Despite a dressing room full of big names and bigger egos, there actually seems to have been relatively little discontent there this season which I think reflects well on Pellegrini. The last coach who kept a lid on the dressing room was Del Bosque and we know how that relative stability reflected in results and trophies.

hmm, I think to be honest, that that is more of a reflection of how powerless pellegrini is. Sid lowe and graham hunter have both said that pellegrini was effectively sacked before he was hired, as he was basically too far down perez's list of coaches. Also the real madrid aligned press have been allowed to attack pellegrini for all of the shortcomings of the team.

Any dispute with say cristiano ronaldo would be immediately fatal to his career. Also things have gone pretty well so far. The players involved in the alcoron defeat couldn't really say anything and pellegrini took all of the heat. There hasn't been any real reason to have a row yet.

However, you could hear the shrieks from kaka's entourage and his own on pitch reaction when he substituted him for very sound footballing reasons. kaka's wife was immediately on twitter repeating what kaka's press agent said. That pellegrini was a coward looking for a scapegoat. How the hell is a manager going to function in an environment like that?

His motivation is that he cannot burn bridges in Madrid as he did in Manchester as there are no more options open to him to turn to if he doesn't like things. No other club can afford his fee or his wages and after the fuss he made about signing for his boyhood idols then no other club is going to have any sort of emotional pull for him.

He has to have as much invested in this relationship as Madrid do

Hmm, again, you're missing the crucial distinction here though that after florentino perez, ronaldo is pretty much the second most important person at real madrid. When you spend 80 million on someone, then give him a £108 million six year contract, with escalator clauses back loading the contract so that he'll be getting £550,000 a week, he's just more likely to carry infinitely more weight than a disposable coach.

Well he was trusted and he was allowed to manage, little more than that. It was those skills that surely attracted Madrid in the first place and to be fair to Perez, he did let the Chilean have a decent say in the transfer targets. He got defenders and he persuaded a reticent Perez to go that bit extra to sign Xabi Alonso. Perez seems to have learned some things from his first era as President, the big question is whether he has learnt patience.

I think you're misjudging the situation. Perez doesn't really rate pellegrini, and he was always going to sack him if he could get his hands on wenger, mourinho or benitez. and the players had an input into the signing of xabi alonso as well. I think that he was always going to sign defenders as part of his new philosophy, given the shortcomings of the last one.

Ultimately all I'm saying is that the bizarre system that they have at real madrid where the player is portrayed as some kind of god, and where the manager is some kind of stunted powerless figure is a bad way to run a club. It's a fundamentally stupid way to behave, and will continue to be unsuccessful in europe as long as you have opponents who have players who are good enough, and are following a plan.

One difference between the current galacticos and the old ones is that players like zidane and figo while both having a healthy ego, were both fairly hard working team players who got as much out of setting up a teammate as scoring themselves. Zidane and figo were more like xavi and messi than ronaldo and kaka. (I would have thought actually that kaka was more like zidane until the bizarre outbursts from his camp. Zidane was also better at football)

dalliance wrote:
Can I say (again) how absolutely shit Huntelaar is.

This can never be said enough. Weren't Spurs linked with him? Come on Harry, make it happen.

There is no magic equation here, club spends more money than other club, ergo they have to do better then them in a Cup competition. What is the point in adding together all the money Real Madrid have spent over 6 seasons when pretty much each year they dismantle those signings, push them out to someone else at a lost and start the whole process again.

Nah, that's not it, I'm not making a relative comparison. the joke is that they behave in the way that you describe, making the same stupid mistakes all the time and don't get past the second round of the CL, while going on about the importance of europe and their pre-eminence all the time.

Mourinho at least had a good run at the job and some sort of continuity was built. He has a core first team and he slowly improved the weaker components and added to the depth, he did not rip the arse out of the team and start again every season as Madrid are prone to do.

But jose mourinho at chelsea was more like a god figure than any poor misfortunate at real madrid. It only went sour when he went all colonel kurtz. you can't remotely compare the situations. Chelsea spent all that money in their first season to try and drag the team up a level so they could start signing proper players. Real madrid aren't doing that.

