SBNation.com User Blog: jzeitlin

Managing Madrid Writing Staff Predictions: La Liga 2012-13

jzeitlin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:14:36 -0000

Now that the Liga is underway, I decided to poll all of our writers and editors here at MM and coerce them into sticking their necks out on predictions for this exciting season of soccer we have ahead of us. Feel free to leave your own thoughts and predictions in the comments section, and, of course, to mock us relentlessly when we're hilariously wrong at the end of the year.

I asked them to predict the following metrics for this season:

1. The top six teams in the La Liga table at the end of the season, in order

2. The three teams that will be relegated at the end of the season, in order

3. The winners of the Copa del Rey

4. The winners of the UEFA Champions League

5. The winners of the UEFA Europa League

6. The winner of the Ballon d'Or

7. The winner of the Pichichi award for top scorer in Spain

8. The winner of the Zamora Trophy for the goalkeeper with the best goals per game statistic

9. The player of the season

10. The young player of the season (under 21)

11. The manager of the season

12. The first manager to be fired in Spain

13. The best signing of the season in Spain

14. The worst signing of the season in Spain

Gabe Lezra

Top Six: 1. Barcelona; 2. Real Madrid; 3. Valencia; 4. Atlético Madrid; 5. Osasuna; 6. Sevilla

Relegation Zone: 18. Granada; 19. Celta; 20. Zaragoza

Copa del Rey: Real Madrid

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Napoli

Ballon d'Or: Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

Pichichi: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

Zamora: Victor Valdés (Barcelona)

Player of the season: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

Young player of the season: Iker Muniain (Athletic Bilbao)

Manager of the season: José Mourinho (Real Madrid)

First manager to be fired: Manolo Jimenez (Zaragoza)

Best signing: Santi Cazorla (Arsenal) [not strictly within the rules, but I'll allow it. -Ed.]

Worst signing: Alex Song (Barcelona)

Josh Zeitlin

Top Six: 1. Real Madrid; 2. Barcelona; 3. Valencia; 4. Atlético Madrid; 5. Athletic Bilbao; 6. Levante

Relegation Zone: 18. Rayo Vallecano; 19. Granada; 20. Celta

Copa del Rey: Barcelona

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Tottenham Hotspur

Ballon d'Or: Cristiano Ronaldo

Pichichi: Cristiano Ronaldo

Zamora: Victor Valdés

Player of the season: Cristiano Ronaldo

Young player of the season: Iker Muniain

Manager of the season: José Mourinho

First manager to be fired: Manuel Pellegrini (Málaga)

Best signing: Jordi Alba (Barcelona)

Worst signing: Alex Song

Lucas Navarrete

Top Six: 1. Barcelona; 2. Real Madrid; 3. Atlético Madrid; 4. Valencia; 5. Sevilla; 6. Espanyol

Relegation Zone: 18. Real Betis; 19. Valladolid; 20. Granada

Copa del Rey: Barcelona

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Napoli

Ballon d'Or: Lionel Messi

Pichichi: Lionel Messi

Zamora: Victor Valdés

Player of the season: Cristiano Ronaldo

Young player of the season: Iker Muniain

Manager of the season: Diego Simeone (Atlético Madrid)

First manager to be fired: Marcelo Bielsa (Athletic Bilbao)

Best signing: Andrés Guardado (Valencia)

Worst signing: Jordi Alba

Dennis J. Seese

Top Six: 1. Real Madrid; 2. Barcelona; 3. Atlético Madrid; 4. Valencia; 5. Mallorca; 6. Athletic Bilbao

Relegation Zone: 18. Rayo Vallecano; 19. Celta; 20. Valladolid

Copa del Rey: Barcelona

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Newcastle United

Ballon d'Or: Cristiano Ronaldo

Pichichi: Lionel Messi

Zamora: Iker Casillas

Player of the season: Mesut Özil (Real Madrid)

Young player of the season: Iker Muniain

Manager of the season: José Mourinho

First manager to be fired: Manuel Pellegrini

Best signing: Jordi Alba

Worst signing: Wakaso (Espanyol)

Kousha Azimi

Top Six: 1. Real Madrid; 2. Barcelona; 3. Valencia; 4. Athletic Bilbao; 5. Málaga; 6. Atlético Madrid

Relegation Zone: 18. Granada; 19. Zaragoza; 20. Celta

Copa del Rey: Barcelona

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Atlético Madrid

Ballon d'Or: Cristiano Ronaldo

Pichichi: Lionel Messi

Zamora: Victor Valdés

Player of the season: Lionel Messi

Young player of the season: Álvaro Morata (Real Madrid)

Manager of the season: José Mourinho

First manager to be fired: Mauricio Pellegrino (Valencia)

Best signing: Jordi Alba

Worst signing: Carlos Vela (Real Sociedad)

Jared Dublin

Top Six: 1. Real Madrid; 2. Barcelona; 3. Valencia; 4. Atlético Madrid; 5. Athletic Bilbao; 6. Málaga

Relegation Zone: 18. Real Betis; 19. Valladolid; 20. Celta

Copa del Rey: Barcelona

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Atlético Madrid

Ballon d'Or: Cristiano Ronaldo

Pichichi: Lionel Messi

Zamora: Victor Valdés

Player of the season: Cristiano Ronaldo

Young player of the season: Isco (Málaga)

Manager of the season: José Mourinho

First manager to be fired: Luis Garcia (Getafe)

Best signing: Andrés Guardado

Worst signing: Joan Capdevila (Espanyol)

Laila Ujayli

Top Six: 1. Real Madrid; 2. Barcelona; 3. Valencia; 4. Atlético Madrid; 5. Sevilla; 6. Athletic Bilbao

Relegation Zone: 18. Rayo Vallecano; 19. Valladolid; 20. Celta

Copa del Rey: Barcelona

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Napoli

Ballon d'Or: Lionel Messi

Pichichi: Lionel Messi

Zamora: Victor Valdés

Player of the season: Cristiano Ronaldo

Young player of the season: Iker Muniain

Manager of the season: José Mourinho

First manager to be fired: Manolo Jiménez (Zaragoza)

Best signing: João Pereira (Valencia)

Worst signing: Alex Song

Ireland26

Top Six: 1. Real Madrid; 2. Barcelona; 3. Valencia; 4. Deportivo La Coruña; 5. Athletic Bilbao; 6. Sevilla

Relegation Zone: 18. Rayo Vallecano; 19. Málaga; 20. Valladolid

Copa del Rey: Real Madrid

Champions League: Real Madrid

Europa League: Schalke

Ballon d'Or: Cristiano Ronaldo

Pichichi: Lionel Messi

Zamora: Victor Valdés

Player of the season: Ángel di María (Real Madrid)

Young player of the season: Fabrice Olinga (Málaga)

Manager of the season: José Mourinho

First manager to be fired: Diego Simeone

Best signing: Jordi Alba

Worst signing: Fernando Gago (Valencia)

Ronaldinho's Still Got It!

jzeitlin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:42:06 -0000

Despite the fact that he played for our arch-rivals, it'd be a cold-hearted madridista indeed who did not, in her heart of hearts, miss good old Ronaldinho a little. The Brazilian legend may have squandered some of his prodigious talent with his partying and lackadaisical approach to fitness and training, but given how much fun he always seems to be having, who could begrudge him it?

With a tip of our hat to the fine folks at AFR, we see that Ronaldinho, now playing in his homeland for Atlético Mineiro, can still turn on his mesmerizing skills once in a while, after the jump.

And for good measure, here's a classic from the archives - Ronaldinho's breathtaking goal against Villarreal in 2006, at the height of his powers.

Real Madrid Vs. Valencia, La Liga 2012: Off to the Races

jzeitlin — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:30:33 -0000

Spanish giants Real Madrid will be looking to start their title defense in La Liga off with a bang as they take on Valencia at the Bernabéu on Sunday night. While typically Valencia would represent a difficult fixture for the capital side, injuries and a new coach may make them easy prey for a fully-fit Madrid side that obliterated AC Milan 5-1 just a couple of weeks ago.

In the same fixture last season, Valencia proved to be difficult to break down, holding Madrid to a draw in the Bernabéu in early April. However, los blancos have won each of the five previous meetings between the sides, and Valencia has not won in Madrid since 2008.

For better or for worse, the club decided at the end of last season to part ways with Unai Emery, who had proved himself an able manager and a skillful tactician. His replacement, former Valencia defender Mauricio Pellegrino, has excellent pedigree as an assistant coach at Liverpool and Inter, but has never before managed at the senior level. Going toe-to-toe with Mourinho in his first game in charge is something of a baptism of fire for Pellegrino, and while he will be motivated to make a name for himself and set the tone early in his tenure, it may represent a bridge too far for the novice coach.

