It took me a while to get over this defeat and that is why I am posting a late match report on this. Bottom line Real Madrid sucked again as they have been sucking for the past month or so. Injuries to key players is really starting to hurt the team now.
I cannot believe how can so many injuries occur to the players of the same team in such a short amount of time and all at once. What is happening at Real Madrid. The president Ramon Calderon and Mijatovic have come out and said that they have full faith in their medical team and they are trying to sort out the situation.
I don’t think they even know themselves what’s wrong with the fitness of all the players. Either we have totally injured players or the ones which are playing are playing with minor knocks here and there.
Apart from Casillas no one is 100 % or even 80% fit in the starting line up for Real Madrid.
Anyway, this match sucked. Getafe players were all over us from the start till the end. They were the ones who dictated the play and all Real Madrid was doing was running around chasing shadows.
Sniejder was our key player for that match as I think, right now, he is technically the most accomplished player in the sqaud (Remember, Van Nistelrooy is injured). So after Sniejder got a thigh injury (that was after the goal we conceded very early in the game, I’ll come back to that in a second) after he tried to intercept a misplaced pass and thus got substituted.
After that, there was no one who could control the midfield. Raul and Saviola were mere spectators for most of the game as Real Madrid could not build from the back, our midfielders lost posession very quickly and when they did get the ball to the win to Drenthe. All he did was to run around the defenders and put in a stupid cross.
I am not saying that was a bad strategy but that just shows you the quality of our current line up. There was no creativeness, no life, no nothing in the midfield. We have two strikers, one Raul, who has zero speed and dribbling skill.
The second was the little Saviola. Who though, has some pace, but has no ball control or any sense of movement. Doesn’t know how to position himself when the midfielders are looking for someone to pass to.
Bernd Schuster came up with the same line up that played against Bate Borisov few days ago, with the exception of heinze, who was replaced by Marcelo because Heinze got injured (Surprise Surprise)..
Real Madrid needed the 3 points desperately to stay with Barcelona and continue their winning streak to 3 matches in the League and Champions League but Getafe were in more need of points and their morale had been boosted thanks to their draw at Camp Nou last week.
Two minutes into the game, Licht served a magnificent ball to Gavilán, who crossed it into the box from the goal-line for Albín to score from a header.
Real Madrid had trouble in getting the hang of the game, Getafe just gave us too much to think about when we stepped on the ground and really Real Madrid were shell shocked.
Getafe made a lot of chances after their first goal and finally Real Madrid made some too. Marcelo hit a powerful shot which just slipped wide of the far post. It was around this time that Real Madrid looked to have settled down. Just as we were about to control the game, Sniejder was stretched off the ground. Bad omen? oh yes.
As is the norm, Getafe slowed the game down after they got their early goal and Real Madrid looked lethargic and dull while attacking in the 3rd half of the pitch. Gago had a chance but couldn’t do anything with it.
To make things worse, Torres strained his left hamstring muscles and had to be replaced by Míchel Salgado. Another Injury. Schuster had to use up 2 of his 3 substitutions in the first half. To me, there is definitely something wrong in the coaching staff of Real Madrid. Real Madrid did change their fitness coach and hired Valter Di Salvo ( I think that is his name) from Manchester United. Now, I don’t know if the methods he has brought to the club has had an adverse affect on the performance of the players.
I cannot recall the last time Real Madrid had so many players injured at any given moment.
Anyway, Second half begun and Real Madrid tried to up the tempo of the game as 3 points here were just crucial (as the future events would prove).Real Madrid played more intensely at the start of the last 45 minutes, but their spirits were dampened when Albín managed to overtake all their defenders down the left wing and defeated Casillas once again with a crossed shot (46′).
Again Real Madrid conceded early after the first half break. Again it was our poor defending that cost us against. Our defence was horrible as it has been for much of the season.
I bet, that a team like Manchester United or Arsenal would score 6 goals easy against Real Madrid on any given day. There was no shape to our defence. The midfield was so unbalanced that they could not help the defenders and most of the time, our defenders were left alone to defend against the onslaught while our midfield players struggled to track back.
Anyway, that second goal, really woke Real Madrid up, we started playing with more intensity and with more pace and didn’t gie Getafe the time to defend in numbers after they lost posession.
Raul who passed the ball to Guti, put a brilliant through ball to Saviola who was running towards the goal and thankfully scored a beautiful strike with the tip of his right foot, sending the ball in right through the top left corner of Getafe’s goal (55′).
After that, it was a very very open game. Both sides had plenty of chances to score goals, Getafe had more clear ones and could have easily scored 6 or even 7 goals.
Chance after Chance, save after save. Casillas was not being helped by his defenders, who were running wild all over the pitch with no organisation or communication. Real Madrid defence was torn into pieces on several occasions in the second half alone.
Finally, when Real Madrid attacked too much, Getafe hurt them on the break and scored their 3rd and final goal of the night. Uche scored in the 81nth minute.
I hate to admit this, but Real Madrid were lucky to loose by that margin. Getafe had atleast 3 sure penalties which were not given, and Real Madrid had atleast 2 players who deserved red cards as many times Pepe and Sergio Ramos fouled Getafe players when they attacked us on the break.
The referee tried everything he could to get Real Madrid back into the game. Seriously, it was one of the worst piece of umpiring I had seen for a very long long time and I was happy at that as it helped Real Madrid to stay in the game.
I wish he also conducts our games against Sevilla and Barcelona.
Anyway, we lost, Barcelona won 0-3 away from home against Sevilla and are now a wupping 6 points ahead of Real Madrid in the La Liga standings.
As of now, Real Madrid are 4rth in the table.
Real Madrid are going through the worst patch of their season and Barcelona are going through their best patch of the season which adds insult to injury as it would have been nice to see Barcelona loose just to keep the point difference between Barcelona and Real Madrid to just 3 points.
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