And the second bit, well to most they always will be the biggest club in the world and there will always be players who want to play for them, even if it means giving up multiple trophies at other big clubs like yours to go there.

hmm, to be honest, if real madrid was so attractive a proposition to all players, they probably wouldn't have to triple players salaries in order to get them to move.

You have to set this against what sid lowe was saying on the guardian podcast that a sixth consecutive second round elimination means that real madrid just aren't a big club in european terms anymore, and their position in the league has to raise serious questions about the quality of the spanish league. he's probably the last person that you'd describe as a hispanophobe, and as someone who works for real madrid tv, you wouldn't accuse him of being biased against them.

But this is kind of the way things happen for real madrid. Periods of doing really well in europe when they have the cards stacked in their favour, and long periods where their rather wasteful way of doing things makes them less than impressive in europe. This is one of those periods.

And I don't bear any ill will towards ronaldo for wanting to move to spain. He was a great player for man utd, and we got a lot of money for a player who wanted to move (as he was always going to do) I've been in manchester and I've been in madrid. Apart from the glaringly obvious lifestyle attractions and the trebling in salary, I can see why the prospect of living in a happy propaganda bubble of club inspired praise and adulation would appeal to him. (I don't think it will be remotely good for him thought) But he would have had a much better chance of lifting the CL in the bernebeu if he had stayed at manchester united.

And while there may be a lot of hubris in their boastful claims, surely it is no more so than we have been accustomed to from your club over the past decade and a half.

well not really. I mean it's not even close. They have their own newspapers that do it all the time. The week of the 2008 champions league final marca ran 7 front page stories about how cristiano ronaldo had agreed to sign for real madrid. Which is kind of sad when you think about it. That stuff you were talking about is a bit silly when man utd do it, but at least they have a powerful profit motive, but real madrid don't yet they do it all the time.

I remember how disparaging you were when Ronaldinho chose a then somewhat down at heel Barcelona ahead of Man United in 2003. You were disgusted that he would eschew a serious career to go to a joke club like Barca at the time. Well we know how that one worked out don't we. Certain clubs are too big to stay down forever, Madrid are certainly one of them

Hmm, I seem to recall saying that ronaldinho moved to barcelona mostly because he wanted to live by the beach and fuck big-titted strippers. I don't think that that is an inaccurate description of how things panned out. He was brilliant for a couple of short years, but was finished as a really top player by the time he was 26. He got thrown out of barcelona. Look at him now, he's playing for ac milan and he's not even 30 yet.

And of course they're not going to stay down forever, no matter how hard they try. They've used their institutional power to stack the cards too much in their favour. Their huge individualized tv deal has given them such a huge financial advantage over everyone. However this has come at the cost of ruining the league, depriving them of regular high quality domestic opposition, so they look clueless in europe, and get knocked out by the first half decent team they meet, having finished second in their group (five years out of six) despite being the top seed.

If Van Persie isn't fit in time, I'd assume Holland (for all their attacking talent) are going to have the tantalising choice between Huntelaar or Dirk Kuyt as their lone forward, this summer?

They could get Van Nistelrooy back. Or...er...Ryan Babel.

a mighty Kubelaar figure? the mighty Kubelgog's older brother. or would he be more of a godzuki figure.

You subscribe to Kaka's wife's tweets?

Comparing Kaka to Zidane seems pointless. Two different kinds of player. Zidane was a great team player right up until he got red carded for some pointless lapse. Kaka, of course, is a team player as well. I don't think your attempt to portray a Kaka-Ronaldo axis of impudence really works.

Also, someone explain to me why putting Raul in for Kaka was a good move. If you need 2 goals in 15 minutes, why take off a creative attacking midfielder? Whose name is also Kaka? Who you just paid 56 million for?

sid lowe was talking about his wife repeating his press agent's twittering about pellegrini. To be honest I was very surprised by the response of kaka and his camp, and only last week I saw him lash out with his left arm and his right arm at an Irish player in a friendly. Clearly things are getting to him and pellegrini is getting it with both barrels from him.