The squad sheet will be another headache for Pellegrino, as key midfielders Ever Banega and ex-Real Madrid man Sergio Canales are both long-term casualties and goalkeeper Guaita, who had a stellar game in the 0-0 draw last season, is also ruled out with injury. Another former madridista, striker Roberto Soldado, is a possible absence as he struggles to recover from a hamstring injury. Jordi Alba, the Spanish international, has already left the club for Barcelona, but a host of new signings have arrived, many of whom may make their debuts in the season opener.

Real Madrid have no notable absences from the first team as Pepe and Higuaín have both recovered from minor injuries suffered while on international duty.

Mourinho is expected to line up with his standard 4-2-3-1 formation, with Arbeloa, Ramos, Pepe and either Marcelo or Coentrão in defense, Alonso and Khedira in midfield and Özil behind the attacking trident of Ronaldo, Di María and either Benzema or Higuaín. One might expect Marcelo to be on the bench as he has just returned to the squad from the Olympics, as well as Higuaín, who suffered a head injury during international duty with Argentina.

It is difficult to speculate about Valencia's line-up as there are so many injuries and new players, in addition to a new coach. Obviously Jordi Alba will be missed at left-back, where he would have helped guard against the marauding runs of Di María. New signing Pereira will be attempting to hold his international teammate, the indomitable Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other flank, which should be an interesting battle. In the absence of Valencia's two playmakers, Banega and Canales, it is unclear if Gago will be taking over that mantle and attempting to show his former employers that they made a mistake in letting him go. Whether Pellegrino's strategy will be to park the bus with two holding midfielders to screen his weakened back four and second-choice goalkeeper, picking off loose balls in midfield and breaking quickly, or whether Valencia will try to compete with Madrid for possession (which seems like a fool's errand given their available squad), we cannot say. Either way, it looks to be an interesting match.

On paper, an extremely fit, motivated and excellent Madrid side should make short work of this fragmented and heavily remodeled Valencia team, but Los Che are always dangerous and could prove a banana skin if Mourinho's men become complacent. However, knowing that Barcelona will most likely be notching up an easy three points against Real Sociedad at home an hour after their kickoff should be motivation enough, and the players will want to set the tone early and crank up the pressure on their hated rivals as soon as possible.

Real Madrid To Finalize $40m Modric Signing From Spurs

jzeitlin — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:04:50 -0000

Real Madrid have made a breakthrough in the long-running transfer negotiations with Tottenham Hotspur for Croatian playmaker Luka Modrić, according to The Guardian and the BBC.

The 26-year old midfielder is expected to meet with Madrid officials, undergo a medical and agree personal terms within the next 48 hours, although Tottenham may delay announcing the finalization of the deal until they have secured a replacement; the London club is currently negotiating for Yann M'Vila of Rennes and João Moutinho from Porto.

Despite resisting a forceful approach for Modrić from Chelsea last summer, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy has been clear that the Croat can leave for the right price. Although the player made clear his desire to sign for Real Madrid early in the summer, the difference in valuations between the two clubs has drawn out the transfer saga for months. Spurs have attempted to get as close to the £40m ($63m) they were offered by Chelsea last year, while Madrid have adamantly refused to offer more than £30m ($47m). Spurs also rejected the idea of part-exchanges with Nuri Sahin and Ricardo Carvalho.

Modrić, typically regarded as a quiet and drama-free player by his colleagues, seemed to view Levy's rejection of Madrid's offers as a violation of an agreement that he would be allowed to leave the club this summer in return for not causing trouble about their rejection of the Chelsea bid. The midfielder refused to travel with Tottenham on their pre-season tour of the United States and has been training on his own, away from the first-team squad.

These tactics, as well as the impending start of the Premier League season, may have been successful in convincing Spurs to accept a lower sum. The initial transfer fee is thought to be as low as £25m ($40m), with unspecified add-ons of up to an additional £5m ($8m). If these figures are correct, this would represent an immense coup for Florentino Pérez and Real Madrid's negotiation team.

With Modrić's arrival now looking certain, Sahin's place in the Madrid squad this season appears even more tenuous. The young Turkish midfielder is expected to spend next season on loan to Liverpool, which will provide him with the high-level experience he needs to continue his development. The Merseyside club seem to have beaten out Arsenal for his services.

Nadal vs Ronaldo: Unbelievable Ball Skills from Portuguese Ace in Nike Ad

jzeitlin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:29:31 -0000

From the fine folks at AFR comes this wonderful ad for Madrid ace Cristiano Ronaldo's recognizable (I'm not sure I would go so far as to say 'iconic') bright orange Nike cleats. It stars Ronaldo and Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal (who, despite his uncle, Miguel Ángel Nadal, having played for Barça is an ardent Madrid fan) playing tennis against one another, with Ronaldo showcasing some unbelievable skills to trap and shoot the tennis ball. Highly enjoyable.

Nine Man Madrid Drop Two More Points In 1-1 Horror Show with Villarreal

jzeitlin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:51:20 -0000

Real Madrid's lead at the top of the Primera slipped to just six points for the second time in a week--once again, a late equalizer from a free kick given away in a dangerous area pegged them back for a 1-1 draw. Against relegation-threatened Villarreal and just three days into the tenure of new coach, former Deportivo La Coruña Trainer Miguel Ángel Lotina, Madrid turned in a miserable performance, with two men and virtually the entire bench sent off late in the game.

Madrid set up with three defensive midfielders - Khedira, Xabi Alonso and Lass - screening the back four, with Khedira apparently given the most license to come forward into attack behind Benzema, Ronaldo and Özil.

Villarreal started well, pressing aggressively and preventing Madrid from enjoying long spells of possession. Their offensive play, aside from a few nervy instances where Casillas had to make a save after a ball was played in behind the defensive line, did not materialize, and most of the chances in the opening 45 minutes came from set pieces, which neither team defended well. Lass picked up a booking after just five minutes, which clearly unnerved Mourinho, who did not trust him not to get himself sent off after a few more rash challenges, leading the Portuguese coach to hook the France midfielder for Callejón after just 30 minutes of play. This was to be the first event in a comedy of errors for Real Madrid at El Madrigál.

Immediately thereafter, Villarreal had a strong penalty shot turned down after video replays clearly showed Arbeloa pulling the shirt of a Villarreal player at a corner, preventing him from getting to the ball. Just a few minutes later, at another set piece, Pepe headed straight at Diego López, wasting an easy opportunity to put his side in front and settle the game.

At the break, Madrid had to use up another precious substitution, taking off Callejón as a preventative measure after he suffered a nasty tackle before half time. This appeared a perplexing decision as for the rest of the game he stood in the opening of the tunnel, smiling and joking with the technical staff and watching the game, instead of icing his ankle or resting as he would if he were protecting a nascent injury.

Regardless, Madrid had the better of most of the second half, Villarreal seeming to have exhausted themselves with their relentless pressure and running in the first 45 minutes. After the restart, los blancos continued to appear nervy, and this nervousness transmitted itself to the bench, where Rui Faria, Mourinho's right hand man, was sent off to the tunnel after apparently saying something to the fourth official.

As Villarreal continued to tire, they made two changes, putting Jonathan de Gúzman and Javi Camuñas on for Cani and Marco Ruben, perhaps in an effort to avoid a sending-off, as the home side had been riding their luck with overeager challenges and picked up a number of yellow cards. In the confusion following the stoppage, however, Ronaldo played a one-two with Özil, the German slotting an exquisite backheel into the path of the Portuguese star, who rounded the keeper and put the ball into the net to make it 1-0 for the away side with half an hour left on the clock. Real began to pin Villarreal back in their own half and string together possession.

However, a horrendous decision by the referee to award a free kick on the edge of the box for a perfectly legal challenge that clearly got the ball changed the game (although after Villarreal had a penalty turned down, Real Madrid can hardly complain). From almost exactly the same position as Cazorla's goal for Málaga, Marcos Senna slammed a free kick around the wall and into the far bottom corner of the net. Complaining about the decision, Mourinho was shown a red card and headed down the tunnel. Eager to join him, in the restart of play after the goal, Sergio Ramos managed to earn himself a second yellow card for a wild jump and a suggestion of an elbow on Nilmar. Özil was then shown a straight red for dissent.

This shocking display of ill-discipline almost certainly cost Madrid two precious points, as they had looked extremely likely to score prior to and after the goal. Indeed, the remaining nine men salvaged some honor for los blancos with a courageous performance at two men down, during which they pegged Villarreal back in their own half, stringing together passes and almost creating a winner despite the abject circumstances which the childish actions of their teammates had created for them. One has to imagine that as Real Madrid head into their weekend game against Sociedad, no mean opponent, now absolutely requiring all three points to maintain their lead over a resurgent Barcelona who could very well drop no more points in the remaining games, losing Sergio Ramos, Özil and Mourinho to suspension is something of a blow.

