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Ramos: Something smells fishy in the State of Real Madrid…

February 28th, 2009 | By: Jan | 23 Comments »

It can’t be a coincidence. We’ve seen it many times. We talk about football tactics at high level here and after our comments, the so-called big guns (Ramos, Van Gaal, Van Basten, Derksen) come out almost ad verbatim repeating our words… God, it’s time someone paid us (well…you… I am paid handsomely already) to do this!

It was late on Wednesday night, Liverpool had beaten the toothless tigers from Madrid and Juande (who calls his son Juande anyway??) Ramos came with this mindblowing conclusion: “We missed a number 9. A realcenter striker, who will keep two defenders busy, who will make space for coming midfielders and who can…ahum…score….”.

That flash of lightning entered Ramos’ head a month too late. End of January, he decided to put Diarra’s name on the CL sheet. Forced by a bureacratic blunder of Real’s management. One Klaas Jan Huntelaar, goal machine by profession, had to stay home and watch tv. More “center striker” can’t KJH not get.

Not that Hunter would have scored three times against The Reds… You can’t claim that, but the media sharpened their pens and asked: what if….what if Hunter was on the sheet….? The same media, by the way, who pushed Diarra on the CL sheet last month…

El Cazador has scored thrice in the Liga now. Forced by injuries and a full program, Ramos had allowed the PSV-developed striker to play some games and the former Ajax-skipper responded with three goals.

Before that, Real won their games with 1-0, with Klaas Jan the scores went to 4-0 and 6-1.

“I’m happy I could show myself for 90 minutes. It’s easier that way. When you only play 15 minutes it’s hard to convince the coach. You only get to play as a striker when the team doesn’t perform, so you always start as a sub on the backfoot. When you play from the start, you can get into the flow and your confidence grows and when you than start scoring goals, it’s a lot easier,” the man said.

His performance has opened Ramos’ eyes. At first, the coach thought he was one of those slow, tall, physically strong center strikers who wasn’t a match against skilled players like Raul, Robben and Higuain, Ramos’ fave forward line. But none of these three is a typical number 9.

With Huntelaar up front, as a pure striker, Real’s attacks are more flowing. Raul gets more space thanks to Hunter’s runs and scored four times last two matches. And since Raul is the only Royalty in Teal’s dressing room, it’s pretty certain Huntelaar again will start this weekend against Espanyol. And again, maybe at the cost of Robben, who was subbed the last two Liga games.

Because despite of his great form, Robben is not too well liked in the team. Raul and Higauin complain about his selfcenteredness. Robben doesn’t want to pass the ball. Another player anonymously stated that “Robben can’t read the game”. It won’t be surprising if we’ll see a sort of brotherly war among the Dutch in the next few weeks… And every week, we could see different winners…

Tags: Group C, Higuain, Huntelaar, Ramos, Raul, Real Madrid, Robben

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Comments

By Hup | February 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Raul is washed up.

Posted from Canada

By sonneveld | February 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm

huntelaar 3 starts 3 goals a post a goal dissalowed and a very good chance(first game)

By Mario | February 28th, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Hello guys:

How easy is to say that Real performs better when Robben is not playing…he has been their best man in the League and when finally he is fit he has been able to show his potential. But what makes me really mad is that I have seen games in which he takes on two defenders and then centers the ball with a fine pass to goal to Higuain , Raul, Guti ,etc and they missed such a great chance, a goal that was easier to score than to fail. And besides, he and Huntelaar have not been in the same line up from the beginning. I would like to see Robben in the left, Higuain at the right and Raúl and Huntelaar up front. Sneijder and van der Vaart will have to increase their level because Higuain is not a top class player but at least he is playing with his heart and I don´t see that in Wesley and Rafa. But I think they are being unfair to Robben because he passes the ball to his teammates a lot and although it is true sometimes he likes to conduct the ball too much, those kind of players always like to have the ball with them. Very skillful players such as Pelé, Maradona, Zidane, Johan, Platini, Ronaldinho, Kaká, Cristiano and many more use to have the ball a lot and Robben is one of these type of players. Of couerse he is not a Pelé, Maradona or Cruyff, but he likes to play like that. It would be wiser if their teammates and coach tell him that in private rather than making stupid press conferences saying that because those kind of things harm team spirit.

By Jan | February 28th, 2009 at 5:31 pm

Hey Mario, I am a big Robben fan myself, but I also cringe regularly when he takes a shot at goal from a tight angle and three man in the area. He does get to egotistical. But, this stuff wasn’t said in a press conference, but “off the record” to the reporter I got this from. Don’t forget: there’s always this shit going on in dressing rooms. At Arsenal, Barca even… This is where Hiddink excels, by the way… Stopping all that dressing room backchat…

By sonneveld | February 28th, 2009 at 8:20 pm

right now I would like

huntelaar
robben van persie kuyt

as our front men. sneijder and van der vaart are just not performing

By Jan | February 28th, 2009 at 10:56 pm

I like this forward four…. The so-called Fourwards…

By Mario | March 1st, 2009 at 1:12 am

Sonneveld…at the moment those players are in better shape so I agree with u.

By Lerkot | March 1st, 2009 at 7:35 am

Nah.. the midfield and attack should look like this:

Van der Vaart – Sneijder
Kuyt, Van Persie, Robben
Huntelaar

That would be so smooth.