But ultimately i'm saying that the manager has no power to make the players follow his plan if they don't want to. I mean can you see pellegrini being able to do what ferguson did by picking an attacking midfielder like park to just shut pirlo out of both legs? He could have at villareal, but I don't know if he could do it at madrid. I couldn't see rafa benitez lasting six months at real madrid. He just wouldn't take it.

But kaka wasn't playing well. After pellegrini and higuain (neither have the protection of florentino) the madrid press have slated kaka as well. He must have been terrible. Raul might have scored a couple of goals. He's done it before. But as sid lowe was saying on the guardian podcast his substitutions didn't look great, but for all their huge squad, he didn't have too many options on the bench.

I'm not saying don't put in Raul, I'm saying don't take off Kaka. It doesn't matter if he hadn't been playing well; if you're desperate for two goals in a short span you leave him in, it only takes one good pass. Or two, in this case.

hmm, I think to be honest, that that is more of a reflection of how powerless pellegrini is. Sid lowe and graham hunter have both said that pellegrini was effectively sacked before he was hired, as he was basically too far down perez's list of coaches. Also the real madrid aligned press have been allowed to attack pellegrini for all of the shortcomings of the team.

What is this list though, is it the sort of managerial fantasy wish list we would have if we were hiring a manager for our team. I think it is and it's one that really doesn't work with real life practicalities.

What Real Madrid look for in a manager is a good track record of both success and of playing stylish football and a willingness to accommodate the wishes of the President on the pitch and in the transfer market. Not a model that is uncommon after all, we see it in a slightly diluted form at Milan and in a more diluted form at Chelsea.

So from that managerial wish list then you would have Wenger who would fit the first two criteria but not the third and the fourth. Mourinho would tick the first one, not the second one and absolutely not the third and fourth ones. Benitez in his current reduced status would give you criteria one and would probably accept the meddling from the President. He is not going to give you the entertaining football that they demand though.

So for a variety of reasons all the main candidates are severely compromised for Perez, while actually Pellegrini probably ticks all four boxes for him despite his less stellar reputation.


Any dispute with say cristiano ronaldo would be immediately fatal to his career. Also things have gone pretty well so far. The players involved in the alcoron defeat couldn't really say anything and pellegrini took all of the heat. There hasn't been any real reason to have a row yet.

But there's always a reason to have a row at Madrid and the very fact you state there's hasn't really been one reflects well on the coach just about keeping a lid on things. Capello was being undermined and criticised within a couple of months of his most recent spell.

Hmm, again, you're missing the crucial distinction here though that after florentino perez, ronaldo is pretty much the second most important person at real madrid. When you spend 80 million on someone, then give him a £108 million six year contract, with escalator clauses back loading the contract so that he'll be getting £550,000 a week, he's just more likely to carry infinitely more weight than a disposable coach.

While he is the star player he is then of course he will be humoured by everyone at the club, including the coach. The fact that he is playing very well reflects in part on the manager. The problem comes when you have a Robinho situation, in his mind he is a star who deserves to be indulged but to everyone else he is a liability. Despite Robinho being the current Man City regime's flagship signing, they had no qualms about letting Mancini ship him out when he wasn't performing. I think that Madrid would do the same if Ronaldo got to that sort of stage.

And Real Madrid are the absolute worst in losing interest in players after a few mediocre performances and having their head turned by some new up and coming star


I think you're misjudging the situation. Perez doesn't really rate pellegrini, and he was always going to sack him if he could get his hands on wenger, mourinho or benitez. and the players had an input into the signing of xabi alonso as well. I think that he was always going to sign defenders as part of his new philosophy, given the shortcomings of the last one.

Well, see what I said above about the other managers thing. And Pellegrini has made some bold moves this season, he dropped Raul which is always going to be a contentious thing for any Madrid coach to do, meanwhile he has been happy to bench Perez's near £ 40m signing Benzema and play the near forgotten and hugely out of fashion Higuain. With good results we must remember.

