Real Madrid (‎Los Blancos) | Special Thread

[lynne]

In the end we'll triumph as always... Hala Madrid

 

[wooden flag]

 

[bhachu]

*** Madrid....FCB we Rule

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[Namuhi]

Roger n Pagan, nakubaliana na kutokubaliana na ninyi. Kumbuka hesabu zinatakiwa kufungwa mapema kwa ushindi hasa dhidi ya timu kama hii Levante. Tutakuja kulia baadae kwa kusubiri hisani ya majirani kupoteza. Ukweli ni kuwa Zizou kazingua na sina imani sana.

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[PAGAN]

Roger n Pagan, nakubaliana na kutokubaliana na ninyi. Kumbuka hesabu zinatakiwa kufungwa mapema kwa ushindi hasa dhidi ya timu kama hii Levante. Tutakuja kulia baadae kwa kusubiri hisani ya majirani kupoteza. Ukweli ni kuwa Zizou kazingua na sina imani sana.

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Calm down bro! We need to put ourselves together and look forward to the next game. You can't change the results now. I love the spirit of my team, hawakati tamaa mpaka mwisho

 

[bullar]

Roger n Pagan, nakubaliana na kutokubaliana na ninyi. Kumbuka hesabu zinatakiwa kufungwa mapema kwa ushindi hasa dhidi ya timu kama hii Levante. Tutakuja kulia baadae kwa kusubiri hisani ya majirani kupoteza. Ukweli ni kuwa Zizou kazingua na sina imani sana.

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bado mapema sana kumbuka hii hii team ndo ime mchapa Barça nje ndani

 

[Roger Sterling]

Roger n Pagan, nakubaliana na kutokubaliana na ninyi. Kumbuka hesabu zinatakiwa kufungwa mapema kwa ushindi hasa dhidi ya timu kama hii Levante. Tutakuja kulia baadae kwa kusubiri hisani ya majirani kupoteza. Ukweli ni kuwa Zizou kazingua na sina imani sana.

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Points 4 sio kitu, specially katika hatua hii ya ligi. Tulikuwa na points 4 mbele ya barca mpaka tunaenda Camp Nou last season, ila kumuka ligi ilivyoisha. Zizou alichemka labda, ila anajua anachokifanya. Kimahesabu bado ligi iko mikononi mwetu, all we have to do ni kushinda mechi zetu zote.

 

[Roger Sterling]

Real Madrid head to the Anoeta in desperate need of a win

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Despite pre-season suggestions that Zinedine Zidane's Real Madrid were comfortable favourites for the LaLiga title, consecutive draws against Levante and Valencia have left the club heading to the Estadio Anoeta on Sunday in desperate need of a win.

Suspensions and injuries have meant the French coach is forced to head into a tricky away trip without Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcelo and Karim Benzema.

A Barcelona victory against Espanyol will leave Los Cules four points clear of their fierce rivals and whilst such an amount won't define the season at this point, Los Blancos will not want to allow fellow title challengers to move any further ahead.

As such, the meeting with Real Sociedad takes on extra significance with victory an absolute necessity for the Madrid club.

Bouncing back from adversity is the true mark of a champion and this is what Zidane's charges have to do in the coming days.

Working without Ronaldo has been an unnecessary problem and Benzema's injury further compounds the coach's concerns.

Borja Mayoral remains an alternative option in attack, whilst Theo Hernandez could be pushed into a forward role.

Gareth Bale will be entrusted with leading the line against the Basque side on Sunday, however there is no room for rotation following the mid-week clash with Apoel Nicosia.

Another poor result against La Real could in fact see the defending champions slip into the bottom half of the LaLiga standings, and at such an early part of the season the stakes couldn't be higher.

 

[Salamander]

Zidane believes that there is nothing wrong with his squad rotation policy. The problem in last two leagues matches was our over confident attitude just like the start of last season which led the team to draw four consecutive matches.

Zidane is not going to change his philosophy, however, and will continue with rotation and changes throughout the season. [MARCA]

[HASHTAG]#HalaMadrid[/HASHTAG]

 

[Salamander]

Family Photo 2017-18.

 

[Roger Sterling]

The coaching staff...

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The Capis..

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The canteranos...

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The new members of the squad..

 

[Roger Sterling]

Zidane's concern

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There is no change in the script written by Zinedine Zidane and his coaching staff, but there is concern about the attitude shown by his team in the league, which has resulted in two draws and a gap of four points between Real Madridand Barcelona.

Fortunately, the coach has detected the problem and has let his players know in no uncertain terms.