Madrid's horrendous run of form continues, and now it seems as though the luck the team has been riding through tough times against Rayo Vallecano, Betis, Mallorca and others has run out. Mourinho needs to do something, and soon, if he is to staunch the bleeding.

Madrid had the better of the chances, perhaps, with a superb header from an apparently offsides position from Pepe kept out by a goal-line clearance from Zapata.

Are you as enraged as I am? Share your rage by commenting on Managing Madrid's facebook and tweeting us @managingmadrid.

Poll

Who was to blame on Real Madrid dropping points against Villarreal?

Referee Paradas Romero

184 votes

Iker Casillas

57 votes

José Mourinho

153 votes

Other

33 votes

427 votes | Poll has closed

Fabrice Muamba Out of Danger After Heart Attack

jzeitlin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:09:44 -0000

Good news, MMers! Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a cardiac event and collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane during Bolton's game with Spurs last Saturday, is now awake and talking. Whether he will be able to play again remains an open question, but now it seems as though the immediate danger to his life has passed. We at Managing Madrid express our relief at Muamba being out of danger and hope he continues to make a full recovery and a return to professional football. As the inscription on a card with a Manchester United emblem left at Bolton's stadium while Muamba was in the hospital said, "One game, one family."

Courtesy of AFR comes this fairly surreal and incredibly adorable video showing Spain and Madrid...

jzeitlin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:59:45 -0000

Courtesy of AFR comes this fairly surreal and incredibly adorable video showing Spain and Madrid captain Iker Casillas and international teammate and Barcelona star Andrés Iniesta, presumably chosen because everyone in Spain regardless of club allegiance loves them, approaching random people on the street and begging for autographs and photos with them.

Beleaguered Barcelona Fall in Pamplona, Ten Point Lead Madrid's for the Taking

jzeitlin — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:42:15 -0000

As predicted right here on Managing Madrid, Barcelona's away form has continued to plague them in the second half of the season as they slumped to a 3-2 defeat to Osasuna in bitterly cold conditions in Pamplona, leaving their title bid dead in the water if Real Madrid can see off Levante at the Bernabéu tomorrow evening. Two early goals from Osasuna's Serbian frontman Dejan Lekic allowed the Navarrese club to see off Barcelona's second half comeback attempt.

Should Madrid beat fourth-placed Levante tomorrow, as is expected, the capital side would sit a massive ten points ahead of Barcelona at the top of the table. If seven points wasn't already an insurmountable lead at this stage of the season, ten points is. Now, Levante beat Madrid at their stadium earlier this season and have done superbly to be in a Champions League place, so the points from this match are by no means certain. However, Levante have kept their place largely by not performing quite as poorly as their rivals for fourth place, not by playing well and racking up the victories. Madrid should take full points from this encounter, particularly at home, and that would effectively mean that both teams could focus fully on the Champions League.

The league title race being over so early should give the Big Two a competitive advantage in their hunt for Europe's most prestigious prize. One potential negative feature is that while seven points gives Barcelona enough of a fighting chance that they feel obligated to contest league fixtures with vigor despite the fact that they have essentially no chance of winning the title, ten points means they no longer have much of a vested interest so long as they stay above Valencia in the table.

Read what happens on Managing Madrid by liking us on facebook, tweeting us @managingmadrid, and subscribing to our podcast.

Bayern Bailed Out Rivals Dortmund in 2003: Generous or Foolish?

jzeitlin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:33:39 -0000

Trawling through the outer reaches of the blogosphere to mine precious stories to entertain you, our wonderful readers, I came across this story over at The Offside. It has just come out that German behemoths Bayern Munich (our hated rivals, I should note) extended in 2003 a loan of $2.3 million to their bitter enemies, Borussia Dortmund. This loan staved off their imminent bankruptcy and allowed them to stabilize their finances.

Dortmund subsequently dazzled the Bundesliga with a stunning 2010-2011 campaign, winning the league with the likes of Mario Götze, Mats Hummels and Nuri Sahin, who was subsequently signed by Madrid. Currently, they sit two points above their benefactors at the summit of the table.

This news comes from the most reputable possible source, by the bye, having been confirmed by Dortmund President Hans-Joachim Watzke at a fan's meeting on February 6.

What do you think, MMers? Was Bayern's decision foolish and impractical or generous and sportsmanlike? Or perhaps both? Would you have Madrid do the same for Barcelona (or Atléti, or Bilbao)? Tell us on MM's facebook page or tweet us at @managingmadrid, and send in your questions and comments to the MM podcast available on iTunes.

Poll

What do you think about Bayern's decision?

Clearly, nice guys finish second, but still a noble deed. Hope we'd do the same.

41 votes

Idiots. Should've let Dortmund rot, and that goes for our rivals too.

5 votes

Well done, but I'd let Barcelona go down the tubes.

57 votes

103 votes | Poll has closed

Managing Madrid’s La Liga 2011-2012 Midseason Review

jzeitlin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:25:25 -0000

Since we’ve passed the midpoint of the season already and so much has happened, it seems prudent to look back over the events of the last half-season of La Liga football and reflect. I asked each of the writers at Managing Madrid to pick what they thought was the most interesting theme of the Liga (with a focus on Real Madrid, of course) thus far and write a paragraph or two about it. Here’s what they came up with. Let us know what you think!

Mou and the Media (Gabe Lezra)

One of the interesting ongoing narratives of this Real Madrid season is the shift in media coverage of Mourinho. The formerly adoring Madrid-based press – and in particular the daily tabloids Marca and As – have done an about-face on the Portuguese manager, driving him to leak information about a possible departure this summer. It's unclear what exactly started this shift – there are several competing explanations, although they only really capture the whole picture in concert with one another.

First, there is the embedded xenophobia of some members of the Spanish media who are unwilling to accept a foreign manager in a club that embodies the traditional "Spanish"-ness of soccer. Second, there is Mourinho's decision last April to face Barcelona with a hyper-defensive lineup that featured center-back Pepe in a midfield role, a move that rubbed Real Madrid traditionalists the wrong way (they can't stomach a tactical defense, as Madrid has traditionally been a hyper-offensive side). Third, there's the uneasy relationship that the Madrid media has with FC Barcelona, a side that features between seven and nine Spanish players in their starting eleven, and plays a style of soccer that is more traditionally Spanish--this relationship has rubbed them the wrong way with respect to Mourinho, who starts more foreigners than Spaniards, and plays a more direct style than his Catalan counterpart.

Finally, there's Mourinho's own behavior in public: the insults, the games, the whining, the eye gouging, the complaining. All of this has caused a change in the Spanish press' coverage of Mourinho--and by extension, Real Madrid. What is unclear, however, is what will happen at the end of the season, especially if Madrid win la Liga, the Champions League, or both.

Competitiveness in La Liga (Josh Zeitlin)

La Liga has often been criticized, often by fans of the Premier League, for being non-competitive. It is not just that Real Madrid and Barcelona have between them won every league title since 2004; not just that no other club has even come close to taking the title since Sevilla finished five points off the top in 2007 (last season 3rd placed Valencia was 25 points behind Barcelona and 21 behind Madrid, while the season before it was 28 and 25 respectively – this season, Madrid is already 16 points ahead of Valencia in third); not just the obscene statistics and point totals the Big Two continue to rack up; not just that Spain’s top two clubs will take home more than $180 million this year alone in domestic TV rights – more than double what last season’s Premier League champions Manchester United got – while Valencia is allocated just $63 million, less than what relegated West Ham received in England last season.

The problem lies more in the manner in which Real Madrid and Barcelona have won in the last few seasons. They barely drop any points at all and regularly obliterate their opposition; they regularly strip the other teams in La Liga of their best players (Dani Alves, Keita and Sergio Ramos from Sevilla, David Villa and Raúl Albiol from Valencia and Sergio Canales from Racing are all good examples), and even if they do loan them out they prevent them from playing against their parent sides. Madrid and Barcelona are just far, far too good for the other sides in La Liga to deal with. Draws are the new victories against the Big Two, and consequently, narrow losses are the new draws.

There have, however, been some bright spots during this troubling time for Spanish football. Valencian minnows Levante, in just their seventh season in the Primera, deep in debt, make just 2% of what Madrid and Barcelona do and promptly passing it on to their creditors, have no transfer budget whatsoever and pay their players an average salary of just €300,000 a year – what Ronaldo or Messi make in a week. This ragtag team made it to the summit of La Liga in October, beating Madrid and thrashing Villarreal along the way. More astounding still is that they continue to occupy 4th place, a Champions League spot.

