La Liga 2011-12

[Nick77]

I would love to have seen Rafa's LFC have a go.

Rafa's LFC is the ONLY English side to win @ the Nou Camp in 2007...

[Shaggy]

Casillas v Mourinho

http://www.thefootballramble.com/blog/entry/casillas-and-mourinho-continue-psychological-duel

Casillas and Mourinho continue ‘psychological duel’

Dermot Corrigan | 30 August 2011

Jose Mourinho is well known for picking fights wherever he goes, but his own captain?

On Monday Real Madrid keeper Iker Casillas used his day off to visit the impressive football campus he has funded in Navalacruz just outside the city, where groups of young boys and girls were doing the usual simple drills and exercises in the sun.

As is customary for these things Casillas was accompanied by the football media and chatted openly enough with the journalists. The majority of the questions asked - or those reported at least - were not about his good works, but concerned the ongoing disagreements between the player and his manager Jose Mourinho.

Casillas played all these questions with his characteristic straight-bat.

“I have a good relationship with him (Mourinho) and always have come out to defend him in public,” he said. “There is no problem with him - we disagree on some things, football things and personal things, but we always have a good relationship. These disagreements shouldn’t be taken out of context, but we are in a crazy moment.”

While it’s perhaps unusual for a key player to openly admit to regular disagreements with his manager, Casillas wasn’t saying anything particularly controversial, or even interesting. But the fact these questions were asked at all, and then the quotes reported so prominently in AS and other papers, shows the importance given in Spain to this “psychological duel”.

The most recent chapter of the contest began with a phone call Casillas made to his international team-mates Xavi and Carles Puyol in the aftermath of the recent ‘poke in the eye’ Supercopa tie. Casillas was apparently annoyed with himself for getting carried away when talking to the media afterwards and accusing Barca’s Cesc Fábregas of deliberately exaggerating the tackle by Real’s Marcelo which brought a red card and sparked the touchline free-for-all. Casillas - also Spanish national captain – wanted to speak his old friends to smooth over any problems ahead of Spain’s upcoming games against Chile (friendly on Friday) and Liechtenstein (Euro 2012 qualifier on Tuesday).

Mourinho let it be known that he was unimpressed with this treasonous stepping outside of the Madrid camp. So when the entire squad except Casillas got a run-out in last Wednesday’s Trofeo Bernabéu friendly against Galatasaray, it was interpreted by hyper-sensitive journalists as a further poke in the eye by the boss, this time aimed at his own captain. The manager didn’t do much to dispel this impression over the weekend when he told El Mundo that “Casillas is not untouchable (undroppable).”

Mourinho is well known for picking fights with people wherever he’s managed - Claudio Ranieri, Stephen Hunt, Rafa Benítez and the entire Italian media are just some examples - but it’s a bit odd to be feuding with your own captain. Especially with a figure who is respected and admired throughout Madrid and all of Spain, for both his on-pitch and off-pitch behaviour.

Of all the current Madrid players Casillas is easily the one most identifiable with the club - he’s the captain, was called into the first team squad at 15 years old and has been first choice keeper for over a decade. Under previous managers he was part - along with Raúl and Guti - of a strong players group which had a lot, perhaps too much, say in how things were done at the club. The latter two players were quickly moved on by Mourinho, but Casillas stayed as captain.

There have however been regular reports in the Spanish press, running over many months now, about how Casillas is increasingly marginalised within the Madrid dressing-room. Between the recent Barcelona and Galatasaray games El País ran a very interesting piece looking at this situation, headlined ‘Casillas at the crossroads’. The opening paragraph (translated) is…

“Madrid’s training sessions at Valdebebas, last season, usually concluded with José Mourinho, the coach, signalling the end and Jorge Mendes, his agent, leaving the field and waiting for his friends outside the dressing room. There gathered Pepe, Cristiano, Marcelo, Di María and sometimes Carvalho to form a huddle. They were an emerging power and most of the other players waved to them as they passed by. All made some gesture to Mendes and Mourinho, as a courtesy. All except Iker Casillas, the captain, who, according to employees of the club, made a wide and obvious detour to avoid them. A silent detour which was the same as a distancing message. A way of not mixing himself within the programme of a coach, with whose methods he did not feel a spontaneous affinity.”

Last season, while Mourinho and his assistants and players were blaming refereeing conspiracies, shadowy influences within the Spanish FA and UEFA and even UNICEF for the club’s failure to best Barcelona in La Liga or the Champions League, Casillas was often quiet. He was also apparently not impressed by the easy ride Mourinho gave some players, and particularly Ronaldo, in the dressing room. In February the club president Florentino Pérez reportedly called his captain to ask him to be more public in his support for the manager, and from then on Casillas was more vocal in his support for his boss, but only to a point.