Curiously, he pondered about a start like they've had, despite the endless praise after their exhibition in Cardiff.

"You have to have your feet on the ground," he said when Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and Luka Modric were crowned as 'the best' in Monaco.

Zidane didn't like so much recognition and has been forced to sound the alarm because the flattery has weakened his squad.

The spotlight is well and truly on them now, particularly after their successes in the Champions League and the two recent Super Cup wins.

Zidane believes that in the three league games so far, especially during the last one against Levante, his players have repeated the mistakes of last season which led the team to draw four consecutive matches.

"We are playing with overconfidence," he said to the group, angered by a sign of weakness that has resulted in four dropped points form the first nine available.

He didn't like anything about Ivi's goal for Levante either, from the poorly defended throw, to allowing the attacker two touches of the ball inside the area before despatching the ball past Keylor Navas.

SAME PHILOSOPHY
The coach is not going to change his philosophy, however, and will continue with rotation and changes throughout the season.

It is the tactic that led him to unprecedented success but he knows that he needs to motivate his players.

Real can't afford to give any more advantage to their rivals and even less to a Barcelona that will be the team to beat in the fight for the league title.

 

[Roger Sterling]

Rummenigge hits out at Lewandowski mentioning his long-time ambition to join Real Madrid

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Bayern Munich's executive board chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has hit out at striker Robert Lewandowski, while also criticising his long-time ambition to join Real Madrid.

Comments made by the striker where he voiced his unhappiness at Bayern's pre-season tour of Asia did not sit well with Rummenigge, who believes the player's agent is not helping matters.

Maik Barthel's organising of an interview in which the Polish forward vented his frustrations on a number of topics resulted in he too being placed in the former Germany international's crosshairs.

"Unfortunately, his agent has often been his guiding spirit and that was the case again here when he deliberately arranged an interview without Bayern's knowledge. He's harming Robert," said Rummenigge.

"If Lewandowski also regrets our Asian tour then he should know that his supposed dream team Real Madrid were travelling for 24 days this summer in areas that are twice as hot as the places we were."

The 61-year-old also concluded by his tirade by making it clear that he may forgive old incidents involving Lewandowski but he certainly hasn't forgotten them.

"After a game against Freiburg towards the end of last season, he incorrectly accused of his teammates of not receiving enough support," Rummenigge added. "That isn't OK."

 

[Roger Sterling]

Training today..

 

[dem boyz]

back in to the favourite business

 

[Salamander]

AS | "Real Madrid set sights on 21 yrs old Leipzig forward Werner."

​

 

[Salamander]

Real Madrid 19 against Apoelfcofficial on Wednesday - Santiago Bernabéu

 

[Salamander]

Asensio has a fever from an infected pimple and will not feature in tomorrow's match. [@carrusel]

 

[Roger Sterling]

Exclusive: McManaman on what the European Cup means to Real Madrid

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Growing up at Liverpool, Steve McManaman knew what it was to have success expected. The Anfield club had won 18 English league titles and four European Cups, after all. But when the midfielder moved to Real Madrid in 1999 -- seven-time winners at the time -- things went up a notch.

"The expectation of winning the European Cup was almost as if it was a done deal every year," McManaman tells ESPN FC. "You'd walk around the stadium and there'd be pictures of [Alfredo] Di Stefano, Gento, that great team in the white who won it five years on the trot and it was almost in your face all the time that this is what we did in the past and this is what we need to do in the future and the fact that I joined them in '99 and they'd won it in '98; again, it was sort of 'right, we've won it for the first time in a while, we need to win it again.'"

And it wasn't just framed photos on the wall; the players were reminded of the club's history in other ways.

"We all got given a booklet -- the 'libro' of Madrid -- with the values of how Real Madrid should be," says McManaman. "If we lose we shake hands, we don't berate the referee, that sort of thing. And in each package there was a white Di Stefano shirt."

McManaman joined a team managed by Vicente del Bosque, who played for Los Blancos in their 1981 European Cup final loss to Liverpool, and walked into a dressing room full of players, who had won the competition the previous year. History was all around.

"They all knew what it meant and how important it was," says McManaman. "If anything, winning the league was secondary; it was winning the Champions League and showing how powerful Real Madrid was in the history of all football."

The 1999-2000 season saw Madrid finish a lowly fifth in La Liga and go out of the Copa del Rey and FIFA Club World Championship at the semifinal stage. But they found form in the Champions League, knocking out 1999 winners Manchester United and finalists Bayern Munich en route to a Paris showdown with Valencia.

