The Spanish Football Thread

Business as usual after the clásico. As I said, I think this is the reason RFEF (Spanish FA) appoint Mallenco to referee the clásicos so often - he has made loads of wrong calls against both teams & is generally hated by both teams, and thus can't be accused of favouritism.

CR always comes up with conspiracy theories. He never talks about individual games but always sees a system or recurring theme behind things. On Blatter: "Much is explained now. I wish Mr. Blatter health and a long life, with the certainty that he will continue to witness, as he deserves, the successes of his favourite teams and players." And that is ignoring that Blatter is a member of RM.

A bit like Xavi and his pitch condition theories.

What he says is laughable of course - he should go back to the Elche game this season, where the referee gifted RM a wrong corner and a wrong penalty in the 96th minute and later manipulated the match report to hide it.

yeah I was annoyed from the elche game. They were definitely robbed

ronaldo keeps crying over everything. So damn whiny. Were the comments he made to blatter when he accused him of not being enough of a leader or something?

Of course they're not simple, but I'd say that there aren't many games that you wouldn't expect them to drop too many points in.

The Sevilla game just got a little harder: Ramos and Di Maria suspended, Ronaldo possibly too.

I know Ramos would be suspended because of his red card - but why would Ronaldo and di María be suspended? What have they done?

CR7: "i've been here 5 years now, i'm slowly understanding how things work. Since i've been here, madrid have never benefitted from the ref" [@marca]

Business as usual after the clásico. As I said, I think this is the reason RFEF (Spanish FA) appoint Mallenco to referee the clásicos so often - he has made loads of wrong calls against both teams & is generally hated by both teams, and thus can't be accused of favouritism.

CR always comes up with conspiracy theories. He never talks about individual games but always sees a system or recurring theme behind things. On Blatter: "Much is explained now. I wish Mr. Blatter health and a long life, with the certainty that he will continue to witness, as he deserves, the successes of his favourite teams and players." And that is ignoring that Blatter is a member of RM.

A bit like Xavi and his pitch condition theories.

What he says is laughable of course - he should go back to the Elche game this season, where the referee gifted RM a wrong corner and a wrong penalty in the 96th minute and later manipulated the match report to hide it.

He says, after being awarded a penalty for a foul that occurred outside the area

I know Ramos would be suspended because of his red card - but why would Ronaldo and di María be suspended? What have they done?

2. Barca got penalty outside box against city. But ofc you miss that out..

Di María had his fifth yellow. Ronaldo for his comments on the referee, but that was just speculation. I doubt that will happen.

Di María had his fifth yellow. Ronaldo for his comments on the referee, but that was just speculation. I doubt that will happen.



1. In the last clásico there were two penalties that were not given, so it evened out.
2. The penalty was awarded because the foul continued inside the box, which is in accordance with UEFA rules. The foul started outside the box, but the decisive contact happened when Messi was in the box.
3. He didn't get a yellow for that. And how you can make a case for Pepe of all people is beyond me.

So basically what you're saying is it was okay to stamp on pepe, dismiss barcas penalty against man city but say ronaldo's foul isn't a penalty

Oh and stop attacking Pepe. Fabregas wasn't innocent.

Sorry, but what do you expect from him?

He played counter attacking football for Brazil where he thrived in, has to play a totally different style of play where he plays in tight spaces. In a much more tactical league with much better defenders. He's not going to be getting 20 goals a season yet for sure.

If he didn't have as much hype on him, he'd have been better suited going to another club in europe like Portugal for him to learn his trade in europe then get his break at Barca.

I know, that's what I've said before. That they would go back to counter football as their main means of attacking against any team thad has a good and organised midfield was to be expected.
I wasn't talking about the general approach though, but rather about the way they go forward, i.e. counter. They don't play downright possession in all the other la liga games either, but often rely on very quick and direct movements forward after winning the ball in their own half, with strategic positional play of the front 3, which you could describe as some form of counter football. I think this strategy would have been effective against Barcelona because of Alves and Alba playing so high up the pitch and Mascherano's positioning generally being poor. But in those two clásicos as well as in the first Atlético match, RM haven't made use of that but rather played like they did under Mourinho. Which I think isn't as effective against Barcelona as it used to be back then, because Özil was better suited to it than Modric and Barcelona's defence is better.

That's all fair enough, and I already acknowledged that I appreciate the difficulties involved in moving and the fact that he's still very young (Ronaldo/Bale/Messi obviously hadn't peaked by twenty-two). So it's not a case of stats, or even a case of reducing the issue to 'performances'. It's more attributes - admittedly I didn't watch Barcelona over the winter months a lot for various reasons, but from what I have seen, Neymar has a lot more to do with regards to decision-making than other really top players.

I may be ridiculed for the comparison because obviously the players have such a huge disparity in ability, etc, but when I watch Neymar in the final third at times some of the problems that really frustrate me when watching Zaha seem prevalent in him as well: a bit rushed, a bit panicked, and a lot of raw skill that doesn't really translate itself into an end product.

But my initial comment was hardly intended to write Neymar off. He's done okay, but he hasn't really caught my eye irrespective of bare 'figures,', which I know can be easily taken as the only mark of a player's quality.

3-2 Barca.

Messi hatrick

Ronaldo Bale with 1

I'll stop posting on TSR forever if that happens.

Yeah, it's interesting that Real seem like flat track bullies atm.

Counter football Mourinho style(big games anyway) probably wasn't the right style for Madrid in the first place if I was being honest with you. If they had a player of the quality of Javi Martinez or a Nemanja Matic and forced Ronaldo to work for the team then yes they'd suit Mourinho, but they had too many guile players who were too offensively minded, it made them devastating when they got a counter, but you always felt the way in which they defended seemed very risky, it's as if they have two David Luiz's at CB at times.
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If you think about it, Real conceded 42 goals in their final season, more than Mourinho did in his first 2 years at Chelsea. I don't think that style suited that team at all tbh.

I assume you mean Ozil is better suited to it than Modric because he's more of a traditional no.10, who will stay higher up the pitch and pass to runners in space like Bale/Ronaldo/Di Maria right?

Personally I don't think your defence is much better than last season, you generally aren't the greatest defensively but you restrict the no of quality chances the opposition gets. I don't watch you guys every week so may be misinformed, but that's what it seems to me. If a team put you under a sustained period of pressure(Bayern Munich/Dortmund possibly) or were very clinical with their players(Atlético/Chelsea/Dortmund) The likes of mascherano will be pretty suspect and you'll leak more goals.

By the way, video of Busquet's "stomp" on Pepe's head: https://vine.co/v/MMFUebFhUdr

Looks like his foot slides to me; and he wasn't looking at the ground.