Managing Madrid

Real Madrid put Lyon to the sword at the Bernabéu tonight, easing past the French team 3-0 on the night and 4-1 on aggregate.  Mourinho made two key tactical shifts from the first leg, playing the marauding Marcelo instead of the more conservative Arbeloa at left back and the mercurial Benzema instead of Adebayor to lead the line.

One of the reasons Madrid had trouble breaking down Lyon in the first leg was Mourinho's tactical miscue in playing Arbeloa instead of Marcelo.  No doubt the reasoning was that the Spaniard offers more defensive security than the marauding Brazilian, but two issues with this emerged.

First, playing a more defensive player on that flank meant Arbeloa didn't attack as much down the wing, both failing to pin the opposition fullback/winger by forcing them to come deep to defend and inviting pressure and attacks down that side, as more space was available in front of the deep-lying fullback.  Second, playing an inverted winger (that is, a wing player who starts on the opposite side from his natural foot, such as Arjen Robben, a left-footer who plays on the right, or Ronaldo, a right-footer who plays on the left) with a similarly 'inverted' fullback means that both players have the tendency to cut inside rather than running at defenses to put in the cross.  Thus, Ronaldo had no one on the overlap to provide an outlet for his passing and to draw defenders off of him and often found himself stymied by two or three defenders.

At the Bernabéu, Mourinho made no such mistake, and his choices paid off in the key role Marcelo played in the match.  The match started off relatively even, with Madrid having the lion's share of the possession but failing to make chances against a resolute Lyon side.  Lyon played a deep defensive line and looked to play on the counter, so Madrid's passing failed to draw out defenders, while the Merengues were unwilling to commit too many men forward as it might allow Lyon the chance to counterattack incisively.  As the first half went on, Real's dominance began to fade as Lyon created some decent chances from breaks down the wings, earning a few corners and putting some crosses into the box.  Spells of Lyon possession also led to some nervous defending from the Whites, leading to yellow cards for Carvalho, Marcelo and Pepe.

Madrid had to conjure up something special to break the deadlock.  In the 37th minute, Ronaldo and Marcelo exchanged passes on the edge of the box before the Brazilian dribbled through with a superb piece of individual skill before finishing handily past the excellent Lloris.

In the second half, Lyon pushed forward desperately, looking for a goal.  Puel brought on Gomis for Briand during the interval, bringing Lisandro Lopez across to the left to keep Ramos in check.  Madrid, however, were happy to sit back and frolic in the open spaces left behind by Lyon on the break.  In the 66th minute, Benzema displayed the predatory instinct that has helped him to a remarkable scoring streak in the last few games by taking advantage of confusion between Cris and Lovren on a longball to spring free and put the ball through the legs of the onrushing Lloris.  Ten minutes later, di Maria chipped a third over Lloris after a slick counter and a clever headed pass by Ozil.  Mourinho was happy to take the opportunity to bring off Ronaldo, di Maria and Benzema and bring on Lass, Granero and Adebayor to see the tie out.  A broken Lyon team made no attempt to score a consolation goal, happy to keep Madrid from turning the tie into a rout.

Madrid saw themselves past their bogie team in Lyon and their curse of the last 16, where the Whites have failed for the past six years.  Here are the last 8:

Real Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk
Chelsea
Manchester United
Tottenham Hotspur
Internazionale
Barcelona
Schalke

Real Madrid put the onus on Barcelona to keep up their winning streak at Sevilla on Sunday with an assured 2-0 win against giant-killing Hércules.  Benzema scored goals on either side of halftime to secure three points for Los Blancos in a match that the Castellana side never looked like losing.  Madrid played the game at a fairly slow pace, no doubt in order to conserve energy for the crucial Lyon tie in in midweek.

Mourinho decided to rest a number of key players ahead of the Lyon match, including the Portuguese centerback duo Pepe and Carvalho as well as Xabi Alonso and Sami Khedira, who made a return from injury as a substitute.  Top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo also missed the match through injury, although he is scheduled to play against Lyon.  Casillas started in goal, with Albiol and Sergio Ramos in central defense flanked by Arbeloa and Marcelo.  Lass, Granero, Özil and di María lined up in midfield behind the offensive pairing of Adebayor and the red hot Benzema.

Benzema came into the Hércules game with five goals in his last three games and did not disappoint in his dress rehearsal for the match against his hometown club with another brace.  Los Vikingos started strongly, dominating possession and pinning Hércules deep in their own half.  Hércules did manage to string together a good sequence of possession, however, resulting in a shot by Portillo and an easy save by Casillas.

Aside from a couple of good Granero efforts from free kicks, Madrid failed to create any clear-cut chances until the 24th minute, when the electric Özil slipped a beautiful pass to put Arbeloa through on the right and the Spaniard played a perfect square pass into the path of Benzema's clever run for the Frenchman to finish emphatically with a drilled shot.  Hércules responded well but failed to take advantage of their possession before the halftime whistle.