Tiny Mirandés from Spain’s Segunda B division, with just six professional players in their ranks, have made it to the semifinal of the Copa del Rey, beating Villarreal, Espanyol and Racing along the way. Their top scorer, Pablo Infante – in fact, the top scorer in the whole of the Copa – couldn’t celebrate with his team after they scraped past Espanyol with a 92nd minute stunner because he had to open the savings bank he works at the next day at 8 am. These are small things, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and they don’t mean that any team is going to come close to overturning the Madrid-Barcelona stranglehold on Spanish football, but it does make the season a little more exciting.

Team Mentality (Laila Ujayli)

This has been a season of ups and downs, and now Real Madrid, although eliminated from the Copa Del Rey, find themselves seven points above Barcelona in the Liga table. This turn-around from the last few seasons of Barcelona dominance can be at least partly attributed to one mid-season highlight: the strengthening of the team’s mentality. When Mourinho first arrived at Real Madrid, everyone was counting on him to bring along the "winning" mentality he had instilled at Porto, Chelsea and Inter.

What Madrid supporters did not truly expect to see is the amount of cohesion that the team has developed. Not only do they possess a winning mentality but a "never give up" one as well. That may sound cliché, but that is what los blancos have displayed so far this season. One recent example of this was the past Clásico. Being two goals down in the Camp Nou after a first half that your team dominated is disheartening, and honestly, many Madridistas, myself included, thought the game was over. However, in the second half Real Madrid rallied and managed to even the score. Although Madrid didn’t advance in the competition, the comeback alone showcased a remarkable amount of mental strength from the team, and the draw is something they can certainly look back to as the season progresses.

From a team barbecue to a surprise birthday cake to spectacular comebacks, the cohesive mentality the team has grown throughout the course of these few months is great to see, especially when you consider all the media drama that has surrounded the club in recent weeks. This mentality has allowed Real Madrid to earn vital points and fans will be hoping to see it continue and strengthen in the months to come.

Barcelona’s Away Form (Timm Higgins)

One of the most interesting trends of the first half of the La Liga season has been the away form of the defending champions, FC Barcelona. They have made the familiar confines of their Camp Nou stadium a fortress, seeing to it that the visiting team seldom escapes with so much as a point. Away from home, however, they are human. So far this season, Barcelona has won 90% of their home matches with a 9-1-0 record. On the road is a different story, with the blaugrana notching a 4-5-1 record (including their only league defeat) away from home. Although they have overall performed reasonably well this season, Barcelona have been hit by injuries and lately seem a bit off their game, having drawn their last three fixtures.

They have also been a less productive team on the road, almost playing like the pitch is the last place the players want to be. In their games so far at home in the league, Barcelona have scored forty-three and conceded just two goals, for a goal difference of +41 and a for/against ratio of 21.5. Their exploits away from home, like Jekyl and Hyde, could hardly be more different. They have notched just sixteen goals and conceded a whopping ten, for a goal difference of +4 and a ratio of 1.7. Even supposedly superhuman Barcelona talisman Lionel Messi has had a tough time on the road, with just four of his twenty-two league goals (18%). Barcelona’s away form is clearly a big liability. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb when I say that this is the worst Barcelona side since the start of the Guardiola era. At the end of the season we’ll see if Madrid have managed to take advantage.

The Reemergence of Kaká (Lucas Navarrete)

After a couple of disappointing seasons at Madrid and a series of never-ending injury problems and despite rumors he would be sold, Kaká began to prove his worth and repay the coach’s faith in him by turning in a series of excellent performances starting in October. He showed glimpses of the burst of acceleration he was known for when he was playing for AC Milan and began to see some continuity in his form. Mesut Özil had a poor start to the season, so Mourinho turned to Kaká to create goal-scoring opportunities and direct the team’s attacking play. The Brazilian as well as Ángel Di María forged a strong connection between the midfield and the attack and contributed lots of assists.

We have seen this season that Kaká is a very important player for Real Madrid when Mourinho decides to play on the counter. In the first Champions League group match against Ajax, Real Madrid made clear how dangerous this style can be when it is implemented by players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Benzema and Özil . This has been one of the most encouraging things about Real Madrid this year. The team has shown it can play well with a possession style or with counterattacking. Kaká offers the team the ability to score very fast goals, as you can see here, but he also knows how to tear a defensive line apart with subtlety. If Özil keeps playing like he has been this past month, and if Di María recovers well from his injury, Kaká might lose his starting spot on the team. But if he manages to keep himself in shape, he could be a very valuable asset for Real Madrid coming off the bench and playing good minutes against teams that need to score a goal.

Poll

What grade would you give la Liga 2011-2012 overall?

A

93 votes

B

47 votes

C

6 votes

D

1 votes

F

10 votes

Other (I'll tell you in the comments)

1 votes

158 votes | Poll has closed

Madrid Take Six Point Liga Lead After Getafe Shock Barça

jzeitlin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:42:59 -0000

Plucky Madrid minnows Getafe managed to hold on for a narrow 1-0 win over an out-of-sorts Barcelona side at the Alfonso Pérez on Saturday. With Real Madrid sailing past Atléti earlier in the day, the blancos took a commanding six-point lead at the top of the La Liga table over their Catalan rivals.

A second-half header from Juan Valera off of a corner from Madrid youth product Pablo Sarabia (we still retain a buy-back clause on him) and some tenacious defending was enough to stymie Pep Guardiola's team, who looked a shadow of their usual selves. As Barcelona pressed in the second half looking for a late equalizer, they put the ball in the net only for it to be ruled out in a narrow offsides call. In the end, Messi was unable to do it all by himself as he often does and the Azulones claimed a historic win.

This means that, assuming Madrid beats Sporting Gijón in the next round of matches, the capital side will be at the top of the table no matter what the result against Barcelona in the first Clásico at the Bernabéu. Further, assuming that the two sides drop an equal number of points or none at all for the rest of the season, Barcelona would need to win both Clásicos in order to win the league.

A win for Madrid in the Clásico, a definite possibility given the trajectory of the two sides at the present moment and the sharp contrast in their form, would almost certainly spell an end to the Catalan club's title hopes, leaving them nine points behind with half the season remaining. Such a lead, while surmountable, would require a collapse of epic proportions on the part of a thus-far remarkably consistent Madrid outfit to overturn.

Real Madrid 3-0 Villarreal Recap and Analysis

jzeitlin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:47:35 -0000

All signs suggested that Madrid would heap more misery onto a struggling Villarreal side Wednesday night at the Bernabéu and take all three points from the fixture, and that's exactly what happened, with first-half goals from Karim Benzema, Kaká and man of the match Angel di María. The win brought Madrid back ahead of Barcelona on 22 points, one behind shock league leaders Levante, whose entire first XI cost less than one Big Two player's weekly salary.

Los blancos have failed to win just one of their league fixtures against the tiny Valencian side, the Yellow Submarine having snatched a narrow 3-2 victory at El Madrigal in the 2008-09 season, when the ill-fated Juande Ramos was still manager of Real Madrid and the team were far enough behind in the title race that they had nothing to play for. Seasoned madridistas will remember fondly a 6-2 massacre in the Bernabéu in the 2009-2010 season and Wesley Sneijder putting the home team to the sword 5-0 at El Madrigal in the 2007-2008 season. Villarreal were weakened considerably over the summer by having been forced by financial constraints to sell their key winger Santi Cazorla and World Cup-winning left back Joan Capdevila to the more prosperous Málaga and Benfica, respectively, and had started the season miserably, winning just one match thus far at home against Mallorca.

Real Madrid lined up with few surprises in their typical 4-2-3-1 formation, with Khedira again partnering Xabi Alonso in central midfield, although Kaká once again got the nod over Mesut Özil and Benzema started ahead of the in-form Higuaín. No doubt Mourinho made these selections with one eye on Saturday's match against Real Sociedad; the Portuguese tactician is well-known to consider seriously the more long-term implications of his selections, seeing not just one game but a whole season during which players must be carefully managed with regard to form, confidence and fitness.

Los vikingos started the game well, setting a high tempo on proceedings and imposing themselves strongly on the visitors. Just three minutes into the match, Sergio Ramos had already put the ball into the net; although his header from a Xabi Alonso set piece was ruled out for being marginally offside, it was a signal of intent.

