Real Madrid 5- 2 Levante

Posted by Borris Becker on May 20, 2008 in General | 2 comments

 Real Madrid 5- 2 Levante

First of all, lets congratulate Levante for turning up despite not being paid for the past two seasons, which is obviously an unbelievable thing. Anyway, despite 7 goals in this game, the match never really took off, no excitement, no nothing. Real Madrid players were playing like they’re having a training session or something, no drive, no class although plenty of entertainment so to say, as Real Madrid kept on pouring forward.

At one point it looked as if Sergio Ramos would get a hat trick, he got two goals eventually but still they are plenty if you’r a defender. Ramos is arguably the best young and I am not going to hesitate in saying that probably best defender in the world right now not just young but also experienced, definitely the captain after Raul departs from Real Madrid.

The New Real Madrid Maldini

Talking about Sergio Ramos, in him you have the hard tackling defender, fast paced wing back, wonderful in the air, can score goals from long range and headers and the biggest quality I see in him is his ability to play at full potential under pressure, when the rest of the team is feeling down, he is the one who puts the foot on the accelerator from the right wing and brings everyone to life.

Sergio is a Beast in the air

(Source daylife.com)

He is a Champions League player, meaning he can perform in big matches, I cannot forget his fantastic goal(which was disallowed for a hand ball, although it was the wrong call by the referee), but what a strike it was, Real Madrid trailing by a goal, needing to draw the game in order to go to the quarter finals and all was not going in Real Madrid’s favour after conceding a goal early in the game, in fact in the 10nth second of the game, quickest goal conceded in Champions League history.

 The team was down and out, suddenly Ramos came in with a powerful run through the middle, got hold of a loose ball and just wacked it past the keeper, the ball teared through Bayern Munich’s defense and beat the goal keeper, for a moment I thought it was Van Nistelrooy shooting, as it was such a clean strike and not just a foot to the ball, it was a proper strike, Sergio Ramos’s balance was magnificent on that occasion.

He has so much poise, so much finesse about his game. Name me a defender who does 360′s on opponent players, yeah I know, you cant, noone can. Sergio Ramos is the next generation defender, beats people with skills like C.Ronaldo and probably in way better than C.Ronaldo, as he just doesn’t do skills just for the sake of it but Ramos does it to beat people, now that does not mean that he is better than C.Ronaldo at dribbling but Sergio Ramos is definitely the Cristiano or Messi of defenders.

Sergio Ramos touch is not of a defender

(Source sporting-heroes.net)

One thing that most people tend to forget is his age, at 21, Sergio Ramos has been a regular for Real Madrid for over two seasons, now that is some achievement considering the Galacticos Real Madrid are so famous for signing Superstar players. His tackling is as clean as it can get, usually a defender gets these kind of tackles when in his 26 or 28s or even later, Sergio makes defending look cool in contrast to what people in general think, defending for dogs.

No wonder why in Spain, people call him THE WOLF, because of his stamina, his power, his speed, his hunger to make a difference. These are the qualities that takes a player towards great achievements and I am sure, in the coming Euro’s he is going to make a lot of difference in this Spanish team.

If you look at all the defenders around the world who are considered as “Bests”. They may include Ferdinand, Terry, Carvalho, Puyol, Thuram, Zambrotta, Abidal, Gallas, Carragher, Nesta, these guys came to prominence in their late 20s, now all are above 30′s, look at Cannavaro, 5 years back, no body even knew that a name such as Cannavaro exists in football, forget about a football player and Cannavaro went on to win the FIFA World Player Of The Year award, first time in history, has a defender won the best player award, although his performances significantly declined after that.

My picks for the upcoming good defenders would be Kompany, Clichy, may be Evra but he is not young by any means, he is at his peak now and for all the Manchester United Fans, for goodness sake do not say Vidic is a world class player because he is not. Just remember the humiliation he suffered at the hands of Kaka last season in the Champions League Semi Finals, he has got no pace, has got good tackle but not great. Only thing good about Vidic is his heading which is why I think Ferguson has him in his team otherwise he is good for nothing. Talking about Clichy, I think he is super quick but most people or even pundits do not seem to recognise that. There are not many defenders whom I ve seen to hunt down C.Ronaldo by running him over but Clichy has done it and he is also very very sharp and quick with the ball at his feet, I wont be surprised if Real Madrid come for him in the next few seasons.

Clichy is fast becoming more like Roberto Carlos(who chased down every man in football)

(Source arsenalpiec.tv)

 I just do not like defenders like Vidic or Ferdinand although Ferdinand is world class defender, but in reality I don’t think they both are, its only because of the protection they get form the midfielders that they give the impression that they are good defenders, both of these guys are wonderful headers of the ball no doubt, but when it comes to pace or one on one’s they both are poor no way near the quality that most people associate with them, the only defending challenge that a defender can get it at Real Madrid.

Here are Real Madrid, a defender does not have the whole midfield to cover him up on every attack, like in Manchester United Rooney, to a certain extent Ronaldo, Scholes, Carrick, Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves all run like dogs and help out the defense which is a good thing. I am talking about something else. Anyway, here at Real Madrid many so called great defenders came and fell because here, in every game on more than one occasion a defender has to prove his worth in a one on one rather than winning headers or do collective defending, look at what happened to Cannavaro, played wonderful at Juventus but fell down in Real Madrid. Why? Because he did not have Vieira, Camronesi, Nedved and some more people in front of him to protect him and of course he had a partner like no other (thuram).

One can say that Capello did play like that and yes he did but that is not the point. At Real Madrid only 4 or max 6 players defend at a time not more than except in case of extreme importance like a final or something. In that respect I think the best defenders on, one on ones are Kolo Toure, Sergio Ramos, Gallas, Puyol, Thuram, Zambrotta, Abidal. More to come on this later.

Anyways, talking about this match( I got a little off topic), Real Madrid scored goal after goals and conceded some too as is the norm. Van Nistelrooy scored two standard striker’s goals and two from Sergio Ramos and the 4rth goal was one piece of artistry from Sniejder.

Van Nistelrooy returning with a bang scoring two goals.

(Source football.co.uk)

What a free kick it was from Sniejder, the least said about that free kick would be “perfect”, no chance for the keeper or the wall what so ever, so much dip, curl and accuracy. Wonderful, this guy is coming into his game now, had a poor season most of the time but in the second half of the season he has really blossomed, controls the midfield and has every trick, shot in his book, his technique is perfect, he is good on the ball and has a good vision for the game, one quality that separates him from the other player who play in his position in the world, is his ability to make pin point accurate lobbed passes on first touch, without setting himself up for eternity like Beckham(and again I am not saying that Beckham is bad or Sniejder’s passes are better than Beckham….. well on a second thought I think I might as well say it but for the moment No).

Robinho had a poor game again, I am thinking about writing an article about the reasons why Messi and Cristiano have progressed so much whereas in the first place like 3 or 4 years ago, it was actually Robinho who was touted as the next Pele, ready to dominate world football but it never happened more to come on that later.

Real Madrid conceded two poor goals, again Levante played on the counter attack and whipped menacing balls from the wing which lead to both the goal basically, well when Real Madrid wins, no one talks about their poor defense, its only when Real Madrid loose, so I am going to follow this tradition and not talk about the poor defending.

Overall, good game but really I watched the game mainly to see the celebrations for Real Madrid’s 31st league title, now thats alot of league titles, the party was huge and all madridstas must have enjoyed that night, hope Real Madrid can win the Champions League Next season.

Have I missed any player in my defenders talk, please let me know through your comments 

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