his rigid system, players like Xavi and Mendieta will produce as much as Figo & Zidane this season. Anyone want to take a guess as to who'll be the first to lay a hard, reckless tackle on Ronaldo (if he's not injured) on Nov. 24th?
It's too bad that Andoni Goichoxeia (spelling?) doesn't play for us anymore. He was there during the Cruyff era but the "butcher of Bilbao" as he was known after his tackle on then Barcelona star Diego Maradona gave this defender a name. I don't want to see Ronaldo injured. Despite the fact that he plays for Real Madrid, I wouldn't wish anything like that on anyone, even a 'madridista.' I just want to see him taken out of the game tactically and if Carles Puyol can mark him (provided that Puyol is fit), then there might be a good certainty that Ronaldo will not be effective. What's of somewhat interest to me is the way in which Barcelona fans will react to the return of Ronaldo. I remember watching the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid two years ago and the fury that was leashed on Figo. I'm thinking it won't be the same. In fact, if I don't care I'm sure many of the socios and cules won't either. Anyways, fellow socios and cules around the world, Visca Barca!! Visca Catalunya!!!
Almogavar: I don't want to see him injured, & I definitely wouldn't wish that on anyone either. Something tells me he won't be healthy for the first superclasico anyway. If he is though, he will be aggressively marked and fouled for 90 minutes. I don't think he will replace Figo as Public Enemy #1, but he will overtake the #2 spot from Hierro or Roberto Carlos. The socios/cules will care, even if he didn't directly transfer from Barça to Real. He'll get whistled by them every time he touches the ball. Kluivert won't mind that at all. They'll probably be too whistled out for when he touches the ball
What, Otterulz, 1994 doesn't make up for everything? Go Sharks (as in, keep staying involved in MLS/Quakes) Tony
Almogavar summed it up pretty damn perfectly. Without Rivo we are a better team, I honestly believe this. Because of the tactical ineptness (or utter crap!) of Ferrer and Rexach they had to base everything on Rivaldo. Over the past two seasons, every time we needed a goal I only really expected it to come from Rivo. And im pretty certain the manager and maybe players thought this too. Why hasn't L.Enrique been effective for 2 years? Well he had to play second fiddle to Rivaldo, fitting in on the wing/up front/defensive midfield, and not in his attacking midfield role. This season goals are being created/scored from all areas of the team and Barca are a far better side because of it. As for Madrid, i think this will be del Bosque's toughest test. Making it work, controlling the prima donnas. Unfortunately i think he is very good, and he probably will pull it off, but if Barca play it sensible, as they are doing now, we can really do something. Figo- thirtysomething Zidane- thirtysomething Hierro- almostfortysomething Ronaldo- injury prone, arrogant, over-rated and when Zizou/Figo retire who's gonna provide his bullets?