Just three minutes later, Sergio Ramos brought the ball out of defense and played a short pass to Angel di María on the right flank just inside the Villarreal half. The mercurial Argentine looked up before arrowing an exquisite diagonal ball over the top of the Villarreal defense to find the feet of Karim Benzema, playing the Frenchman one-on-one with Diego López. Benzema chipped the ball over the keeper to make it 1-0 to Madrid.

Madrid continued to create opportunities, with Ronaldo seeing his shot saved by López, but it only took until the 11th minute for them to make it 2-0. Benzema, finding himself stymied by a wall of yellow-shirted defenders, dinked a horizontal pass to Kaká, which found him just outside the area. The Brazilian took a couple touches before lasering an unsaveable shot low inside the far post beyond the keeper's outstretched hand.

Villarreal did manage to get forward a little after the second goal, but Sergio Ramos' superb defending from the center-back position he seems to be making his own stopped the Yellow Submarine in its tracks and allowed Madrid to counterattack swiftly.

In the 30th minute, one of these counterattacks came to fruition. Kaká collected the ball near his own penalty spot from a defensive header off of a Villarreal cross, and burst forward at top speed before playing it to Marcelo on the left flank. Marcelo showed remarkable composure, holding the ball just long enough to find Benzema in the center. The young Frenchman played a superb long defense-splitting pass to find Angel di María alone on the right side of the box, who took some silky touches inside the area to befuddle the keeper before drilling it into the far corner of the net for Madrid's third goal of the night. The entire attack took just 12 seconds from the moment Kaká controlled the aerial ball inside his own box until it crossed the goal line in a textbook example of the counterattack.

After this goal, Madrid took their foot off of the gas, but Villarreal never really got back into the game despite having a better second half. Higuaín, Özil and Coentrão all made appearances late on, but Madrid seemed content to see out the 3-0 scoreline and keep their clean-sheet. This was, in many ways, a typical Mourinho performance, especially in a rare midweek league fixture. The players put in a superb counterattacking performance in the first half, won, kept and passed the ball efficiently, got their goals and then checked out to preserve fitness for Saturday's game.

Di María continues to shake off his recent slump with a rich vein of form to show why he deserves to be included in a competitive midfield that will only become more so once Nuri Sahin makes his long-anticipated debut. With a goal and a superb assist as well as lots of good running and dribbling, breathtaking speed and close control, Di María made a statement that Mourinho will likely have received loud and clear.

Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, had a rather poor game by his admittedly lofty standards. It may have been a mistake to reduce the tempo and see out the match rather than take the opportunity to put on Özil and allow the young German to regain some confidence after being partially displaced by Kaká in recent weeks, as well as get Ronaldo some goals. The Portuguese's performances seem to come in streaks and continuing his goalscoring form seems to be very important to his confidence. No doubt he will be hungry to punish Sociedad on the weekend for his poor showing at the Bernabéu.

Spare a thought for poor old Villarreal. The lovable Valencian underdogs who came out of nowhere with great football and a bevy of talented players from Latin America and Spain to come within a whisker of being in the final of the Champions League in 2006 (losing out to an inferior Arsenal side) have fallen on hard times and now lie in the relegation zone. Since coming up to the Primera for the first time in 1998, they have routinely entertained Spanish football fans with some of the best and most exciting attacking play in the league. Gone, it seems, are the heady days when teams quaked to face Manuel Pellegrini's side and the likes of Juan Román Riquelme, one of the greatest talents to grace the game, Marcos Senna, the man who knit together Spain's 2008 European Championship side, and their somewhat less illustrious teammates. It is important to remember that Villarreal and Sevilla, the two teams that have produced the best football outside of the big two for a number of years, are the teams most hurt by the current inequalities in the TV deal, which give the lion's share to Madrid and Barcelona, but also a substantial portion to Valencia and Atlético Madrid. If the current situation continues, fans of Spanish football will have lost something very special indeed.

Jonathan Wilson Writes on Family, Football and Fandom

jzeitlin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 04:17:55 -0000

Hey Madridistas,

I wanted to pass on to you this wonderful piece by tactics expert and prominent football writer Jonathan Wilson, author of the astonishingly good Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics - the definitive book on the evolution of tactics and formations from the early days of the game in Britain through the Austrian Wunderteam, Dutch Total Football, the invention of pressing, Sacchi's Milan, and everything in between. In it, he discusses his late father and what being a Sunderland fan means to him.

What I found most interesting was that for Wilson, being a Sunderland fan is about a sense of place and of belonging, of continuity with the past and with his family and his city. It doesn't matter to him who plays for the club, who the manager is or who owns it - Sunderland is in his blood. Given that many of us on the site weren't born into Madrid-supporting families, how did you come to be a fan? What does being a madridista mean to you? Whether you're a madrileño born and bred or only recently fell in love with the club, share your story in the comments!

Ex-Milan, Chelsea Coach Ancelotti Correctly Predicts Barça Match, Last Minute Goal

jzeitlin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:42:01 -0000

The opening round of Champions League play offered up several surprises, as nearly all of the European elite failed to win, with defending champions Barcelona drawing 2-2 with AC Milan in the Camp Nou, star-studded nouveau-riche Manchester City drawing 1-1 at home to Napoli, last year's finalists Manchester United drawing 1-1 at Benfica, Arsenal claiming a 1-1 draw with German champions Borussia Dortmund and competition heavyweights Inter losing 1-0 in the San Siro to unfancied Turkish side Trabzonspor. Of Europe's top teams, only Bayern Munich, Chelsea and of course, Real Madrid took all three points in this round of play.

However, easily the most astounding thing that happened on Tuesday and Wednesday in the world of football didn't occur on the pitch at all. It was, perhaps surprisingly, former Milan and Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti's debut as a pundit on Italian TV.

Not only did Ancelotti correctly predict the 2-2 final scoreline in the Barcelona-Milan match BEFORE the game, but in the final minute, as Milan set up to take a corner, he said "Here we go - 2-2 here. Thiago Silva will score." Lo and behold, this is exactly what transpired, snatching a point for Milan against all the odds. No one besides Ancelotti would have bet on Milan to take anything at all from the match before kick-off, so this is doubly impressive. Clearly Ancelotti is the new Paul the Octopus ...

Poll

Is Ancelotti a footballing savant, a psychic, just lucky, or does he know the guy who bribed the Barça backline?

One of the great footballing minds of our generation!

27 votes

He can probably bend spoons with his mind too.

13 votes

He should hit the roulette tables!

9 votes

Hm...an Italian manager knows the outcome of the game ahead of time? Shocker.

34 votes

83 votes | Poll has closed

Real Madrid UEFA Champions League Group Stage Preview

jzeitlin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 03:23:11 -0000

The UEFA Champions League Group Stage draw last night heralded the beginning of another European campaign for Real Madrid, who look to add an elusive tenth trophy to their collection. In Spain, the obsession with the Champions League for los merengues runs so deep that this is simply known as 'la décima' ('the tenth'). For six successive seasons, since the twilight of the first Galácticos era in the early 2000s, Real Madrid went out in the Round of 16 after group stages that generated little confidence. Los vikingos were a laughingstock in Europe, and teams were eager to come to the Bernabéu, hoping for an easy scalp of a big team.

WIth the arrival of José Mourinho, all this changed. Real are now regarded by most as one of the two best teams in the world, along with Barcelona. The team, less cohesive a year ago and not reinforced by the likes of Coentrão and Sahin, stormed through a strong group including AC Milan before putting Lyon and Tottenham to the sword in the octo- and quarterfinals, going out in the semifinal against Barcelona in a close match-up decided by a highly dubious red card.

Real's struggles in Europe had previously caused them to drop into the pot of second seeds in the Champions League draw (akin to the United States having its credit rating downgraded to AA), but last year's strong performance earned the team its rightful place among Europe's elite. Placed into Group D with some familiar faces, Real Madrid escaped the worst of the draw and can expect, barring a significant reversal of fortunes, to easily top the group.

Group D:

Real Madrid

Lyon

Ajax

Dinamo Zagreb

Real Madrid has recent history with two of these teams. Ajax was in the same group as Madrid last season, and los blancos brushed them aside 2-0 at the Bernabéu and then 4-0 in Amsterdam. Lyon had been a bogey team for los merengues, knocking them out at the Round of 16 the year before last, but last season the teams met at the same stage and Real dismantled the French giants 4-1 on aggregate. Neither team has strengthened particularly, and, along with Croatian dark horses Dinamo, will have essentially written off their chances at a first-placed finish.

Their favorable Pot 1 seeding notwithstanding, Real were somewhat fortunate to avoid Pot 2 pitfall and wounded titan AC Milan, who wound up in Barcelona's Group H, Pot 3 hazards such as the Manchester City nouveau riche, French champions Lille, and Russian powerhouse Zenit, and Pot 4 dark horses German champion Borussia Dortmund and, to a much lesser extent, Napoli.