"You join the likes of Madrid to play in these big games and to play against the best teams in the world and test yourself in the best competitions so there was never any pressure," says McManaman. "The pressure was always reaching that stage; once you got there it was just about finishing the job off. When people asked me last year who I thought would win out of Madrid and Juventus I said that I thought Madrid would win it because they know how to win the trophy in the end; they've got that experience to get over the finishing line and that counts for so much. And we felt that at the time."

Madrid beat Valencia 3-0, with McManaman scoring the second goal in an impressive individual display that capped his first season at the club.

"People were saying I was man of the match so they'd go ballistic about you in the papers," he says. "You scored in the first year you'd been there, you win this coveted trophy and you go back to millions of fans on the streets so you sort of feel justified in most things you've done."

Madrid lifted the trophy again two years later by beating Bayer Leverkusen at Hampden Park. Meanwhile, either side of their Champions League triumphs, they claimed Liga titles but fell at the semifinal stage in Europe; McManaman admits the feeling of domestic success was a little different.

Growing up at Liverpool, Steve McManaman knew what it was to have success expected. The Anfield club had won 18 English league titles and four European Cups, after all. But when the midfielder moved to Real Madrid in 1999 -- seven-time winners at the time -- things went up a notch.

"The expectation of winning the European Cup was almost as if it was a done deal every year," McManaman tells ESPN FC. "You'd walk around the stadium and there'd be pictures of [Alfredo] Di Stefano, Gento, that great team in the white who won it five years on the trot and it was almost in your face all the time that this is what we did in the past and this is what we need to do in the future and the fact that I joined them in '99 and they'd won it in '98; again, it was sort of 'right, we've won it for the first time in a while, we need to win it again.'"

And it wasn't just framed photos on the wall; the players were reminded of the club's history in other ways.

"We all got given a booklet -- the 'libro' of Madrid -- with the values of how Real Madrid should be," says McManaman. "If we lose we shake hands, we don't berate the referee, that sort of thing. And in each package there was a white Di Stefano shirt."

McManaman joined a team managed by Vicente del Bosque, who played for Los Blancos in their 1981 European Cup final loss to Liverpool, and walked into a dressing room full of players, who had won the competition the previous year. History was all around.

"They all knew what it meant and how important it was," says McManaman. "If anything, winning the league was secondary; it was winning the Champions League and showing how powerful Real Madrid was in the history of all football."

The 1999-2000 season saw Madrid finish a lowly fifth in La Liga and go out of the Copa del Rey and FIFA Club World Championship at the semifinal stage. But they found form in the Champions League, knocking out 1999 winners Manchester United and finalists Bayern Munich en route to a Paris showdown with Valencia.

"You join the likes of Madrid to play in these big games and to play against the best teams in the world and test yourself in the best competitions so there was never any pressure," says McManaman. "The pressure was always reaching that stage; once you got there it was just about finishing the job off. When people asked me last year who I thought would win out of Madrid and Juventus I said that I thought Madrid would win it because they know how to win the trophy in the end; they've got that experience to get over the finishing line and that counts for so much. And we felt that at the time."

Madrid beat Valencia 3-0, with McManaman scoring the second goal in an impressive individual display that capped his first season at the club.

"People were saying I was man of the match so they'd go ballistic about you in the papers," he says. "You scored in the first year you'd been there, you win this coveted trophy and you go back to millions of fans on the streets so you sort of feel justified in most things you've done."

Madrid lifted the trophy again two years later by beating Bayer Leverkusen at Hampden Park. Meanwhile, either side of their Champions League triumphs, they claimed Liga titles but fell at the semifinal stage in Europe; McManaman admits the feeling of domestic success was a little different.

"(In 2003) we got knocked out in the semifinals to Juventus but we should have beaten them and won the Champions League," he says. "We had loads of injuries and missed a penalty. We won the league quite comfortably but it wasn't the same; the Champions League was seen as more important at the time, even though the league is right across the whole season. We sort of expected to win the league every year."

Little did anyone know at the time that the 2002-03 season, McManaman's last in Spain, was the first of 12 years without a European Cup for the competition's most successful club. As it went on, he says, the barren run had a negative impact upon the ways things were done at the club.

"The number of managers they had, the transfer policy that Florentino Perez was putting into the team and the fact that he had to step down, but then came back with the proper idea of how to run the team and how to take the team forward. Also, the emergence of Barcelona at the time was like a double whammy."