By Alex | March 1st, 2009 at 7:52 am

Not going to happen, you’d get slaughtered without at least De Jong or V.Bommel to assist the defence with Ooijer-Mathijsen in centre.
Huntelaar and V.Persie make the best pair upfront Robben and Kuyt best in form for wings indeed. But V.d.Vaart, Sneijder for now still good enough as subs, we have such good players that you simply have to make your starting line-up with who ever does best at the moment.

I’d like to see Schaars and De Jong try together and move V.Bommel back one line, just to see how they do. Cause I think Schaars acts as a more creative player than V.Bommel in midfield, plus Schaars defenitaly looks our midfield maestro for the future.

——-Huntelaar
Robben-V.Persie-Kuyt
Schaars-De Jong
Bouma/Braafheid-Mathijsen-V.Bommel-Heitinga
Stekelenburg(benefit of the doubt for now)

Also I’d keep Marcellis, Boulahrouz as reserves for now, Ooijer, De Cler and Gio should be kindly dropped.
BTW Maduro seems to have done well this in defence recently, both Centre and Rightback.

Posted from Netherlands

By Michel-Olivier | March 1st, 2009 at 8:24 am

vermeer for stekelenburg
when was the last time bouma play club football? 2 years ago?

Posted from United States

By Alex | March 1st, 2009 at 9:15 am

I see you keep track of things, Bouma played almost everything last season, highly popular with the Aston Villa fans as well. He got injured in the beginning of this season. I don’t think it’ll take him more than 5 games to be back on the same level. You must be confusing him with Gijs Luirink or something.

Posted from Netherlands

By Marc | March 1st, 2009 at 1:36 pm

at lekrot: i really like that idea instead i would modify it a lil to this:

—————————stekelenburg————————————-

—–kuyt———-heitinga——–matijsen——–marcellis————–

——————Van.der.vaart———sneijder————————–

——Afellay——————-Van.persie————robben—————

——————————–huntelaar——————————-

Posted from Switzerland

By ian | March 1st, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Heitinga started for atletico, but they let in 3 goals in a 4-3 vicotry. Madrid is catching up remarkably quickly

By Miguel Rosado | March 1st, 2009 at 4:58 pm

Heitinga played a great game tonight!!!. I’m sure he’ll start getting more chances under the new coach after tonight’s performance. By the way Maduro is a regular with Valencia.

It’s funny and sad all these comments about how Madrid plays better without Robben. If Robben couldn’t play because he was injured I bet the media would say “Madrid lost because they missed Robben”.

By Carlos | March 1st, 2009 at 5:39 pm

Alex – I like the line up…..hope Bert watches this and drops Bommel to the centre defence…am big on Schaars.

Posted from Singapore

By Jan | March 1st, 2009 at 6:17 pm

Heitinga scored the first goal after 3 minutes but the goal was disallowed. Unjustly. Difference between Barca and Real is now 4 points!!

De Zeeuw was the man of the match in AZ’s gallery play victory over Groningen.

By Jan | March 1st, 2009 at 6:18 pm

Sneijder started for Real but was subbed for Guti. Who scored almost immediately. Sneijder also got his 5th yellow and is out for next week’s derby. Bad days for Wes…

By Mario | March 1st, 2009 at 6:35 pm

My line up at the moment is:

1-Stekelenburg
2-Heitinga
3-Mathijsen
4-van Bommel
5-Bouma
6- de Jong
7- Kuyt
8-Schaars
9- KJH
10- van Persie
11- Robben

By Michel-Olivier | March 1st, 2009 at 7:11 pm

my 11 base on playing time and form
————stekelenburg——–
v.d.wiel-marcellis-mathijsen-braafheid
—-schaars–d.jong–sneijder——
v.persie—–huntelaar——-robben

subs:
vermeer
heitinga
wielaert
emanuelson
d.silva
brama
afellay
kuyt
amrabat

Posted from United States

By Ruud | March 1st, 2009 at 8:44 pm

I can’t imagine the dutch team without sneijder
I hate real madrid

Posted from Canada

By tiju | March 1st, 2009 at 11:10 pm

@MO your line is superb as per the current form of the team

Posted from India

By Jeroen | March 2nd, 2009 at 12:11 am

@MO, that’s the exact lineup I have running in my head, albeit in a different formation (the 4-2-3-1 we’ve been using) with de Jong and Schaars controlling, sneijder mid-center, robben left, vp right, and hunt up top. But I see I finally found someone who agrees with me on the back line . Ideally though, get rid of Mathijssen and get an in shape Boulah. Also still not sure about Steks…

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | March 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 pm

Interesting times in La Liga! Barcelona lose another one, Real gets a relatively comfortable win, difference down to 4 points but there’s still an El Classico to go… exciting!

As for Real Madrid, it think it’s silly to say they would be better without Robben. Sure, sometimes he hangs on to the ball too long and tries to do too much himself, but he has also scored many game winning goals recently doing just that – when the rest of the team looked decidedly lackluster. Maybe sometimes he wastes an opportunity by trying to beat that one extra man, but remember that he usually also created that opportunity himself out of nothing! And just like Mario said, he’s also put in many great passes/cutbacks that his teammates have failed to capitalize on, so we need to keep that in mind too.

As for the central striker issue – it’s true, but I’m not sure if it would have made too much difference in the Liverpool game. The problem was lack of creativity in the midfield, so even if you’ve got a great forward up front, if you can’t reach him it doesn’t do any good! You need to give him good service for him to work with, and against the Reds you need a better midfield four than Marcello, Gago, Lass and Guti in order to give that service.

Posted from Canada

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