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Too much star power Real Madrid may have been better off without RonaldoPosted: Thursday October 31, 2002 11:57 AM
One of the nice things about this game is that it's not just about putting together the best players. When you were a kid and you picked teams on the playground, you just knew that if you had four or five of the best players, you were pretty much guaranteed to win. Professional soccer, however, is not like that, and somebody had better break the news to Real Madrid chairman Florentino Perez. Since becoming chairman three summers ago, Perez has added one absolute superstar every year, twice paying a new world record to do so. First, there was Luis Figo, then Zinedine Zidane and now Ronaldo. Real Madrid simply cherry-picked the biggest star from three of its biggest rivals: Barcelona, Juventus and Inter Milan. Together with Raul, Roberto Carlos and others they were supposed to form the brightest galaxy of stars the game has ever witnessed. The trouble with Perez's vision is that the team plays pretty much the way it was assembled, i.e. like a playground side.
They go out to dazzle and entertain and, largely because they are more talented than most opponents, they often manage to win as well. However, in the finest playground tradition one gets the sense that this group suffers from two common schoolyard afflictions: it is vulnerable at the back (largely because the biggest stars all want to come forward) and it lacks a coherent game plan, relying on individual genius and skill rather than tactical nous. All this can help explain why Real Madrid has won just once since Sept. 25 and has not triumphed in its last five outings. Vicente Del Bosque's men have notched nine points in their last eight matches -- a points-per-match ratio that smacks of mid-table mediocrity. Time and again, Real has let matches slip away, either because their opponents outwitted them or because the defense (and this includes the talented but inconsistent Iker Casillas) was not up to the task. Against AEK Athens, both home and away, Casillas & Co. were caught totally unprepared in dead ball situations. This will happen when your defensive partnership is a combination of Ivan Helguera (a midfielder by trade), Francisco Pavon (gifted but very raw) and Fernando Hierro (never the quickest, and at 34 he's not getting any younger). Last Wednesday, it was Roma that capitalized on Real's tactical deficiencies, grabbing a 1-0 win at the Bernabeu. Roma boss Fabio Capello switched to a 4-4-2 formation, with Cafu and Marco Delvecchio, a recycled striker, on either flank, effectively nullifying Real's only two wide threats, Figo and Roberto Carlos. As a result, Real felt it had no choice but to try and force the ball through the middle to an increasingly frustrated Ronaldo. Now, when you've got the likes of Raul, Zidane and Figo trying to open up tight defenses with dribbling runs and quick one-twos it's not necessarily a bad tactic, but against a well-organized unit boasting experienced defenders such as Vincent Candela and Walter Samuel , as well as veteran ball-winners like Damiano Tommasi and Emerson, you're only going to get so far. Ronaldo has inevitably come under fire, accused of being overweight and out-of-shape. "Funny I weigh exactly what I weighed at the World Cup, when I scored eight goals," counters the Phenom. And he's right. He never was a stick-figure, and if he's struggling to have an impact, it has more to do with the way Real play than his own waistline. Ronaldo is not a target man; he doesn't sit in the box and wait for service. He likes to retreat, run at people, go wide. His Real teammates, however, perform at their best when they have a central conduit, a target in the box who can convert their assists into goals, the way Fernando Morientes did last season. As a result, Ronaldo only really becomes a factor on the counterattack, when he has acres of space in front of him and the ball at his feet. Given the fact that Real generally has the bulk of possession and prefers the patient buildup to the quick counterattack, those situations are few and far between. The painful conclusion -- and the one few like to talk about -- is that this Real side may have been better off without Ronaldo. Or, rather, it may have been better off taking the US$42 million they spent on the Brazilian and buying a top notch central defender such as Alessandro Nesta or any one of the half-dozen stoppers it was linked with last summer. Such a move could have killed two birds with one stone. It would have addressed Real's defensive frailty and it would have kept Morientes up front. He may not be the second coming of Marco Van Basten, but he is nevertheless a target man and goalscorer, and Real's galaxy of stars was used to playing with him. Sometimes too much star power can be a bad thing. Unless, of course, you're on the playground, where it's simply a question of getting the best guys, sticking them up front and waiting for the goals to come. GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEKGOOD: Barcelona boss Louis Van Gaal, after the club won five out of five in the Champions League qualifier (the only club to go undefeated and untied) and pummeled Alaves 6-1 in La Liga. Van Gaal has fiddled with the team to no end, and new signings Gaizka Mendieta and Juan Roman Riquelme may not have been his cup of tea, but at least he can keep the critics at bay a while longer. BAD: Milan defender Paolo Maldini, who faces a ban for lashing out at Chievo stiker Oliver Bierhoff in their match last Saturday. Bierhoff says nothing happened. Maldini says nothing happened. The ref didn't see anything, but video evidence appears to show the veteran defender kicking his opponent. I'm all for using video evidence when necessary, but, in this case, Maldini is very much the victim. Why can't we believe the players for once? GOOD: Boca Juniors, which won local bragging rights by beating arch-rival River Plate 2-1 in the Buenos Aires derby. At least there's something to cheer about, as it's highly unlikely they'll catch Independiente, the runaway Apertura leaders. BAD: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who not so long ago suggested that it wouldn't be surprising if the Gunners went unbeaten the rest of the season. Well, following losses to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League and Blackburn Rovers at home, the losing streak now stands at four, Arsenal's worst in nearly 20 years. Memo to Arsene: Sometimes it's best to keep one's mouth shut.
Gabriele Marcotti covers international soccer for CNNSI.com.
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