Its been one of the most strange La Liga seasons i can remember for a few years now. If last year it went to the wire and Real edged it with a better head-head record over Barcelona after ending up even, this year Real seemed to be doing everything right. They got off to an amazing start, first for once snapping up some good players in the transfer market. By good i mean the players that they really need rather than going for the big names. It was a season when Real lost a lot of players including the likes of Beckham and Roberto Carlos. They have not successfully replaced either of them but they some how seem to be getting the job done and that is to earn the points.Before i get into that this weekend saw the 32nd round in La Liga with Real leading the pack by 7 points. Barcelona made their visit to Recreativo on Saturday and not so surprisingly as has been their form in the past many weeks, saw their lead vanish twice during the game. Samuel Eto was the star of the day, with a goal in the second minute and a superb half volley strike in the second half. But Recreativo had an answer to both the goals and finally ended up salvaging a draw. The only positive for Barca was to see Lionel Messi get some time on the pitch.
Meanwhile the other upset of the week was when Valencia lost at the Mestalla 2-1, and very surprisingly are 14th in the table.
Real entertained 19th place Murcia at home and Schuster would not have anticipated this to be a tough encounter. He lined up Pepe and Heinze at CB as Cannavaro was injured and got Robinho and Robben both on the ground. He has been preferring Robben over Robinho in the past couple of games though the Brazilian has been back from injury. For sure Robben has been playing well, and Robinho needs to get back in shape. The game just got tough when on 20 minutes Torres at RB on because Ramos was suspended from his Red card last week against Mallorca made a studs up tackle on Aquino. Well it was by no means an all out bad tackle, it was a standing tackle but if you look at it by the book, it was from behind, Torres had his studs up so out comes the Red Card. Real would play the rest of the 70 minutes with 10 men. But Real were at home playing against a Murcia side who have lost 7 of their last 9 games before this.
The game just went dead from here on. Schuster was smart not to commit on filling up the RB position though he would have been tempted to use Salgado who was on the bench. Robinho who was playing on the right wing smartly covered. Real controlled possession and the midfield and the break through finally came, when a free kick from the right was cleared inside the Murcia box, which was not cleared first time the defender who attacked it and Sneijder was just superb with his touch and made a sublime finish to the top corner to make it 1-0 Real Madrid on 58 minutes.
I had written a piece on the transfer last season and their influence so far on teams, Wesley Sneijder is one guy at the top of my list. He was indeed highly rated when he was brought in from Ajax, but there were rumors that the Dutchman has failed to settle in after getting off to an unbelievable start. He scored 4 goals in the first 3 appearances for Real and then went into a slump. He has come back indeed especially after the winter break with some good performances from midfield. More than his skills, which are indeed superb as he is a set piece specialist and a corner specialist, he takes his shots when he has sight at goal. He is an attacking midfielder who has confidence that he can score. To top it all off he is a no nonsense player, extremely focused and does not even over emote. He runs his heart out on the pitch and there was even an instance when Murcia hit Real on the counter and with the striker about to pull the trigger inside the box, it was Sneijder tracking back all the way and stealing the ball away smartly. The goal he scored was his 9th of the season, not bad for his first season at Madrid.
Villareal also gave up on the title chase by losing to Almeria 1-0 which placed them at 59 points one behind second place Barca at 60 points.
I say La Liga has been strange because you saw Real thrash Villareal and Valencia away from home 5-0, beat Barca the Nou Camp 1-0 and beat Atletico Madrid both home and away. In a regular season these are the top teams in La Liga and the results Real obtained kind of shows that the tide has changed. Valencia have been struggling since a change in coach, being Manager less for a while and now are in dire straits. Villareal have superbly picked up their game from that humiliating loss to Real to even fight for the title. Atletico are in fourth place and their performance has been way better than usual years. Barca on the other hand, a team that boasts of players like Ronaldinho, Henry, Eto, Messi, Iniesta, Deco, Xavi have one win in the last 9 league outings. Ronaldinho is going, Messi was injured many times, Henry is playing out of position so they had to rely on 17 year old Bojan to get some results for them in the past many weeks. 2 weeks away from their titanic clash against Man U in the semi final of the Champions League, Rijkaard seems to be doing nothing right. If they indeed end up giving Real the guard of honor when they visit the Bernabeu next month, he could be very much out of the door.
Spain super team Getafe Manager Michael Laudrup is now in pole position from what i read to take up the Barca hot seat. Former Barca player Pep Guardiola who is currently in charge of the Barca B team also was considered as a natural successor to Rijkaard. I honestly doubt Barca will take this risk because Guardiola does not have the experience at the top level. It would be tough on Getafe to lose out on Laudrup, the fact after Schuster left in the summer the team should be proud of their achievements includng a UEFA Cup final spot.
Real made a superb start went unbeaten for almost 2 months till the winter break and had Casillas equal the record for a Madrid keeper in terms of minutes without conceding still the press came back at them when they started losing. Even i wrote some pretty strong comments on Schuster's tactics when they were struggling after the winter break. If you look at it i realized that Robinho and Van Nistelrooy along with Raul who were crucial before the winter break were injured after the break. So it was how Raul would carry this team forward. The slumped till he started getting some goals in again. Robben was injured multiple times, he got back in the team and he is playing superbly. Good news is Van Nistelrooy should be back in training in another 10 days. Pepe, Heinze, Cannavaro, Marcelo and Ramos have all been injured some time or the other and hardly get to play together, Sneijder was injured for a month.
Barca have the same problem, you take out Eto injured in the beginning of the season, Messi injured twice later, Ronaldinho playing 12 of the 32 league games, it is a big deal they are in second position.
Valencia, apart from the fact they were Manager less for a while, they also had their key players in Marchena, Baraja and Villa injured.
This will result in a dangerous summer for Barca, when they are almost all set to lose their most influential player this century. With all the rumored on and off the pitch problems, it looks as though Barca also would rather see the back of him.
Valencia might actually end up losing their priced asset David Villa to Real Madrid. The defending champions are almost sure to bring in a high profile Striker to cover Van Nistelrooy. This could be very well the likes of Drogba or David Villa. I definitely dont believe the rubbish in the press on Real's 100M bid for wonder man Christiano Ronaldo. I cannot comprehend the fact that Carlos Quieroz has even time to respond such rumors and claim that Real need to keep their hands off. I have a feel that if Ronaldinho indeed ends up at Milan, Real can kiss their hopes of signing Kaka good bye.
The magic of the game is that when you start we have a blank canvas, very difficult to predict a result. So Barca would try their level best to mathematically be in the race, when they visit the Bernabeu next month. 6 games left in the La Liga and 9 points lead, blank canvas or not chasers have a tough task ahead.
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