Why Real Madrid doubts Rafael van der Vaart…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0IyzMLkMP0&feature=related

rafa is not lazy, he just have a bad sense of humour.

Posted from  United States

@Goose, he does indeed have a bit of a Molby’esque figure… Remember him at Liverpool? LOL

Or put it this way, if Rubens painted footballers VdV could be one of them…

I’ve only seen a couple of Real games so far this year in which vdv was playing so I can’t really judge his current form, but i am surprised that he has been tagged as a “lazy” player. just this past euro, i thought that vdv ran very hard, constantly putting pressure on the other team’s defenders when they had the ball and generally scoring an A for effort in my books. i hope he turns it around and gets more playing time, cos i hate to see a great player like him go to waste riding the bench.

Posted from  Canada

Hi guys~~ merry Xmas~~

In my opinion,i guessed that the main problem is the whole unit including the coach.Van Der vaart looks fine,he is healthy like other players.I agree with Jan–the new coach is trying to signal the squad by doing jingle the small bell

In the meanwhile,(Ramos da coach)needs to do alot of homework to build the team or Ramon Calderon,Pedja Mijatovic n fellows will be seeing him off ^(^

Let’s see what will gonna happen in the coming months……

Posted from  Netherlands

totally agree Igor, i praised him many times for his euro performance… he played for the team!!

Posted from  Netherlands

I forgot to write a piece…

In 2006, Real bought all those offensive dudes. They had Zidane, they needed Figo, Beckham, Owen, Robinho… Most of them failed. Then Becks copped the criticism, but he fought back and succeeded at the end of the day.

Raul later stated that the most important and least paid player was Makelele who was sold to Chelsea. He was one of the few holding midfielders in a team of creative players. Madrid is making the same mistake. They have Raul, Ruud, Huguain, Sneijder and now they added Vaart and Robben and Hunter.

All nice, but who guards the balance? Who has the leadership in midfield?

They need a player like Makalele again. Or two. And a strong central defender like Puyol.

I can understand it if Raf is the victim of all this. I’m not sure Madrid needs him and we all know they should buy less “exciting” players…

@jan exactly,
They dont have a holding mid now that is root cause of the problem,
but offcourse VDV is so lazy thats true but he is a team player

Posted from  India

What Real needs is a Gattuso and so does Oranje

they have the very talented gago and diarra (unfortunately he’s out for the rest of the season)and try to sign another diarra from portsmouth (who failed at chelsea and arsenal) for the holding midfielder role. they made the biggest mistake when they sold robinho real’s most talented and most inventive player (i rate robinho higher than cristiano ronaldo,he’s just behind leo messi).
i wonder if vdv will play tonight against valencia. btw another sad story: maduro at valencia… his problem is as simple as Jan has written down: too many creative player and he’s 3rd or 4th on the hierarchy. real bought him for 2 reasons: sneijder vwas injured and they thought he wouldn’t be back before christmas. second: they failed to sign cristiano ronaldo and hurted robinho,so the brazilian was leaving and the club needed at least one big name (for the press,for the fans stc). raf was quite cheap,so the signed him.

Posted from  Hungary

@Ferenc: Finally the CL gets interesting. You must be well pleased with Barca’s draw. Liverpool – Real Madrid and Man U – Inter will be mouth watering games.

Who do you guys think will be victorious?

My bet is Liverpool and Inter, but granted, I am bit biased …But Man U has had some dodgy moments this season, and Real has been awful when it counts. ‘Pool will have Torres back in full swing by then, although the games are not until end of Feb and a lot can change by then.

None the less, can’t wait. It is sooooo tempting to try to scalp tickets for ‘Pool – Real at Anfield and fly over, but it will probably be impossible for me to go and the tix would be silly money expensive. But how often do you get a chance to see Liverpool – Real?

pool won’t have any problem to beat real. they are much more organized,a real team,rafa benitez know by heart spanish clubs. real won’t have any chance against them.
my bet is barca,obviously the best team of the world (at the moment) and if messi and eto’o won’t get injured we’ll win both la liga and the champions’ league. other favourites: juve (they play beautiful football this season),liverpool,man u. chelsea is really bad this season,arsenal on a good day can beat any team but on a bad day they can loose against fullham. inter is traditionally not for champions’ league. real has no chance to win anything this season.

