Oh dear. That doesn't look good.Real's next 5 games
Zidane watch
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
Never thought he was a great manager - could motivate but had some really good players in form then so was always easier - now the team lacks what it had, is ageing and ZZ doesn’t look like he knows how to stop the rot.....
it’s a big job for anyone at the best of times but if they get rid of Zidane whoever comes in has a big task - the midfield are old and needs replacing, Ramos is surely past his best and some of the recent signings don’t look up to the task - if they were currently playing in a full stadium they would be getting seriously heckled....
Not sure this would be good for Poch as he wouldn’t be given time - therefore better that a legend/former player takes over while they sort out the squad.
If they don’t qualify for the next stage of the CL next week then I think it’s curtains for Zidane.
it’s a big job for anyone at the best of times but if they get rid of Zidane whoever comes in has a big task - the midfield are old and needs replacing, Ramos is surely past his best and some of the recent signings don’t look up to the task - if they were currently playing in a full stadium they would be getting seriously heckled....
Not sure this would be good for Poch as he wouldn’t be given time - therefore better that a legend/former player takes over while they sort out the squad.
If they don’t qualify for the next stage of the CL next week then I think it’s curtains for Zidane.
I guess we disagree then. I think Ödegaard, Vinicius, Rodrygo are definitely highly gifted youngsters and have the potential to become world class players. Ödegaard and Vinicius already are on their day, they just lack consistency in their performances. Players like Valverde and Mendy are at least great prospects, too. Also, Hazard and Jovic were excellent transfers at the time. They got unlucky with both transfers, especially with Hazard. I'd bet that many of those players you named would look differently in another team.
Thing is, all those players are currently underperforming because the team as a collective isn't really strong. Most of them would flourish in a functioning squad with a clear idea and handwriting. Zidane hasn't implemented one during his second spell as of yet.
You would have every football analyst in the country on TV talking about how he deserves time to turn it around. Weird culture of manager worship in English football. It's the only league in world football where the manager is treated as the be all and end all of the club, and not just another cog in the machine that should be replaced when it's not working properly. There's always such a grand hurrah whenever a manager has to get sacked in England.
I think that's actually Real Madrid's biggest problem. They don't have a clear idea, a style, a philosophy other than to win, win, win. That's not enough anymore when there's 5 or 6 teams that can spend as much as you.
Then they have a manager who produces his best results with veteran players and keep on buying youngsters for him. Zidane doesn't have a stellar track record of improving young players. It's more exceptions than the rule.
Zidane is very intangible in that aspect fo rme. On the one hand, he was an intern to Guardiola and to me it's quite obvious he adapted many of his/the philosophies ideas during his successful time at Madrid. On the other hand, that team had such ridiculous quality that I'm not sure how much Zidane added to it and how much came from the players. I need to see Zidane in a different environment to judge. He might be an opportunistic manager like Ancelotti for instance or an idealistic one like Guardiola, I just can't tell. The only thing obvious right now is that if he has a play style in mind he failed to implement it during his second tenure - at least at this point in time.
They`ll win against Gladbach and go through. League form has been trash but so has Barcelona and there`s still plenty of time to reduce the deficit on Atletico.
However, I agree with @Peyroteo, their young player recruitement and integration into the team has been shocking. They still rely heavily on the likes of Ramos and when the old guard is not performing, like e.g. Kroos this season, the quality of their play drops a lot.
However, I agree with @Peyroteo, their young player recruitement and integration into the team has been shocking. They still rely heavily on the likes of Ramos and when the old guard is not performing, like e.g. Kroos this season, the quality of their play drops a lot.
I haven't seen a massive amount of Madrid games lately, does it not seem though like the squad needs a bit of an overhaul? The spine of the team seems like it's been there forever.
Can't help but think Ramos, Modric, Kroos, Benzema are coming towards the end of their careers and past their peak and other than an injury prone Hazard there aren't a great deal of world class names in the squad that you would expect from a Real Madrid side. You still have talented players but that core spine of the team seems stale.
It feels like this great squad has completed it's cycle now and needs to build again, which of course you will, just makes that managerial position all the more important to get right.
If this all leads to them not signing Pogba I'd be pretty gutted.
I was watching an old game during the BBC era where Madrid were losing 2-0 to Villareal (I think). Madrid won that game 3-2 at the dying minute. When Ronaldo scored the equaliser none of them jumped on each other. They all just quick shook hands and ran back to the centre circle. The quality and mentality of the players back then was so strong. Some of their games were like freestyle and just going with the flow which I enjoyed watching
I'm not trying to discredit what Zidane achieved just saying that he has a lot more work and a different kind of quality and mentality to work with compared to before
I'm not trying to discredit what Zidane achieved just saying that he has a lot more work and a different kind of quality and mentality to work with compared to before
The quality he had at his disposal at the time was insane. Prime Ramos, Marcelo, Modric, Kroos, Benzema were amongst the very best at their positions and you had Cristiano at his goalscoring best . Those players were complemented with some top shelf players like Pepe, Carvajal, Bale and a young Casemiro. You have to be a bad manager not to get results with that at your disposal.