Just after the restart, Adebayor was unlucky not to get his name on the scoresheet as di María's lobbed pass found the unmarked Togolese, whose shot cannoned off the crossbar with the keeper beaten.  Catalayud was then forced to make a good save to keep out Benzema's shot from a narrow angle after another good bit of play from the diminutive Argentine.

In the 56th minute, Benzema grabbed a second with a superb piece of individual skill, latching onto a great ball from di María setting him free on the left before cutting inside, beating a defender, touching the ball onto his stronger foot and then lashing a fine strike inside the far post.

After going 2-0 up, Mourinho made several changes, bringing in Khedira and Alonso for di María and Granero, perhaps with the idea of allowing the first-choice pair some minutes before the Champions League game in midweek.  Los Blancos peppered the Hércules goal with a series of chances, but Catalayud stood strong to keep the scoreline respectable, saving from an excellent Özil free kick as well as shots by Marcelo, Benzema and Adebayor.

With this victory, Mourinho's men find themselves four points behind Barcelona before the Catalan club's game in the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán against Sevilla.  Even if Sevilla manage to take full points off of Barça, Madrid would still need to beat the Catalans in the Bernabéu and hope that Barcelona draws or loses again in order to have a chance of winning the league.

Madrid effectively conceded the league this afternoon with their goalless draw at the Riazor as Barcelona breezed past Mallorca 3-0 to extend their lead to seven points at the top of the table.  Dani Aranzubia was again the hero as the veteran keeper, coming off of scoring a vital goal for his side in the previous round of fixtures, managed to keep los Blancos at bay with a series of excellent stops.  Deportivo broke up Madrid's attacking rhythm effectively with persistent fouling in the first half before putting ten men behind the ball in the second to withstand a flurry of chances.  Ultimately, wasteful finishing was the culprit, as the Merengues had numerous chances to put themselves in front.

Ronaldo played well, putting a ball in the net that was correctly ruled offsides before drawing superb saves from Aranzubia off of shots and a free kick.  The Portuguese winger also hit the post with a low drive and played a terrific cross to leave Benzema with a tap-in for the chance of the game, but the Frenchman was unable to score.  Adebayor, coming in as a late substitute, also managed to hit the post.

Karim Benzema's profligacy in front of goal cost Madrid the three points today, despite his having a good first half.  Perhaps this is a signal to Mourinho that he should consider playing Benzema as an impact sub for Adebayor in the second half as he did to great effect against Lyon, where his energy and dynamic movement wreaked havoc with a tired defense.  The Togolese was particularly effective tonight, drawing fouls left and right as well as having a number of good chances.

One issue with the team was the inefficacy of the fullbacks.  Sergio Ramos and Marcelo were both wasteful and ineffective in attack and overly troubled with a weak Depor offense.  Playing against a highly defensive team that chooses to pack ten men behind the ball, cede the wings and occupy the center, having good overlap play down the flanks becomes crucial to draw defenders out and create space for the attacking players.

Madrid had looked unlikely to win the league before this draw, which really puts the team out of effective contention.  Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, however.  So long as Barcelona remained in real touching distance, the team would have been forced to commit valuable attention and resources to what was still the longest of long shots.  Now, Madrid can focus on the more realistic and frankly important objective of the Champions League as well as the Copa final against Barcelona.

My view is (and perhaps Gabe will disagree) that La Liga is no longer worth anything to win as a competition.  It has become so non-competitive with only Madrid or Barcelona having any chance whatsoever of winning it that it has ceased to be a valuable prize.  Much like in Scotland, the only question is whether one team or the other has the upper hand in that particular year.  The Champions League has to be our real objective, as Madrid have underperformed in the competition for years and reclaiming it is vital to our reestablishment as one of the top teams in Europe and the reclamation of our lost respect.  It used to be that teams quaked in their boots when they drew Madrid in Europe, and this simply has not been the case for the past six years.  This is much more crucial than winning the league over a Barcelona side whose star is already on the wane.

Getty Images

Well, it could have been better. After Karim Benzema, the ex-Lyon player scored the second time he touched the ball (in minute 64), Real Madrid finally looked like they were going to take the three points from the Gerland for the first time in years. Sadly, it wasn't to be, as Gomis tied things up for the home squad in the 82nd minute.

The good news, though, is that Benzema's goal signifies a vitally important advantage for los blancos as they head into the return leg at the Bernabéu on March 16th: an away goal. Madrid will have a double advantage, then: 1) a 0-0 draw works to go through to the next round, so Lyon are obligated to score, and 2) Mourinho hasn't lost a home game in 8 years. Oh, and Madrid's defense is infinitely better at home (someone look up the stats on that--I'm too exhausted).

We should have been given a penalty when we were already up 0-1 on an extremely obvious hand ball in the box; I'm not going to say any more about it, because Mourinho already did: "There are other errors that you can't accept. There was a free-kick and in the slow-motion replay you can see it clearly. I was 50 yards away and I could see it. He (Stark) was five yards away with all his assistants and he didn't. I don't understand. It could still be decisive in the tie. I just hope it won't be." Yikes.