All things being equal, Real can be pleased with the group. Should the team keep its concentration up, they should have little difficulty dispatching such opposition. The real challenges will come in the knockout rounds, where the margins for error are slim as a razor's edge and the competition is stiffer. For now, however, los merengues are still in the hunt for another crack at 'la décima'.

Poll

Who will top Group D?

Real Madrid

237 votes

Lyon

9 votes

Ajax

6 votes

Dinamo Zagreb

7 votes

259 votes | Poll has closed

Racism and Spanish Sports: An Analysis of Racist Chanting in the Wake of Real Madrid-Barcelona

jzeitlin — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 01:27:52 -0000

Note: This is the second part of the three-part series on racism in Spanish sports that Managing Madrid began after Real Madrid's 3-2 loss in the Supercopa against Barcelona. This installment focuses on the history of racism and racist chanting in Spain and possible methods for addressing such problems.

Many of those watching Spain and the world's two most glamorous teams face off in the Supercopa last week were shocked to hear disgusting racist chants directed at black players. As Gabe noted in his article, Real Madrid fans made monkey noises to jeer Dani Alves in the Bernabéu, while fellow Brazilian Marcelo was greeted by Barcelona fans upon entering the pitch at the Camp Nou with chants of 'mono', or 'monkey'.

Spain has had a long and sordid history of racism, however, as Gabe has admirably documented. In fact, the very word 'race' in English as well as all Romance languages derives from the Spanish, and it was in medieval Spain that the foundations of modern conceptions of race and racial discrimination were laid. 'Race' does not derive from the word 'raíz' ('root'), as is commonly thought, but rather from 'raza' ('taint'), a term of art for an imperfection in a piece of cloth.

After the end of the 800 years of conflict known as the Reconquista with the conquest of Granada in 1492, the Christian kings of Castilla and Aragón had dislodged the last vestiges of Islamic rule from the Iberian peninsula. One of their first acts was to expel all Jews and mudéjares ('beasts of burden' - this referred to the belief among some Spanish Christians that the Moors should be kept around to use as slave labor). While some Jews and Muslims chose to flee the country with nothing more than what they could carry on their backs, like Gabe's family, many converted to Christianity and stayed.

These conversos, also known disparagingly as moriscos (crypto-Muslims) and marranos ('pigs', referring to converted Jews because of the Jewish practice of abstaining from pork), became widely discriminated against, often being accused (especially during the notorious Spanish Inquisition) of being false converts (in many cases, this was true, and the conversos continued to practice their original religion).

But with everyone practicing the same religion, at least nominally, discriminatory practices became rooted in ancestry rather than actual religious beliefs. Starting in 1449 in Toledo with the first Limpieza de Sangre ('purity of blood') statute, candidates for official positions, or membership in guilds and religious or military orders were required to prove that they were 'viejos cristianos' ('old Christians') 'sin raza de judío o de moro' ('without the taint of Jew or Moor'). Here, we see that the word raza is being used to mean an irrevocable stain, a taint that pollutes the blood of the Spanish people. It is this concept that evolves into 'race' in the modern sense; Spain is the birthplace of racial discrimination, as opposed to discrimination based on culture or politics or religion.

Only in the late 19th century did Spain do away with Limpieza de Sangre requirements for public office, the priesthood, college admittance, the military and professional organizations. Little more than a century later, Spanish soccer fans continue to evoke the appalling and once commonly-held 'theory' that blacks were so biologically inferior to whites that they did not even belong to the same species, instead being closer to monkeys and apes.

This is not a harmlessly insensitive gesture like the photograph of the Spanish national basketball team posing with their eyes slanted for a Beijing Olympics publicity stunt, but rather a vile and despicable attempt to demean and intimidate black players, similar to American college fraternity pranks that have involved white members strewing cotton balls across college-owned lawns and then watching and snickering while black janitorial staff pick it up, reminiscent of the cotton plantations of the American South which relied heavily on the slave labor of black Americans.

The chanting at the Camp Nou and the Bernabéu are hardly the first racial incidents that Spanish football has become embroiled in. In 2004, Spanish journalists filmed an unsuspecting Luís Aragonés, the Spain coach who later went on to lead Spain to the European Championships in 2008, attempting to fire up José Antonio Reyes before a match against France and fellow Arsenal player Thierry Henry, telling him 'demuestra que eres mejor de ese negro de mierda' (demonstrate that you are superior to that piece of sh*t n****r [I chose to use this word to convey the offensiveness of the remark in Spanish, but it lacks the connotations of the Jim Crow South that imbue the n-word with its cultural weight]. The English press in particular lambasted this remark and called for Aragonés to be dismissed, but neither the Spanish media nor the RFEF, the Spanish national federation, seemed particularly concerned, failing to censure the manager in any way.

As a consequence of the English media's criticism of the Spain coach, the friendly match between England and Spain at the Bernabéu soon after the incident on 17 November 2004 soon turned ugly, with large sections of the Spanish fans making monkey noises whenever black English players, notably Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips, got on the ball. After the match, with Spanish officials denying any racist chanting, claiming that "this hasn't happened in the Spanish league and Spain for many years," UEFA fined the RFEF a paltry $87,000 and made hardly credible threats of banning Spain from international tournaments should such conduct persist (Source: The Guardian, 19 Nov 2004).

An English journalist, writing at the time of the incident, remarked that when respected English commentator Ron Atkinson had been caught making an off-hand racist comment, he was quickly sacked from his television position and dismissed from his column at the Guardian, whereas the totally unrepentant Aragonés remained in his job. He continues:

FIFA, the world's footballing power, should back up its vaunted " zero tolerance" against racism by punishing Spain. FIFA should also allow referees to suspend play in such circumstances. A civilized society cannot sit back and allow black players to suffer racist abuse (Source: The Guardian, 19 Nov 2004).

No, indeed. Clearly FIFA, UEFA and the RFEF show no more inclination now than in 2004 to crack down on racist chanting. We as a civilized society cannot and should not idly stand by and watch as black players are demeaned and humiliated on national television. The behavior of Spanish football fans is disgraceful, but what can be done?

Indeed, such conduct is not limited merely to bitterly contested Clásicos and internationals where racial resentments have been stirred up. Black players are routinely the victims of such racist chants in stadia all across Spain. Most famously, in a match at Zaragoza's La Romareda stadium in 2006, Barcelona and Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o was the object of monkey chanting and peanuts being thrown onto the pitch, and, having been racially abused on several other occasions that season at Getafe and Albacete, decided he had had enough.

Eto'o tried to walk off the pitch before being talked down by Ronaldinho, who had also suffered through racist chanting on other occasions, as well as his other teammates and the referee. As Barcelona ran rampant, winning 4-1, Eto'o danced like a monkey, saying that if he was going to be treated like a monkey by the fans, he would act like one (Source: BBC, 13 Feb 2006).

Eto'o later spoke out against the lax response by the media and Spanish authorities to the problem (Zaragoza were fined just $13,800 for the incident, and the referee wrote only in his match report that the behavior of the crowd was "normal"):

I don't make the decisions, but something needs to be done. Right now, the media here pays attention to the incidents of racism, but doesn't discuss solutions. That's the tragedy. They use these images to create an impact rather than to identify racism as a problem and urge people to find a solution. TV has a lot of weight on public opinion and what the industry must do is make people feel a social responsibility to stop this kind of behavior (Source: CNN, 13 Jun 2008).

Eto'o is certainly correct that something must be done to rectify the sorry state of racism in Spanish football. In England, where offensive chanting has been significantly reduced, a number of solutions have contributed to the success of the FA's efficient crackdown on racism at matches.

The FA's highly publicized Kick It Out campaign, which urges fans to "kick racism out of football" and provides them with a number to call to alert footballing authorities to racist abuse, has been highly effective. Top EPL players of all creeds have come forward in promotional videos to pass on the message to fans that racism has no place in football and is absolutely unacceptable. This public and unequivocal stand is at the very least infinitely preferable to the repugnant and immoral waffling of the craven RFEF on the subject of racism, even if it had no other effects.

Furthermore, the FA and the Premier League have pressured the individual clubs to work closely with police to identify those who engage in homophobic or racist chants and to retrospectively arrest and charge them using photographic and video evidence. Dozens of Tottenham Hotspur fans, for instance, have been charged with indecent chanting under the Football Offenses Act (a bill pushed through by the FA and its allies in Parliament) for their withering abuse of former Portsmouth defender Sol Campbell, who is regarded as a traitor by fans of the North London club for switching to hated rivals Arsenal in 2001. These chants include both racist and homophobic abuse of the most vile sort. Two favorite chestnuts are:

He's big, he's black. He takes it up his crack. Sol Campbell, Sol Campbell.

and the even more despicable:

Sol, Sol, wherever you may be / You're on the verge of lunacy / And we don't give a f**k if you're hanging from a tree / You Judas c**t with HIV (Source: The Guardian 6 Oct 2008).