The Alonso signing was very much driven by Pellegrini, no-one else. He went head to head with Perez and got him to pay what was necessary. I think the Chilean has more weight than you give him credit for there, albeit of course never what any coach should really have of course.


well not really. I mean it's not even close. They have their own newspapers that do it all the time. The week of the 2008 champions league final marca ran 7 front page stories about how cristiano ronaldo had agreed to sign for real madrid.

How Manchester United would love to have their own newspaper to spread their Pravda like propaganda, if only anyone could work out how to market a daily football based paper of any description that the public would buy in this country. United make do by censoring views they do not like and ostracising those who stray any distance from the message they want out there. No difference really.


Hmm, I seem to recall saying that ronaldinho moved to barcelona mostly because he wanted to live by the beach and fuck big-titted strippers. I don't think that that is an inaccurate description of how things panned out. He was brilliant for a couple of short years, but was finished as a really top player by the time he was 26. He got thrown out of barcelona. Look at him now, he's playing for ac milan and he's not even 30 yet.

That is indirectly suggesting that had he signed for Manchester United then his career trajectory might have been better, or longer at the highest level. I don't think it would have. I doubt he would have hit the same highs he did at Barcelona where he was surrounded by players more on his wavelength and a coach who was willing to tolerate his excesses and laziness for the greater good. Ferguson would never have done that.

Had Ronaldinho been in Manchester then his mental state would certainly have been poorer, the strippers all have saggy tits and the closest to beaches he would have got would have been a Sex On The Beach in some shady cocktail bar. At least he could have taken Gary Neville out on the pull to make him look more handsome to the women I suppose.

He was always a flake who was set to underachieve, he never had the commitment to his career and it was just a coming together of a number of factors that allowed those couple of great seasons to even happen at all.


But ultimately i'm saying that the manager has no power to make the players follow his plan if they don't want to. I mean can you see pellegrini being able to do what ferguson did by picking an attacking midfielder like park to just shut pirlo out of both legs? He could have at villareal, but I don't know if he could do it at madrid. I couldn't see rafa benitez lasting six months at real madrid. He just wouldn't take it.

I do see that if it works and he gets results and that earns you latitude. As I said above, he has happily benched big signings like Benzema because they do not fit his team plan. Is there anyone out there calling for Higuain to be dropped as a result ? I don't think so.

Benitez would find it hard as he has a level of control at Liverpool he would never get at Madrid. But let's be honest, he is unlikely to get that level of control at any of the biggest clubs abroad because they just do not work the same as our clubs do.

I haven't said it for over 24 hours, it's worth mentioning again. Huntelaar is shit.

Today's Marca site has a banner headline asking why Gonzalo Higuaín shot on two occasions when Cristiano Ronaldo was screaming for the ball. Apparently Ronaldo was most displeased after the match. You'd think he'd understand how Higuaín felt, because he spent his last two or three seasons in Manchester shooting in spite of Wayne Rooney frequently being in a much better position.

dalliance wrote:
And while there may be a lot of hubris in their boastful claims, surely it is no more so than we have been accustomed to from [Manchester United] over the past decade and a half.

Dalliance, I agree with almost everything else you've said on this thread, but not this. Let's put Kubelgog's comments on Marca to one side. Have you been to the museum at the Bernabéu? Honestly, forgetting for a minute my footballing allegiances (both English and Spanish), it's an absolutely jaw-droppingly OTT place. There were bits of it that made me laugh out loud, it was that bad (of course the other tourists going round were a little more reverential. I was there solely because it was the only way I had of getting inside a World Cup final venue, and as I may have mentioned on here before I'm 'collecting' them). I can well understand, although I support the clubs in question, why someone would go round the museums at Old Trafford and the Camp Nou and think 'eugh...' - as it happens, I myself did too - but Madrid's really does take the piss.

I realise that the fact I fucking hate the bastards means this comment will be taken with a large pinch of salt but honestly, bad though they/we are, Manchester United aren't on the same planet of up-their-own-arses-ness as Real Madrid.

Has anybody done a "Guti Haz a Cheezburger" joke yet? No?

I'm watching this Real-Lyon game now, and the announcers have just guaranteed that Real will score at least three. Can't wait to see those goals!

Isn't Eric Wynalda an idiot? He really is.