Why?
Sorry but dismissing his successes as just down to the players is terrible revisionism. It wasn’t “free styling” and it wasn’t “just the players”. Managers failed there even with the same players at the same period. Zidane at the start was brilliantly flexible and used the squad very intelligently. I’ve said it time and again. Zidane in the 2016-2018 period was everything he’s not been in the 2019-now stint. The usage of the B team was excellent and tactically he was very astute. He was the anti-Pep in several ways. Not wedded to a style or to specific players.
What’s changed is that since his return, he’s been harder on formation, players and approach and he’s made some horrendous transfer calls. The trajectory is what you should look at and it’s not been good - despite the fortunate league win. Matter of time now, really.
Galactico signings cost ridiculous money these days: €100m+ transfer fee, up to €20m to agent and family members, €300K+ p/w wages. Real can't go and make 2-3 of these in one summer anymore. So they tried Hazard+youngsters with potential and didn't work so far.
Interesting insight. What do you think is the reason why Zidane changed his supposedly winning way from 2016-2018? Or rather, his good qualities that I highlighted.
That is not very common around here(although I think @RoyH1 is a bit madridista too) , but I understand you, it is impossible not to fall in love with Redondo.
You understand the club well. I like your posts. You need to bring Roncero to your life, if you haven't done it yet
Cuz I want Pochettino to replace our PE teacher.
I was talking about the fan bases more than the hierachy. Apart from Sarri (the Rafa situation wasn't to do with his management ability) our fanbase has lacked the ruthlessness to call out managers just as much as United, Arsenal and Liverpool fans have. Mourinho's name was being chanted when we were close to relegation (I was one of the few that said he had to go and was branded every name under the sun) and the game after his sacking was basically a cult revolt on his behalf, AVB was getting excuse after excuse created for him in a similar way Arteta is now with Arsenal fans. If Lampard God for bid collapses like Arteta has very very few Chelsea fans will turn on him and the one's that do will be given obscene amounts of stick.
Thankfully we have an owner that doesn't accept shit so any rut we get into doesn't last long but believe me when the time comes we have a significant % of our fanbase willing to accept and defend mediocrity aswell.
I honestly think a lot of people have this romantic notion that any manager can turn into Fergie if given time (to both build and turn things round when things go sour).
They think he's the blueprint instead of the ultimate anomaly.
I always laugh whenever I see the line "what should we do keep sacking managers?" from football fans, ummm if it's not working or its stagnated then yes you absolutely should.
It probably was. He's proven that he's tactically an absolute idiot at times. The last season they had CR(2017-18) they've lost numerous points in the league and were out of the title race before December because the Grand Zizou was experimenting with tactics instead of using what worked for him in the past.
Sure, the quality was great but the team did well even for the quality they possessed. You can't say the same currently. IMO pound for pound the squad is much better than it's performances suggest and that's worrying. We've seen plenty of great squads being wasted by mediocre managers and we've seen multiple times how great managers could utilize player potentials nobody believed in anymore. It's hard to derive how good of a job Zidane did between 2016 and 2018 but at the very least he didn't feck up. This seems to be different now. I'm under the impression he's holding the squad back while he unleashed them during his first spell.
Show some respect man. I am ultimately for replacing Ole too but I am not blind to the good work he has done.
Not a Madrid supporter, but to dismiss the accomplisments of Zidane in his first term is not accurate.
In 2015-16, he steadied the ship after Benitez era. if I remember correctly, Real ran Barca very close in the league. Won the champions league convincingly, although Atletico could have won it.
2016-17 Zidane was the peak. Won the double of La Liga and CL deservedly. Zidane's use of his bench and rotation got lot of praise and rightly so.
However, the 2017-18 CL win has to be one the flukiest, along with Liverpool in 2005 and Chelsea in 2012. Madrid had no right to win that, let alone be in the final. Bayern completely self-imploded. Madrid looked on the wane and Zidane resigned, rightly so as he knew it. That's why his coming back surprised me.
Now, as successful as he has been, Zidane has clear limitations as a manager. Without a clear footballing philosophy, it becomes very difficult to mould a not-top tier team into one. The tactical flexibility that works well with a star-studded team, suddenly becomes meh with a good team. That's where he is lacking behind the current top tier of managers who has a clear pattern of play in mind, and mould their players in that shape.
