No Iniesta? =/
Watched Revista De La Liga last night, very entertaining stuff. Not only entertained watching Barcelona romp away with the title and smash another side, but also to hear about the state that Real Madrid are in at the current time. Bernd Schuster has apparently all but lost his job, he already lacked the backing of Mijatovic, but he's now lost the majority of the dressing room, has been blamed for Van Nistelrooy's 9 month injury and has been majorly embarrassed in the press. This isn't helped by Mijatovic being a complete twat last summer not giving Schuster the players he wanted, meaning lack of depth in the defence and defensive midfield (not helped by De La Red's career threatening heart problem).
Doesn't seem like Madrid are in a rush to fix things either, apparently Calderon's more worried about next years election, and is set to make big changes this summer to keep his presidency. He's got his eye on Wenger and Benitez as potential managerial candidates for the long term, and has also said he wants Villa and Benzema, having given up on Ronaldo. The problem Madrid now face though, is coming up to the Christmas break basically without a manager, Schuster's got no pull in the dressing room. He apparently didn't even bother going into the dressing room at half time in the Real Union game, and has been missing training.
So mix the behind the scene issues with a terrible run of form, losing to Real Union, losing back to back Champions League games and then losing in the league, not good times for Madrid at all. The defence are looking worse and worse as the weeks go on, Heinze is looking completely outclassed, even Casillas has started making mistakes. Not good for Madrid at all. They need to get this Schuster situation sorted quickly, not going to be easy to find a manager who's happy just filling a void for 6 months though, so this season is not going to be a good one for Madrid.
Iniesta is injured and has not being playing for Barcelona as well.
Regarding the Madrid crisis, well its not actually that bad. The stupid Catalan press (especially Sport and El Mundo) have been making up stories regarding Bernd Schuster, and from the Madrid papers, only AS mentioned something about Schuster's job being unsafe.
However, the senior players, Raul, Casillas, Guti and Cannavaro have got out in strong defence of the manager, saying that everything is normal within the dressing room. Only Sergio Ramos had initially said something against Schuster but later on he himself said he was misunderstood. Stuff saying that Schuster does not have any pull in the dressing room is pure fiction.
Losing to Real Union was obviously a big disappointment, and it came also at the wrong time. But you need to look at the positives. We can concentrate on the league more now, and have fewer games to play. To be very honest, Real Union played brilliantly over both legs, and caught us by surprise. We did go out only on away goals as well.
But its true that Mijatovic failed to provide Schuster the players he wanted, but in my opinion, its a good thing. Schuster apparently one wanted one between Benzema, Villa and Huntelaar, one between Cazorla, Capel, Navas and he wanted Garay as a defensive signing as well.
In the end, we got only Garay, and that we had to agree to send him back on loan to Racing for one season. With Villa, Cazorla, and Navas all signing long-term contracts with their respective clubs, Real in the end went for Van der Vaart, which according to me is a brilliant signing.
I am pretty confident Schuster will remain the manager, Real will overcome this tough period, and the defence will sort itself out. Casillas has been a shadow of his true self this season. Pepe, who was brilliant last season, has been far from it this time around.
But what Real Madrid have found in this sort of crisis, is a gem, an absolute gem, a legend in the making - Alberto Bueno.