Admittedly, for years such homophobic abuse was treated with much greater leniency by the British authorities than racist abuse, but this too is now met with the full force of FA and police sanctions against those responsible. The same cannot be said for Spain.

However, this latter approach, based more on crackdowns than on education, is unlikely to be adopted in Spain. While Great Britain has few explicit protections for freedom of speech and expression, allowing that country to implement laws banning hate speech, the Spanish Constitution, adopted in 1978, has much more stringent and generous protections for civil liberties. While the US, long the gold standard for legal protections for freedom of expression, essentially only criminalizes hate speech if it constitutes 'fighting words', or direct threats against a specific person, Spanish law is somewhat more vague. It also contains a provision for prosecution of indirect incitement to violence; however, it is highly probable that monkey chanting of the sort prevalent in Spanish stadia, which, while insulting, is in no way violent in nature, would be accorded constitutional protection as free expression (Source: Freedom of Speech in American and Spanish Law: A Comparative Perspective, Coll and Doncel, Jan 2010). Police action is almost certainly out.

So what are some realistic solutions to the problem? First of all, a serious, concerted anti-racism campaign on the part of the clubs, the players, and hopefully the RFEF would be a great start. However, this looks fairly unlikely at this point given the retrograde attitudes toward race that pervade Spanish society and the weakness of the RFEF. However, a strong show of support for such a campaign by fans might be sufficient to goad some of the bigger clubs into pushing for reform themselves.

Second, clubs must become serious about identifying and banning offenders. Joan Laporta, the admittedly odious former Barcelona president and smarmy Catalan nationalist, must be commended for his courageous decision in 2003 to ban the Boixos Nois, Barcelona's main group of skinhead ultras (violent gangs of fans, normally with far right-wing or fascist sympathies, broadly analogous to English or Scottish firms) from all games permanently. Real Madrid should do the same with the Ultra Sur, its own band of Neo-Nazi thugs who are typically responsible for the bulk of racist activity during games. A five or ten year ban for racist or homophobic chanting would be a highly effective deterrent to such behavior.

Fundamentally, however, racist chanting will continue until either attitudes toward race in Spanish culture change, which is a slow and ponderous process, or public opprobrium threatens to harm the reputation (and foreign TV revenues) of the Spanish game so significantly that the RFEF is spurred into taking real action. You can contribute to the latter. If you find this kind of behavior unacceptable, speak up. If you happen to be at a game and you see someone throwing peanuts at a black player, stand up and let him know that such behavior is unacceptable. If you merely watch on TV, then circulate a petition and send it off to your favorite club to let them know that you see what is happening and you will not sit by while they do nothing. I do not think that change will be easy for Spain, but if we have to drag Spanish football kicking and screaming into the 21st century, then so be it.

Caveat: Obviously there is racism outside of Spain. There is racism in football outside of Spain. There are people in Spain who are not racist. None of these are objections to my argument. The fact of the matter is, racism is such a low priority for those in charge of Spanish football that these events do not get treated with the same gravity as racist incidents in general and in sport in, for example, the US, Britain or Germany. As intelligent, discerning fans of Spanish football, it is our responsibility to stand up when we see racist or offensive behavior go unchallenged and unpunished. I hope and would expect that any of our Spanish readers also find this kind of behavior intolerable, so to be clear this is not an attack on them.

Supercopa First Leg Preview: Real Madrid Take On Weakened Barcelona

jzeitlin — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:03:35 -0000

The Supercopa de España, the Spanish Liga's traditional two-legged season opener between the previous season's league and cup winners, is a rather meaningless competition designed to spark interest in the new campaign with a big match-up. This season, however, the stakes have been raised considerably.

Last year, José Mourinho arrived triumphantly in Madrid, fresh off of a historic treble with a mediocre Internazionale side, intending to knock Barcelona off their perch at the summit of the game. Mourinho failed to capture the league or the Champions League, but his team made leaps and bounds at every level, from the top, where the Portuguese managed to do what no Real Madrid manager has done since Alfredo di Stéfano and restructure the club hierarchy to give himself unparalleled control, to the bottom, where shrewd acquisitions have helped turn Madrid from an aging pack of ne'er-do-wells into one of the youngest and most exciting teams in Europe. Mourinho broke Madrid's curse in the Champions League first knockout round, taking the team to the semifinals for the first time since the 2002-03 season, and had Madrid not been on the same side of the draw as Barcelona, it is likely Madrid would have gone to the final, which would have been more similar to the Copa del Rey one-off game.

Four Clásicos nearly back-to-back in May of last season raised tensions considerably and exhausted both teams. The league clash ended in a hard-fought draw at the Bernabéu, before Madrid won the Copa del Rey in a brilliant tactical coup 1-0 aet. Barcelona struck back with a 2-0 victory away in the Champions League semifinal after some play acting by Dani Alves got key man Pepe sent off, before clinching it with a 1-1 draw in the Camp Nou.

While Mourinho may not have won the Champions League clash, what he showed is that he has a gameplan to stop Barcelona. Pepe's disruptive play in midfield shatters Barcelona's passing triangles and wins the ball higher up the pitch. This allows for quick breaks and stops Barcelona from getting into a rhythm. Tiring Barcelona out and frustrating their players allows Mourinho to play for the draw before going for the win in the second leg of a two-legged tie or in extra-time when players are sloppier and make mistakes.

What has changed since last season is that Madrid have once again strengthened their squad, with the additions of the versatile and energetic Fabio Coentrão, the promising defender Raphael Varane and last year's Bundesliga sensation Nuri Sahin, while Barcelona have put all their eggs in the Cesc Fábregas basket and added the mercurial Alexis Sánchez in a position where they have significant cover while neglecting to purchase a centerback to cover for the oft-injured and rapidly aging Carles Puyol. Barcelona even got rid of centerback Gabi Milito without replacing him.

While Madrid rocketed through their preseason, scoring for fun and winning all seven fixtures, Barcelona struggled, losing to Manchester United and even being crushed 4-1 by Chivas Guadalajara, a team that Madrid had earlier handily beaten 3-0. Several of Barcelona's stars have struggled for fitness during the preseason, including Xavi and Puyol, who is still recovering from knee surgery and is unlikely to be fully fit for the first leg. Busquets and Piqué also suffered knocks in the international friendly against Italy and, even if they start, may not be at full capacity. This leaves Barcelona with not a single fit centerback against one of the finest offenses in the world.

If Puyol is indeed absent, Barcelona will struggle. Last season in the Copa del Rey final, the absence of Puyol marshaling his area enabled Cristiano Ronaldo to get a free header in the box to score the winning goal. Indeed, last season, all of Barcelona's losses came when Puyol was on the treatment table.

Football is in many respects a game of momentum. Barcelona may be the better side, but Real are fit, bloodthirsty for revenge, in exceptional form and high on confidence. Barcelona, however, are ragged around the edges and feeling the strain of their poor preseason and small squad size. While no one cares about the Supercopa, if Madrid are able to pull off a demoralizing victory and kick Barcelona around a bit, it will put the fear of God into Guardiola's side and make them psychologically vulnerable going into the crucial opening weeks of the season, during which Barcelona have often slipped up in recent years.

The first leg will no doubt be a cagey affair, as Mourinho looks to prevent Barcelona from scoring. He knows the importance of away goals in such a tie, and that it will be difficult to score more than one or two goals against Barcelona, so damage control is key. However, as Mourinho demonstrated with Inter in the two-legged semifinal of the Champions League two years ago, Barcelona can be broken against at speed when they push forwards looking for a goal ever more desperately. There is method to Mourinho's madness, but I wouldn't expect the team to take too many unnecessary risks.

While I wouldn't necessarily classify Madrid as favourites in a tie against what is indisputably the world's finest team and one of the best of all time, it is no exaggeration to say that more than any Clásico for some time, this is Madrid's to lose. Mourinho must seize on the lessons of last year and attempt to impose his dominance on this tie, and if he manages it we may see profound ramifications for the season to come.

Counterpoint: No Spain Conspiracy, Barcelona Should Be Angry, Not Real Madrid

jzeitlin — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:48:45 -0000

As Lucas's recent article argues, many Madridistas are upset with Spain coach Vicente del Bosque over what they allege to be favorable treatment for Barcelona players during Wednesday night's awkwardly-placed international friendly against Italy in Bari. Lucas complained that Real's outfield players each played all ninety minutes of the game, while not one of Barcelona's played more than forty-five.