Posted from  Hungary

Robben’s becoming a world class player over at Real Madrid, definitely a candidate for next year’s Ballon d’or.

My picks would be Atletico, Lyon, Villareal, Bayern, Juvé, Real Madrid, Man U, and Arsenal.

Even though it won’t be Huntelaar playing, I still think that the Liverpool back four can’t compare to the Real Madrid one. I’d say that Robben would easily be able to get passed Daniel Agger, and any of the Real Madrid strikers would be able to win passed Carragher or Hyppia.

Posted from  Canada

Hunter is definitely able to play in the Champions League. The new ruling was brought in this year. As Jan said he has only played UEFA Cup. Absolutely mouth watering matches to look forward to. More sleepless nights for me (and Jan in Oz)

Posted from  Singapore

Oh and VdV did start for Real’s win over second placed Valencia. Robben was a star again !

Posted from  Singapore

vdv hit a post

yes,robben was the man of the match and surprisingly he was less selfish as usually. but i didn’t like his antics (when marchena was sent off). vdv played better than recently but he was substituted with the young catalan guy – a traitor – who’s been playing since his childhood for madrid (don’t know his name). guti had a bad day and if he continues like this i easily imagine vdv and sneijder playing at the same time. it’s up to the tactics – if they need 2 holding midfielders obviously there won’t be place enough for both but at the bernabeu they usually play offensive football (not like yesterday). drenthe is the same: he doesn’t give any plus to the team,runs like hell but with no brain. he has no place in the starting eleven. after the u-23 ec he was highly overrated. but huntelaar and higuain might form a very interesting partnershinp. anyway real will struggle for the 2nd-4th place with valencia,villareal,sevilla and atletico madrid.
robben might be a candidate for next year ballon d’or but for this he shouldn’t be too often injured, real madrid should win something (they won’t). but i’m quite sure (and hope) that 2009 will be messi’s year.
@goose: at real-liverpool do you support real or pool? i obviously support pool (my favourite english team – and babel is one of my favourite dutch players)

Posted from  Hungary

To be fair Marchena should have been sent off earlier for almost ripping Salgado’s head off his body :p

Posted from  Canada

Are you guys 100% sure that Huntelaar can play, because I was under the understanding that at the beginning of the season teams have to submit a list of players who will be playing in Champions League, and I can imagine that Huntelaar would not have been on Real Madrid’s list. I remember this because there was big controversy over Crespo, Ronaldo, and Rosicky not making their respective team’s lists.

Posted from  Canada

@Dirk, teams are indeed require to submit their rosters for CL (25 men?) at the begining of the season, but that roster is only used to the end of the group stages. so now teams will be able to submit a second (revised) roster for the knock-out stages, and as other people have mentioned, there is a new uefa rule in place this year allowing players who participate in the uefa cup to be eligible for the CL in the same year in case of a transfer (under the previous rule, Hunter would have been cup tied and unable to play CL for real)

Posted from  Canada

@Ferenc – I always smile when I read your posts because it’s obvious how much you love Barca. It’s also obvious how much you hate Real and so your posts are always have a bit of Real-bashing/anti-Real bias in them. I hope Real can outperform your pessimistic standards this year, at least for the sake of our Dutch players

Posted from  Canada

@Caleb: sure,you’re right. but in my posts i trie to do something very difficult: take real madrid and dutch players apart. believe me,on this blog – with respect to our real madrid boys – i’m not as harsh towards les merengues as elsewhere or in real life (where i consider them as arch ennemy). to be honest,i’m very unhappy to see so many dutch players there and no one at barca (it was always the opposite),but on the other hand,in the current barca starting eleven it wouldn’t be place for any of them (and this team is so-so great). i can see only one dutch in barca: abidal is our weakest point,we still need someone who’s able to do the same as gio did. emanuelson could replace abidal (but it seems that zhirkov will be the one who replaces abidal). and since henry’s getting old,and i know that barca’s board has a good relationship with arsenal and they observe robin van persie. in 1-2 years,when henry stops robin could easily become blaugrana.

Posted from  Hungary

last news: Real Madrid To Use Van Der Vaart To Sign Young?

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1705/real-madrid/2008/12/23/1026109/madrid-to-use-van-der-vaart-to-sign-young

Posted from  Hungary