It took a last-gasp equaliser from Sergio Ramos to deny Atletico Madrid but Real finally got their hands back on the trophy in 2014. By then, McManaman's former teammate Zinedine Zidane was part of the club's coaching staff and serving as assistant to manager Carlo Ancelotti.

At the start of 2016, following the sacking of Rafa Benitez, Zidane was appointed first-team manager, since when Los Blancos have won back-to-back Champions League titles during a trophy-laden period for the club.

"I think a big help has been the fact the he has the history of the club at his heart," says McManaman. "I know he played for other teams prior but he's lived in Madrid since he retired, he was a superstar at the club and has been heavily involved, whether it was as the sporting director, or assistant manager to Carlo or whether it was manager of the B team so, for me, it was always nailed on that he was going to manage the first team.

"I presume he is a quiet man, who gets his point across," continues McManaman. "He's a bit like Del Bosque in that he keeps the whole squad happy, changes the team around at times so everybody's happy and, more importantly, he's got the utmost respect of all the players and I think that helps a lot. When you are being told 'do this, do that; I think it would be better like this' and he's the one who's doing it and he's telling you in the right type of manner, not being condescending, I think it was only a matter of time before he would be a superstar."

McManaman suggests that, such is the quality of Madrid's squad, it "only needed tinkering a little tiny bit to be back on form." However, the continuity of having a manager who knows the club so well has been vital.

"I think once they went through the superstar managers like [Jose] Mourinho, [Fabio] Capello, Ancelotti, that group runs out and I think, in the end, you have to have a plan of succession of what we're going to do when this manager leaves."

Zidane inherited a team full of star names, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Sergio Ramos, but has also been able to integrate younger players into the squad on a more regular basis.


"Isco has been around for a while on the periphery but when he has got into the team, certainly last year he really excelled," says McManaman. "[Marco] Asensio has always had a good name about him but to break into the team and score the goals he has scored in such a short space of time is amazing, really. Theo Hernandez is going to be good, Dani Ceballos starred for Spain's Under-21s in the summer so they have gone round hoovering up these kids without paying big money, to complement what they have got."

A feature of Madrid's success last season was that it came about despite a reduced role for Ronaldo, now 32, who was rested more frequently. That, says McManaman is testament to Zidane's managerial style, as well as the depth of quality boasted by the squad overall.

"It helps when you go to Deportivo -- and you rest Ronaldo -- and Asensio and Isco and everybody plays and you win 6-2! If they lost then Ronaldo plays every single game. As soon as that changes, that's when the pressure starts to build."

Until last season, no club had ever claimed back-to-back Champions League titles. Perhaps fittingly, the competition's most successful team was first to do it and now, as the 2017-18 group stage gets underway, Madrid are chasing an unprecedented third straight triumph. McManaman says they "look the standout team across Europe again" and is among those, who believe they can win it again.

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[Roger Sterling]

Zidane: Maybe Real Madrid are lacking another No.9, but we couldn't sign one

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Real Madrid have already dropped four points this LaLiga season and one of the concerns with their play has been the number of chances that have been missed, while Karim Benzema's injury is yet another problem.

All of this has led some to wonder if it was wise to let Alvaro Morata and Mariano leave in the summer and Zinedine Zidane addressed the issue on Tuesday, explaining that he too would have liked to have another striker in his squad, but that it wasn't possible.

"It's true that when you look at the players you had, like [Alvaro] Morata and Mariano, and when you see that now you only have [Borja] Mayoral that you might think we lack a No.9," he said in the pre-match press conference for Wednesday's clash with Apoel Nicosia.

"That might be the case, but it wasn't possible [to bring in another].

"I would have liked Morata to stay, but he wanted to play more and to leave.

"It wasn't possible to sign another player, but I really believe in Mayoral, as he is hungry.

"We also have Karim [Benzema] and Gareth [Bale].

"We will get by with all of the players that we have."

As for Zidane's willingness to rotate, he insisted that he would continue to do so, even if a rotated side dropped points to Levante last weekend.

"With this squad, we can do a lot of things," he said.

"I am interested in my players and what goes on externally will not change what I want to do."

The loss of four points was also explicitly addressed, but Zidane pointed to the series of draws suffered last September, while he also looked ahead to this fresh start in the Champions League.

"The same thing happened last year, we're not worried," the coach said.

"We're not pleased with these results, but this is football.

"We won't change the way we work and tomorrow we'll try to play better and to win the match.

"We are [European] champions, but it all starts from zero once again."

That match against Apoel Nicosia kicks off at 20:45 CET on Wednesday night, at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.