Madrid School boys lose and Barcelona thump Levante

It is not often in the past 10 years you see a Madrid side lead the second place team by 9 points in the La liga in January. As if to show that they are not comfortable being the leaders in the past 2 months the point difference has come down to 5, with Real losing two away games and a big win at home in between. Barcelona meanwhile had the chance to cut the deficit down to 2 points as they played first on Sunday. With Messi and Ronaldinho back it was not going to be a tough task. Levante on the other hand was a team that was just recovering from months of not having funds to pay their players. Banks were taking away the houses of players and the roster was thin. But now they are under a trust which is run by ex-players and they seem to be doing good.

Barcelona scored first through Xavi on 14 minutes but the packed Camp Nou was stunned to silence on 41st minute when Riga converted from the penalty spot on 41 minutes. It was no way back for Levante from then on as Barca scored through Messi just before half time. If the last 4 minutes in the first half, more was to come from Barca, as Eto score a superb hat trick for a final 5-1 scoreline.

Real Madrid were hosting Getafe, after a mid week defeat at Roma in the Champions League and a Spanish la Liga defeat to Betis the week before. The positive was Real Madrid has not lost a game in the Spanish league at their home ground in over a year. But there was a statistic that probably most of them overlooked, it was that Getafe was the team that got away with any point from the Bernabeu in their last encounter in March 2007. There were also some other evident things to worry about as Getafe were active in all three competitions, the La liga, UEFA cup and the Kings Cup.

Schuster does not have to look or think hard to figure out how Getafe plays, he just has to look at his old note pads. The German coached them to success before Madrid came calling. Getafe plays well with one striker up front in Uche. Schuster lined up the same starting 11 as against Roma except that Baptista started ahead of Diarra. Madrid were playing well holding the ball, but though their approach play was good, the final pass to the strikers and their finishing was poor.

Though Robben started playing on the right wing at the beginning, he switched to the left and he immediately made an inviting cross for Guti who missed with a free header. Once Robben moved to the left the right wing was just empty and Sergio Ramos made some runs from his RB position. One such run ended in a cross from the Spaniard, Baptista connected with a header but it was wide again. Seeing how the Brazilian was playing Schuster should have brought in Drenthe at half time. Baptista was constantly losing possession of the ball, because of his extra touches on the ball. Gago was superb in his play once again and the Argentine is just becoming super successful at Real. He was recovering a lot of balls and also his pass completion rate was high.

Guti's weak free kick and a chested pass to Baptista which the Brazilian again were all that Real Madrid could muster after the half time team talk. In the 64th minute Van Nistelrooy finally took at a shot between defenders, the keeper's save fell to Raul who assisted Robben who made a cool finish. Robben ran to the right corner flag to celebrate, Gago and Sergio Ramos joined him. The referee had called the goal, but while the celebration was going on quickly changed his decision as he saw the linesman's flag. Getafe defenders quickly took the free kick and it was just Heinze and Guti in the back, three passes and Uche made a cool finish for Getafe 1-0.

Schuster now decided to make changes, Guti was niggled and was replaced by Higuain, Drenthe in for Baptista which should have been at half time in my opinion. The only time Getafe looked shaky was when Robben had the ball and he was just covering one wing. Drenthe could have spread the Getafe defense much more. On the scoring front they were not posing any threat as Uche was the only striker up front, and though Cannavaro was struggling against him Getafe never looked like scoring. Though Madrid tried all possible methods of scoring there was no way to break the defense. The final score was 0-1 and Madrid now just lead the La liga by 2 points, if they don't win next week against Recreativo they will no longer be league leaders.

When Real Madrid went 9 points of Barca in the winter break everyone said it was all over and Schuster said "We are our own enemies". I see an explanation and that is the inflexibility for the Madrid front line. Both Raul and Van Nistelrooy might hold different records, but the same two who were scoring such a lot of goal suddenly look clueless in the past 3 weeks. I have an answer, and that is Robinho. It was the Brazilian who was making all the moves and also though he plays as a winger he is a better finisher than Robben. Robinho's off the ball play, and his flair is missing. This was almost the same patch Barca went through when Messi got injured. This factor coming into picture too, i personally think that Schuster has to give some of the reserves more chances. You have a genuine striker a number 9 in Soldado on the bench and you see Van Nistelrooy struggling to get a shot away, still he is not on the pitch till the 80th minute or so. Saviola is at present injured, but even when he is fit he does not get a start. There is no point in squad rotation for the sake of it, but at least when your regulars are not delivering the goods, it makes sense to try some other combinations. Soldado while on loan last year scored 19 goals for Osasuna, so you are not replacing Van Nistelrooy with some B team player.

As Guti put it "They have scored a goal against us like in a match for four-year-olds. We can't afford to lose games in this way."

Here is the analysis on the bizarre goal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1EyFUeQjYc