I did a live blog over on Bleacher Report for the game--you should check it out! You should notice--and you will because I'm pointing it out right now--that I correctly predicted the final score, saying "I could also see a 1-1 tie (Madrid is really bad away from home in the Champions for some reason)." Boom.

Anyways, I'll leave you with the conclusion I wrote in my sweaty state after biting my nails for the final 10 minutes of the game (I was worried that Lyon would come back, Arsenal-style, and sink us into a 2-1 hole).

In the end, after everything is said and done, Madrid can look back on this game and be relatively happy. Sure, Sergio Ramos played like junk, and is probably responsible for the goal (and could easily have been responsible for at least one more), and the defense looked pretty bad at times, but they went to a really tough stadium that has given them tons of problems and pulled out a good 1-1 draw. The away goal is always vitally important, and Madrid will be able to sleep easier thanks to Benzema's strike.

At the same time, the team showed a lot of weakness on the break. Lyon's first half was inspired, moving the ball from end to end in seconds; Madrid looked tired and out of the loop at times. After halftime, though, Madrid came out fired up and immediately picked up the pace. Benzema played an incredible 30 minutes of football as a sub, and managed to pick up a goal against his old team (always a good feeling). Mourinho will be terribly disappointed by Madrid's defensive mis-steps in the second half: as well as they played for the first 30 minutes of the half, they just couldn't keep it up.

Finally, Sergio Ramos looked terrible. I mean just god awful. Everyone was getting by him, he was making mental errors, and didn't add anything on offense (well, actually he did hit the post with a header). We'll have to see how this plays out, but Mou will surely consider sitting him in the next leg in favor of Arbeloa, and maybe bringing Marcelo back in.

Real Madrid trainer José Mourinho celebrated the ninth consecutive year of his record of being unbeaten at home in league matches, stretching all the way back to the beginning of his time at Porto in 2002, with a characteristically pragmatic 2-0 throttling of Levante.  Despite coming off of a three-game win streak, the first in the club's history, including last week's superb 1-0 away victory over high-flying Villarreal, Levante were unable to put up much of a fight against a dominant Real Madrid team that rested a number of key starters for the key midweek Champions League Round of 16 match against OL.

It took Madrid only seven minutes to open up the scoring, with Karim Benzema, afforded a start over new signing Adebayor, scoring a crucial confidence-boosting goal ahead of the midweek fixture against his hometown club.  While Benzema did extremely well to be in the proper position to tap in, much of the credit should go to an unbelievable piece of individual skill by Angel di María.  Had Lionel Messi performed this trick it would be international news, but sadly little Angelito is not quite as much of a media darling as of yet.  Despite Levante playing five at the back, with Angelito triple marked, the young Argentine shimmied his way past three defenders before cutting a perfect square ball across the six-yard box to the waiting Benzema, who thundered his low shot just inside the far post.

Levante found themselves unable to park the bus, but were unwilling to commit too many men forward at the risk of being embarrassed as they were earlier this year in the Copa del Rey, when they slumped to an ignominious 8-0 defeat at the Bernabéu.  Madrid's slightly unorthodox double pivot, consisting of Lass and Khedira, with Xabi Alonso given a rest, was extremely effective at dominating the center of the pitch, breaking up potential Levante attacks and recycling possession.  Lass showed both the tremendous energy and tenacity that led to his being nicknamed 'the Atomic Ant' and a solid passing range and drive in attack, while Khedira once again impressed with his superb positional play.

Madrid had several more chances before the break, with a particular highlight being a thundering drive by Angelito which was saved by the goalkeeper, but they did not extend their lead until the 41st minute, when Ronaldo's free kick from next to the left corner flag was redirected into the net by the outstretched leg of his compatriot, defender Ricardo Carvalho.

In the second half, the game slowed considerably.  Substitute keeper Antonio Adan, making his starting league debut, was virtually a spectator.  One had the feeling that when Marcelo passed the ball back to him from the center circle he was being charitable and letting Adan have a touch, or perhaps making sure he was still awake.  In the 92nd minute, Adebayor had a goal ruled out for offside after an outstanding run by Özil, who had just entered the game, replacing the largely ineffectual Kaká.  Ronaldo, the current Pichichi, was left frustrated by his inability to get on the scoresheet, particularly annoyed by an (incorrect) offside decision by the linesman when he was played one-on-one with the goalkeeper earlier in the game.

Real Madrid are currently just two points behind league leaders Barcelona (boo! hiss!) as the Evil Empire head into their clash with bogie team Athletic Bilbao at the Camp Nou.  When the sides met earlier this year in the Copa del Rey, Los Leones were able to stymie Barça home and away, with Barcelona only progressing due to the away goal scored in a 1-1 draw at San Mames.  Should Bilbao do us the kindness of taking two (or, unlikely as this may be, three) points off of our hated foes, we would potentially go into the Clásico knowing that a win would either secure us the title (if Bilbao win) or put us level on points with them but not head-to-head/goal differential.