"Today's Marca site has a banner headline asking why Gonzalo Higuaín shot on two occasions when Cristiano Ronaldo was screaming for the ball. Apparently Ronaldo was most displeased after the match. You'd think he'd understand how Higuaín felt, because he spent his last two or three seasons in Manchester shooting in spite of Wayne Rooney frequently being in a much better position."

As I said earlier in the thread, it's payback time for Higuain - Cristiano Ronaldo hasn't been passing to him all season.

Indeed. Not hard to guess whose side the Argentine press (where I saw the Marca story reported) and indeed myself are on in this. Although Higuaín's transfer to Madrid angered me in all sorts of ways - not least the fact that River's barra brava took a sizeable cut of the transfer fee - there's something quite fitting about the fact that he's won them so many games this season and last, in spite of being probably the least 'fashionable' forward at the club.

Then he misses two chances last night (the first of which, the one that hit the post, really reminded me a lot of the goal he scored against Germany a week earlier) and suddenly all hell breaks loose.

So for a variety of reasons all the main candidates are severely compromised for Perez, while actually Pellegrini probably ticks all four boxes for him despite his less stellar reputation.

come on now, we both know that there is no rhyme nor reason to how real madrid appoint their managers. They have but two job requirements, firstly perform miracles, proper big huge ones at which point the president takes all the credit, and when the miracles don't arrive, or aren't big enough, the manager then becomes a scapegoat.

And manuel pellegrini, ramon calderon, gonzalo higuain and to a much lesser extent are the only ones to blame for this. This is entirely their fault.

But there's always a reason to have a row at Madrid and the very fact you state there's hasn't really been one reflects well on the coach just about keeping a lid on things. Capello was being undermined and criticised within a couple of months of his most recent spell.

But real madrid were a fucking shambles when capello took over, he was complaining that he'd never seen anyone jumping out of more tackles in training than david beckham, ronaldo was a complete disgrace, and robinho was an alcoholic who turned up to training. Capello managed to turn it around miraculously, but yet again he was sacked despite winning a title. This has been the best real madrid start to a season ever. There's been no reason to fall out. But the first real bump in the road and even kaka is throwing the toys out of the pram.

Well, see what I said above about the other managers thing. And Pellegrini has made some bold moves this season, he dropped Raul which is always going to be a contentious thing for any Madrid coach to do, meanwhile he has been happy to bench Perez's near £ 40m signing Benzema and play the near forgotten and hugely out of fashion Higuain. With good results we must remember.

Firstly perez wants rid of raul. There is room for only one mr real madrid, and it's not going to be raul. He still hasn't forgiven him for criticizing the sacking of del bosque. You also have to remember that raul is a toxic little shit as well, who fights viciously to protect his own elevated status. Two weeks ago bernd schuster was saying that real madrid had agreed a deal to sign david villa two years ago, but raul went in, had a chat with the president and the deal collapsed.

The second thing to remember about the signing of benzema, is that it was an enormously stupid idea, carried out only because he was the most famous player in france. he's like a young, sane version of stan collymore. However Real madrid have 30 players who all want to pick up the ball deep and run at the goal. Consequently Benzema has been pretty fucking awful.

Higuain on the other hand is the only centre forward available to pellegrini, so he picks him. until recently higuain was the player getting the most criticism in the club (because calderon signed him) but eventually scoring all of those goals meant that all of that criticism started to die down. But hitting the post against lyon means he's back to being public enemy no 3 after pellegrini and calderon.

How Manchester United would love to have their own newspaper to spread their Pravda like propaganda, if only anyone could work out how to market a daily football based paper of any description that the public would buy in this country. United make do by censoring views they do not like and ostracising those who stray any distance from the message they want out there. No difference really

This is just gibberish. If you think the two situations are remotely comparable you have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps it might have happened if the sky takeover happened, and the news international newspapers would have become man utd propaganda sheets. but instead the newspapers are full of people a) talking up man utd ridiculously or b) trying to destroy them depending on what sells newspapers at the time. Just because ferguson is paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get him.

