Real Madrid stunned Villareal fans with a five star performance on Sunday when they destroyed the home team 5-0. This is one of the worst defeats for Villareal in recent season at home. Real meanwhile has got off to a great start to the league that they are defending following up their earlier home victory against Athletico Madrid with this rampage over Villareal. Real ended the second week in Spanish La Liga with the only team with maximum points.
Capello is out of Real, but the formation that he brought in is still being used by new coach Bernd Schuster. 4-3-2-1 formation with a five man midfiled, the difference is that Schuster is only using one holding midfielder in the form of Diarra. Real have been the big spenders in world football this season having spent close to $118M Euros for 8 new players. Schuster had almost the full team at his disposal except for Pepe and Robben. He lined up Cannavaro and Metzelder in center of defense and Sergio Ramos at RB and Drenthe at LB. Metzelder had a terrific game though his best moments were limited as Villareal struggled with the final ball. Schuster had Guti playing alongside Diarra in midfield. Raul played in the center hole connecting with Van Nistelrooy. Sneijder played on the left wing and Robinho on the right. Villareal came out strongly and attacked Madrid goal with Robert Pires testing Cassilas with a shot right away. Real were quick out of the block with their counter attack. Real waited for Villareal to be committed in their half before their fleet footted attackers found them out of place. The brilliance of Van Nistelrooy in drifting away and getting defenders with him was reason for the first goal. Sneijder put in an amazing long ball from the left with just enough pace for Raul who got in between both the center backs to tap in a goal. The Captain is showing signs of getting back to his old self and is one less from Alfred Di Stefano's goal scoring record.
Villareal would have hoped to start the second half off with a goal but it was Dutchman Sneijder who scored a brilliant freekick. It was the kind of freekick that Ronaldinho scores, the one with two steps and minimal back lift. The ball raised over the wall and swung in to the inside of post and went in. The man who is heir to David Beckham's #23 jersey looks really impressive, 0-2 Real Madrid.
Schuster has claimed that he is comfortable playing Ramos as RB and that is his natural position. The bidding war for Dani Alves went no where and we are almost sure to see more of Ramos as RB. Since he has been shifting between Center back and RB, his crossing and putting the final ball inside the box has always been under question. He seems a bit like a less oiled machine with some good footwork, great technique, stamina and a poor final ball. He surprised everyone with a terrific through ball from the right to Van Nistelrooy, who showed great composure to pause and round the keeper off and squeeze it past a slifing defender. 0-3 Real Madrid.
Seeing Drenthe play at LB, i am not so sure he is going to be a good LB. His mindset is to attack and he hardly has any good tackles. In the second half Schuster took out Raul and introduced Heinze. This allowed Drenthe to move into LM his natural position and showed again how good an asset Sneijder is as he took up a more CAM role. He and Guti combined with some practice like passing and Guti squared the final ball for Sneijder who finished it off emphatically with the outside of his foot. 0-4 Real Madrid.
With the likes of Baptista introduced for Sneijder and Gago in for Diarra, Real looked to finish the game with a clean sheet. Van the Man again drifted wide and collected a ball from Guti before squaring it back to the Spaniard who finished from outside the box with no apparent tackles coming in. 0-5 Real Madrid.
This is how it finally ended, Villareal who defeated Valencia 3-0 at Mestalla on the opening day of the league struggled against some really quick counter attack football and some clinical finishing. As a Madrid fan i am still not convinced that its time to write off the other 19 teams in the league. Barcelona had one of their usual home games when they beat Athletic Bilbao 3-1 at home with a brace from Ronaldinho and one from Yaya Toure. Henry had his first start in Barca shirt as Eto is injured for atleast 3 months. Well a few weeks back Real madrid even lost 3-5 at home to Sevilla in the Spanish Super cup and the shelled out 30 M in the following week to get Heinze and Robben. Well they have the squad, the experience and some real class. Sneijder scored 18 goals last season for Ajax and he already has 3 from 2 games. The man of the match and the man to look out for is #23 Wesley Sneijder.
Picture Courtesy- Realmadrid.com
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