Add to that, the transfers in his second term have been horrendous mostly. Hazard has been the worst signing in La Liga in last decade, even worse than Coutinho. Jovic is another disaster. Mix all of that, and it's a recipe for failure.
In 2015-16, he steadied the ship after Benitez era. if I remember correctly, Real ran Barca very close in the league. Won the champions league convincingly, although Atletico could have won it.
2016-17 Zidane was the peak. Won the double of La Liga and CL deservedly. Zidane's use of his bench and rotation got lot of praise and rightly so.
However, the 2017-18 CL win has to be one the flukiest, along with Liverpool in 2005 and Chelsea in 2012. Madrid had no right to win that, let alone be in the final. Bayern completely self-imploded. Madrid looked on the wane and Zidane resigned, rightly so as he knew it. That's why his coming back surprised me.
Now, as successful as he has been, Zidane has clear limitations as a manager. Without a clear footballing philosophy, it becomes very difficult to mould a not-top tier team into one. The tactical flexibility that works well with a star-studded team, suddenly becomes meh with a good team. That's where he is lacking behind the current top tier of managers who has a clear pattern of play in mind, and mould their players in that shape.
Add to that, the transfers in his second term have been horrendous mostly. Hazard has been the worst signing in La Liga in last decade, even worse than Coutinho. Jovic is another disaster. Mix all of that, and it's a recipe for failure.
Not really. They were worse that season because Perez fecked up the squad in the summer before and the season almost ended with James Rodriguez on loan knocking them out of the Champions League. They went from James to Ceballos, Pepe to Vallejo, Danilo to Lucas Vasquez as fullback and from Morata who had scored 20 goals in the previous season to nobody. Then they had quite a few injuries and suspensions and they couldn't cope at all. Mbappe was moving that summer and pratically begging to join Real Madrid at the time too and they let him go.
Zidane's tactical changes actually worked more often than not, they played a flat 4-4-2 for parts of that season with Asensio and Lucas Vasquez out wide and it worked very well for example.
But at the end of that season, after winning a 3rd consecutive Champions League title despite getting things completely wrong in the previous summer, rather than getting to the conclusion that they should reinforce the squad... they somehow concluded it was time to go in the complete opposite direction and break that team apart. How Perez got away with letting Zidane and Ronaldo leave at that time without the fans burning down the stadium is incredible but I guess that's what happens when you're the president that won 3 CLs in a row, it's hard for the fans to go against a president who has had that kind of success regardless of what his decisions are.
That 2016-17 team should have dominated football for the 5 years after that. The one culprit for how much they've declined is obviously Florentino Perez given they haven't had one good summer since. Zidane is a victim of the bad recruitment by the board, he won them the league last year by getting them to be defensively solid despite the squad obviously having a bunch of problems to solve and got rewarded with a total of 0 new players in the summer. If it was Conte or Mourinho in the same position then maybe the blame would get thrown to someone more deserving of it.
Madrid will get through to the next round. They always have a bad start to the season and end up winning. They are had a difficult start last season and ended up winning the league.
Ah yeah. Redondo was absolutely amazing. Broke my heart at Old Trafford and then again when he was shipped off. Vindictive, that was, but in true Flo style, turned out to be a masterstroke given what followed. Roncero - Tomas? Language barrier, so I read translations...That is not very common around here(although I think @RoyH1 is a bit madridista too) , but I understand you, it is impossible not to fall in love with Redondo.
You understand the club well. I like your posts. You need to bring Roncero to your life, if you haven't done it yet
As for not being common, I find that puzzling. Madrid's a club with great history and phenomenal players - from di Stefano and Puskas through Redondo, Raul and to the Ronaldos. There's also the fables about the reaction of Real Madrid to the Munich disaster. I find it easy to see similarities in the approaches of United and Madrid. Also yeah, I don't take umbrage to the transfer sagas (probably a big reason many on here get upset with RM after the CR7 saga).
You can't see the 2017-18 season's changes to his approach without assessing the changes to the squad. The open issue here will always be how much of a role Zidane himself played in the changes to the squad. I do feel that at least some part of the blame lies with Zidane, but with Flo's Madrid, it's never easy to know. A lot depends on how you see Flo (I see him as having been very good for the club) and also on how you feel Zidane is with the bringing in and integrating of new / younger players (albeit limited, his time at Castilla has never led me to believe he's good with this). On the latter, 2016-17 seemed like it was going brilliantly well. Most of the continent felt that Real Madrid were set to dominate for a decade with a crop of excellent players on the cusp of taking up the mantle. That it went to pieces is known - the reasons will always be open to speculation. I still think though, that the biggest change was when he came back in 2019. Said it then about how his first step was very much like Jose's return to Chelsea. An immediate reinstatement of all of the old guard, followed by an almost obsessive loyalty with them.