On the other hand this situation is actually slightly better for man utd than the real madrid situation, because the deliberate attempt to destroy david beckham in 1998 and to drive cristiano ronaldo out of england in 2006 sparked off the two most successful periods in the clubs history.

To get a handle on how destructive the behaviour of marca is you should see it as a substantial proportion of the media treat Real madrid like the english media do the england captaincy. So eventually the relentless cock sucking of the players leads an entire club to turn into john terry.

That is indirectly suggesting that had he signed for Manchester United then his career trajectory might have been better, or longer at the highest level.

That's a bit of a leap. I think to be honest that a more accurate description would be that if ronaldinho was the sort of player who was serious about his career, and was the sort of player likely to still be playing at the top level in his late 20's, he would have signed for man utd in 2003 and played serious football.

Instead he signed for a struggling club in spain where he could sit by the beach drinking cocktails, eating barbeques and partying all the time. That things turned out really well for a short period was rather fortunate and not anything that looked remotely like happening up to six months after he signed for barcelona. Certainly that bbc documentary about the first year of laporta's reign really hammers home how accidental the whole thing was.

I don't think it would have. I doubt he would have hit the same highs he did at Barcelona where he was surrounded by players more on his wavelength and a coach who was willing to tolerate his excesses and laziness for the greater good. Ferguson would never have done that.

That's pretty much tantamount to saying that the only way you can get decent performances out of ronaldinho is to let him get on with his boozing, missing training, eating a cow a week at barbeques, and to be honest that's just nonsense. That sort of self justification bullshit is laughable when it's coming from rodney marsh or stan bowles.

Frank Rijkaard was just a weak coach, who owed his survival in 2003 to ronaldinho, who didn't care enough to try and impose his authority on the team so the whole thing just fell apart in record time. They went from the best team in europe by miles to being a team that didn't win a single one of their important games in the space of about eight weeks.

Guardiola's first move was to recognize that it was too late to change the behaviour of many of the players and threw ronaldinho and deco through the nearest window and cracked down on the nonsense, setting down clear ground rules for players, in the way that a proper manager would behave.

And of course you don't think he would have played well at man utd, you're forever confusing man utd with dave bassett's wimbledon. of course he would have never been able to replicate the intricate interplay he achieved at barcelona, playing alongside players like john fashanu and mick harford. Anyway, as it turned out man utd bought cristiano ronaldo and wayne rooney instead, so you have to reckon that they did much better out of the deal.

I do see that if it works and he gets results and that earns you latitude. As I said above, he has happily benched big signings like Benzema because they do not fit his team plan. Is there anyone out there calling for Higuain to be dropped as a result ? I don't think so.

The only thing that I can really take from this is that you're a) not aware that there is a lynch mob out to get higuain, and b) you're not paying any attention to what really goes on in real madrid.

It's an unmanageable club. To try and put it in an english setting It's like Newcastle united were to become one of only two clubs in london, Had the institutional power that comes from being the sporting wing of the conservative party, had the royal seal of approval, was part of news international, and was run by an insane dodgy builder who thinks he's a footballing visionary, and has a playing team made up of players who think they're in boyzone and girls aloud.

All of these things contribute in their own sweet way to their lack of success, despite all the money they spend. The only hope they have of the situation improving is if florentino perez dies young, because he's not leaving other than in a gold and gem encrusted box.

it's an absolutely jaw-droppingly OTT place. There were bits of it that made me laugh out loud, it was that bad (of course the other tourists going round were a little more reverential.

This is exactly the reaction I had to visiting toledo cathedral. There's just too much gold in there to take it seriously as a place of christian worship. Liberace would consider it tacky. It is really the most ridiculous place i've ever seen. It's a huge palace of marble and gold, in the middle of the fucking desert, built to glorify the rich and powerful in spain, and constructed of stuff they'd stolen from other places. It's obscene, and is basically the spanish version of the Easter Island heads.

Real madrid's use of institutional power to turn spanish football into a zero sum game that benefits only two clubs, is just the modern manifestation of the same backward monstrous conquistador mentality that destroyed South America,and kept spain backwards, poor and medievalist into the mid 1970s.