CL highlights pt 2: SEEDORF!

I couldn’t resist the capitals for Seedorf in the title. He deserves that honour.

Because it wasn’t a good CL-match day for the Durch, really…

But Clarence showed the world (and Marco) what he can do. Like someone (sorry, forgot who) mentioned in a comment: everything he did was right, intelligent, had an idea behind it… Flawless performance. The man is in his prime! Physically, technically and also bringing home the bacon, twice! And an assist. Particularly the fourth goal was a beauty. You see players try this many times, but it only works on the training :-). You didn’t see it? Check Youtube in the next days… A Pirlo corner kick, ball is worked out of the six-yards box… Clarence is lurking on the 18 yards line and kicks the ball with pace and a curve into the goal in one go. A sweet sweet goal. I thought the Shkaktar goalie was almost applauding, but then quickly reacted disappointed. What can you say…. AC Milan won 4-1.

Dirk and Ryan faired a worse fate. Liverpool lost in Instanbul (although they do have some sweet memories of the place for way back when…). They lost 2-1 against Besiktas (and Gerrard can only score beautiful goals it seems)… The Reds are in trouble.

Henk ten Cate and Chelsea won their CL match, although they did need some help from their opponent. Schalke goalie Neuer opened his legs for Malouda’s shot and Chelsea took a quick lead. Drogba scored the second one early in the second half.

I watched Real Madrid play Olympiakos live and I must say….man man man…. I love to watch Real play (although I am a Barca fan), but particularly with Schuster (whom I highly respect) and the four Dutchies (Raul and Guti aren’t too shabby either) I always eagerly await Rea’’s matches. But it hurt to watch them play. It was chaos… They did win 4-2 but boy, were they in trouble… It was 1-0 after 2 minutes. A defender’s mistake, Robinho launches Ruud, the goalie stops him but Raul scores from the rebound. Only a couple of minutes later - this is almost symptomatic for Real these days - Olympiakos equalized. And man, how many players were unmarked in the box? Again, only minutes later, a Olympiakos defender fauls Van Gol and is red carded. So, now it’s almost 75 minutes of football, eleven Merenguez players against ten Greek players…

But Real stuffs it up. They don’t know how to handle that situation (Schuster!!!) and early in the second half it even becomes 1-2! Real fights back, and despite their poor teamplay and despite a Ruud van Nistelrooy penalty kick miss (!!) they come to 3-2. First Robinho with a header, then Robinho after a smart Van Nistelrooy assist. With only 10 minutes to go, Real keep on playing as if it’s a summernight’s friendly and Olympiakos get two major opportunities (with ten men, remember, and a 35 year old striker). Iker Casillas saves the day twice on the line, only for Real to score a fourth goal in the dying seconds…

So what is wrong (in my humble opinion)? Firstly, the team is tilting too much to the left. Guti, Sneijder, Robinho and Marcello are all demanding, offensive thinking players, all hurdled in the same - limited - space. Van Nistelrooy and Raul, both being right footed strikers, also tend to look for space on the left. So, that’s where Schuster needs to look in the mirror. And obviously, the only player to take care of the right side of the pitch is Salgado for Pete’s sake, who as a defender is already over the hill and never could cut it as an offensive player… Bernd, what are you thinking?

Secondly, even with a man more situation, Real players keep on dribbling, running with ball, taking opponents on and cluttering up the space in the opponent’s box. And when they find they can’t get through, they start shooting from distance. I think they’re still trying to find a couple of balls on the second ring of the stadium.

And thirdly, when they do get through and have several options to chose from, they tend to pick the wrong ones. Either going for glory themselves (Marcello when there were three players unmarked in the box) or trying to resort to gallery play…

What do you do when you play 11 against 10? You play a high-paced passing game. You keep on playing one or two touch football until you find the free-man. It’s easy. What you don’t do, is play the individual dribblin’ game.

I’m sorry… I had to get that off my chest.

Ruud van Gol played a weird match. Instrumental in the 1-0, instrumental in the 3-2. Other than that, clumsy… And did I mention that he rammed a penalty-kick into orbit? Sneijder was at times in the first half dominating and impressive. Other than that, he comes across as the lieutenant to Guti’s general, playing simple passes over 5 meters and trying to get in position for a shot or a cross pass… But, again, I feel the value of Wesley is diminished due to the overkill of ball-lovers on the left wing…

And to get back to a remark in the comments on Barca and their build-up problems. I can understand the comparison between Barca, Oranje and Real Madrid. They all have the same problems. All teams (incl Ajax but excluding Arsenal funnily enough) that try to play attractive, dominating football are simply too slow these days. It’s not about the quality of the players (the comparison between Barca’s bakcline or Oranje’s is not that relevant). It’s about the speed with which the strikers are reached (and the quality of the pass of course). The longer that takes, the easier for the opponents these days to stop the flow of the “better” teams…