Yes - I do expect a result on the last matchday. Still, Real Madrid in this group should not have been in this position.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Honestly think they should shift 'Gladbach game back to the Bernabeu if that's possible.
O.k no fans but their players must be a bit bored by now at playing at the training ground as to me it dosen't really give the feeling of being massive games given over here how many friendlies and under 23 games get played played at these venues.
Shifting it to Santiago Bernabeu and the players would probably get extra 5% from all the great games they've had at that venue and it might intimidate 'Gladbach a little more.
Or just get Ramos back out there on one leg, that's probably more likely.
O.k no fans but their players must be a bit bored by now at playing at the training ground as to me it dosen't really give the feeling of being massive games given over here how many friendlies and under 23 games get played played at these venues.
Shifting it to Santiago Bernabeu and the players would probably get extra 5% from all the great games they've had at that venue and it might intimidate 'Gladbach a little more.
Or just get Ramos back out there on one leg, that's probably more likely.
Players got worse. It's easy to be flexible when you have 22 starters, less so when you have 5 players *total* of the required quality
He didn't really make any major changes, mostly trying to get around having to backup carvajal with an 18 year old hakimi, the steady decline of the midfielders, a bench he didn't trust, and oh, of course, the 3 stars of the team that were supposed to score the goals and instead went half the season scoring like 8 goals total between the 3 of them in the league
It's not. It's a slow team with massive structural deficiencies who relies on 5 players(ramos, casemiro, valverde and benzema) to solve them. If even one of those is missing, the whole thing crumbles like the sand castle that it is
It's really not. The results speak for themselves
Zidane himself believed the team needed major changes. It's why he left in the first place. That wasn't a team in need of reinforcements, it was a team in need of *replacements*
It's 3 years later and Marcelo and Modric are DONE, and everybody else bar Benzema got worse. That 16/17 side did not have another 5 years
3 years of dominating Europe is pretty long period. I don't think any team is capable of more than that anymore really. Even Pep's Barca domination on Europe lasted only 3 years too.
Football has become a very dynamic sport and things change faster than anyone can believe.
I was about to say the same thing about Ferguson. The idea that given enough time and stability is the best way to success. Problem is it’s almost impossible to replicate what he did. I do like to see managers given time to assemble a team
and imprint his methods, but I also can see the positives in the Madrid Chelsea approach so can’t really understand the criticisms about sacking the managers.
It’s strange. He’s won the CL 3 times as a manager but I agree. Not sure why, but he’s one of them ones he’ll be judged either at a different club or how he handles the rebuild at RM with not much money.
Couldn't disagree more.
Navas is 33 years old , Carvajal 28, Varane 27, Nacho 30, Casemiro 28, Kroos 30, Kovacic 26, Asensio 24, Isco 28, Benzema 32... most of the players in the team that won 3 CLs in a row are currently in their prime years. Ramos and Ronaldo got old but they're still beasts regardless and Modric isn't the old Modric but he's not done at all, he' still a top player if he gets limited minutes.
You thought they needed replacing because they didn't get the reinforcements they needed in the team. Players always look worse when the team isn't doing well.
Kovacic wanted out(and let's face it, isn't good enough), asensio stalled, isco had appendicitis and has been a shadow since then, Varane's decline had been puzzling and maybe wouldn't have happened in other circumstances, but it did, and Nacho is and always has been a solid end of rotation player. We are talking about at least 3 starters needed on that team assuming we'd kept Cristiano, plus an entirely new bench
For that matter i think Kroos is done too, though that's less down to him declining much and more to do with football having passed him by. You can't get away with a player that slow footed in midfield in 2020
Don't get me wrong my preference is 100% for Chelsea finding a manager suitable for a long term sustained project, however my belief is that giving an unsuitable manager loads of time is actually the biggest form of instability going and I really don't understand the fettish in this country to give managers who are showing literally no signs of promise loads of time.
Managers in my opinion have to earn time and show encouragement that the projected end product is worth the growing pains along the way.
Pochs going to end up at real isn’t he
I hope you don't get them final 2 likes to become a full member, with disrespectful posts like this.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Zidane: “I'm never going to be Madrid's Aex Ferguson. I want to enjoy. I don't know how long I'm going to stay here. I just think about how lucky I am to be here. I do not know until when! There are many years in Madrid and I want to continue ”.
If Ole had the exact same quote, he'd be ripped to shreds for lacking ambition.
And who is "Aex Ferguson" anyway?
without hazard and decent attacking trio he managed to do the job... hope to see him in England one day
Quick, we need another crisis!