These differences of opinion continued through the summer. In July Marca reported that Mourinho was considering replacing Casillas as captain with Sergio Ramos or Xabi Alonso, as he preferred his on-pitch leader to be someone more involved in the game out the field. Casillas told the paper the next day that Mourinho had assured him no change would be made. Around the time of the phonecall to Xavi and Puyol, there was also the day-long storm when Mourinho publicly denied he was quitting the club over a lack of support from the boardroom. Possibly a coincidence, but unlikely.

It could be that this blog is just following the excitable Spanish press which regularly builds mountains out of molehills in order to sell more papers, especially when Madrid or Mourinho are involved. But it seems that this dispute is not over who will be the team’s captain, or goalkeeper, for the new season. It’s more profound and cultural than that.

Just like Barcelona, Real Madrid likes to see itself as more than a club. It represents a certain traditional castizo idea of the city - respectable, honourable, principled. Whether this is really true or not is irrelevant, it’s the way the club and many of its fans would like to be perceived. Mourinho’s brashness and win at all costs mentality jars with this self-image. AS editor Alfredo Relaño - a good barometer of the feeling among Madrid’s older and more influential fans - has regularly used his prominent column to remind people that the club is bigger than any one individual, no matter how successful or bombastic. Casillas for many represents this older, more gentlemanly Madrid.

Mourinho has got most of the club’s fans on his side and for now president Pérez as well. The sidelining and eventual ousting of former director general Jorge Valdano this summer was a big victory for the Portuguese. The dressing-room, and especially those players with whom he shares an agent, are also firmly behind him. But the ongoing duel with his captain and keeper shows Mourinho has yet to win over everyone at Madrid.

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

Interesting.
There may be trouble ahead

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

Just put this one in here.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AlyU6CmVbE"]Ronaldinho Corner kick goal Avai Vs Flamengo 3x2 Highlights - YouTube[/ame]

[Shaggy]

ChristianMcr Christian Machowski
After helping Segunda B club Real Jaén this summer by paying outstanding players wages and saving the club from automatic relegation...

ChristianMcr Christian Machowski
...Malaga CF will also play Jaén in a friendly on 5th October, with all gate receipts going to the Andalusian club. Great gesture and PR.

ChristianMcr Christian Machowski
Imagine a PL club saving a lower league club from going into liquidation by paying their debts or players wages. Malaga's gesture excellent.

[Kenneth]

But is somewhat unfair on the other teams in the league who haven't got themselves into financial trouble. Bit dodgy imo.

[Shaggy]

Hmm, fair point.

[Kenneth]

[Darkon]

Didn't we do something similar with Crewe or some other club by playing friendlies with them to raise money?

[Darkon]

Check this one out

Barcelona's Football Is Becoming Boring - Getafe President Angel Torres
The outspoken patron has claimed that despite the Catalans being ahead of their arch-rivals, their style of play is becoming tedious, and Madrid's new signings will make an impact

Getafe president Angel Torres has expressed his opinion that Barcelona's award-winning "tiqui-taca" brand of football is beginning to lose its momentum, despite admitting that the European champions have wholly outperformed Real Madrid in recent seasons.

Pep Guardiola's men have dominated club football since his appointment in 2008, winning a glittering array of trophies, including three La Liga titles and two Champions League trophies, but it has been their free-flowing approach to the beautiful game that has garnered widespread praise from all corners of the football world; something which Torres accepts, but he also feels that their cycle is beginning to slow down.

"Barcelona play from memory, and continue to do so even after five years, but there are many people who will start to get bored [of their football]," the supremo told a television show on Onda Cero.

He continued: "It is true that their cycle is going well, and they have made fools out of [Real] Madrid, but I think this is the year when Madrid begin to displace them.

However, Torres also reckons that Madrid's success will eventually boil down to their greater strength-in-depth, and possession of a more versatile game.

"Real Madrid has more physical potential this season," he concluded. "They play a very direct style of football, which is also very good on a technical level."

Spain's Primera Division returns this weekend, as Real Madrid play hosts to Getafe and Barcelona visit Real Sociedad on Saturday.

[lickedlollipop]

Barcelona's Football Is Becoming Boring - Getafe President Angel Torres

[PTP]

Didn't we do something similar with Crewe or some other club by playing friendlies with them to raise money?

Wrexham i think?

[Arn]

I doubt that Real will ever overtake Barcelona as long as they don't get in a manager that is genuine Real Madrid supporter. A man that bleeds for the club.

Mourinho will continue to create so many problems off the pitch that the players will simply not give 100% on the pitch. They will get bored with all the fighting and clowning off the pitch.

The same problem we had the 2009-10 season when Rafa had to shift to much focus away from the pitch. He had to do it as we all know but Mourinho do it just for the sake of it.

[Shaggy]

"Boring"

I wish we could play such boring football

[Darkon]

Wrexham i think?

that might well be it