Pointing out that the Portugal, Argentina and France coaches, for example, gave Madrid's players a break before their Supercopa double-header starting on Sunday, Lucas voiced his concern that Del Bosque, who left the coaching job at the Bernabéu under far from ideal circumstances during the first tenure of club president Florentino Pérez, is taking out his residual anger on his old club by attempting to ruin his former team's chance at the trophy.

This sparked a lot of somewhat acrimonious debate in the article's comments about conspiracy theories and favouritism toward Barcelona, reopening some of the wounds from last year's escalation in the Clásico rivalry. I wanted to take the time to offer a bit of a counterpoint and to debunk the idea that Vicente del Bosque is biased against Real Madrid.

First, here are some reasons why the account of the story is implausible:

-Why now? Del Bosque has been coach of the national team since 2008, and we haven't seen what I would regard as any noticeable biased treatment in terms of pitch time for players in friendlies, for example, before this.

-Why would he care? This seems fairly petty, given that the Supercopa is a pointless vanity trophy and the slight was eight years ago. Del Bosque is known as a quiet, calm, gentle man, and does not seem the type to be either petty or vindictive.

-If there's something going on here, why isn't José Mourinho making a fuss? Mourinho loves a siege mentality and for better or for worse everything is turned into a slight against Madrid. Often he has a point; sometimes he doesn't really. The Portuguese maestro certainly never misses an opportunity to twist even the most minor slight into a conspiracy of dark forces against los merengues. If this is as blatant of an example of favoritism as Lucas claims, surely Mourinho's comments would be in every sports paper on earth by now.

But let's look at the real substance of the claims. In the 2-1 defeat to Italy in Bari, Spain lined up with the following squad:

Casillas (Real Madrid); Árbeloa (Real Madrid), Piqué (Barcelona), Albiol (Real Madrid), Iraola; Iniesta (Barcelona), Alonso (Real Madrid), Martínez, Silva, Cazorla; Torres. Substitutes: Reina, Valdés (Barcelona); Busquets (Barcelona), Alcántara (Barcelona), Pedro (Barcelona), Mata; Negredo, Llorente, Villa (Barcelona).

Key Barcelona men Xavi and Puyol were both injured for this match, as was Madrid and Spain fullback Sergio Ramos. While Spain have an embarrassment of riches in midfield, the same cannot be said for their defense, and the national team was left somewhat short-staffed in that area without two members of its first choice back four. As Madrid provides a lion's share of Spain's defensive players, the capital club was heavily represented in the starting lineup with four players to Barcelona's two, while Barcelona had four more on the bench, with Del Bosque no doubt planning on cycling them into the game in the second half to even out the minutes for all concerned.

But things didn't exactly go to plan. First, Torres sustained a concussion in the 15th minute, having to be substituted for Llorente. Just before half-time, Piqué limped off with an injury, requiring the only defensive player on the bench, Barcelona's Sergi Busquets, to replace him. At the half, Casillas came off for Valdés, the struggling left-back Iraola came off for Alcántara (with the formation switching to three at the back in an attempt to regain possession in midfield), and Villa came on for Iniesta. All the players coming on were Barcelona's, and not one could have replaced a Madrid one. Mata later came on for Cazorla, when he could theoretically have replaced Xabi Alonso, but that would have been a bit of a stretch as he is much more of an attacking player.

Arguably, Barcelona should be the aggrieved party. After all, they're the ones who had two of their key starters, Busquets and Piqué, injured just before the Clásico. All Real's players got was some much needed match practice ahead of the game. Barcelona, already short at the back having got rid of Gabi Milito, could conceivably face the prospect of going into the Madrid game with not one recognized central defender in their squad (if Piqué and Puyol are out) and with the man usually deputized to stand in at that position (Busquets) also possibly sidelined. We could see Mascherano, who can deputize there if needed, next to an untried youth team player at the Bernabéu. And yet we're the ones who are supposed to be mad?

Real Madrid Slap Six Past Terrorized Tianjin

jzeitlin — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 21:21:03 -0000

In a game that none of us here at Managing Madrid even really knew was happening, Real Madrid annihilated Chinese Super League side Tianjin Teda 6-0 in the Water Drop Olympic Stadium. José Mourinho heavily rotated the side that showboated past Guangzhou Evergrande 7-1 in the previous leg of Madrid's Chinese preseason tour, making nine changes, leaving the likes of Ronaldo, Pepe, Benzema, Marcelo and Casillas riding the pine.

The merengues had a chance to take the lead in the eighth minute, when the mercurial Angel di María was brought down just inside the area. Kaká converted the penalty, sending the keeper diving helplessly the wrong way and confidently stroking the ball into the corner.

After continuing to dominate proceedings, the vikingos doubled their lead just five minutes later after utility man and new signing Fábio Coentrão blazed out of defense to put pressure on a Tianjin player in possession, winning the ball deep in his own half. Surging forward, the Portuguese played a pinpoint through-ball between the centerback and fullback, playing Di María in one-on-one with the keeper. The Argentine wing wizard tried an ill-advised chip which was parried by the keeper, but it only made it as far as the lunging Di María's foot as he volleyed the ball into the net from a tight angle.

Despite a disappointing conclusion to the first half, during which Sergio Ramos had to limp off with a back injury, rendering him doubtful for the Supercopa clash on August 14th, Madrid came out in the second period ready to play. Tianjin also improved dramatically after the break, and Madrid were unable to extend their lead until the 67th minute, when the on-fire Karim Benzema, who had come on for Coentrão moments before, sent a lovely ball over the top of the Tianjin defense from deep in midfield to the feet of Pipita Higuaín, who made it 3-0 with an ungainly finish after rounding the keeper.

Cristiano Ronaldo then came in for Higuaín and took only six minutes to score his team's fourth, rifling in a stellar shot from just inside the area after a series of slick one-two passes. In the 79th minute, Ronaldo seared down the left flank, showing his close control before playing in Marcelo on the overlap, who sent in a low cross flashing across the face of goal where it was met by the onrushing Benzema. The French striker made no mistake. Just two minutes later, Benzema did well to control Ronaldo's cross before rifling the ball into the net to make it six goals for Madrid and seven wins out of seven games in preseason.

Karim Benzema ends the preseason as Madrid's top scorer with eight goals, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo with seven. Especially when compared with Barcelona's disastrous preseason, los merengues will head into next week's Supercopa game against their rivals with form on their side.

Point/Counterpoint: Why Kaká Won't Be Making an Impact This Season

jzeitlin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:22:12 -0000

As we head into the final month of the pre-season, Real Madrid seem to have concluded the bulk of their transfer dealings. A new striker may yet be signed (Mourinho has hinted at the acquisition of last season’s loan star Emmanuel Adebayor, while Neymar looks unlikely to arrive this summer at least) and one or two players may depart (Lass wants a move to the EPL while Gago has his heart set on a loan to Boca Juniors) but the squad is fundamentally what Mourinho will have available to work with for the long season ahead.

Real Madrid has an embarrassment of riches in its squad, with a particularly sumptuous feast of options in midfield as the likes of Alonso, Khedira, Özil, Granero, Pepe and di María vie for a spot with new additions Coentrão, Callejón, Sahin and Altintop. The one player I didn’t mention, 2007 Ballon d’Or recipient and €65m man Kaká, has been the subject of many heated debates in the Managing Madrid locker room over the last few weeks, as we debate his merits and attempt to puzzle out what role his mercurial talents might play in the current Madrid setup. I personally am rather undecided on the Kaká question, but as an exercise, I am going to argue the anti-Kaká side, and Gabe will present the pro-Kaká arguments in a follow-up piece.

There are plenty of reasons not to get rid of Kaká - he still brings in the green, sponsors still love him, he’s on the cover of FIFA 11 and probably 12, and we will never get back even a small fraction of what we paid for him - and that’s not what I’m advocating. So what are the reasons why Kaká won’t be making a big impact on Real Madrid’s 2011-2012 campaign?

Injuries

Kaká’s final season with Milan was blighted with niggling injuries, as was his first season with Madrid. He fought through severe knee pain during the 2010 World Cup before Mourinho commissioned a medical study from Real Madrid’s staff after his return that determined that he required urgent surgery on his meniscus to fix a chronic problem that had either been concealed or missed by Milan’s doctors.

That kept him out of contention for eight months, and although Kaká has shown some positive flashes since his return at the end of last season, he hasn’t looked back to his best. Kaká is already twenty-nine, which is not terribly old for a midfielder, but it may be too late for him to recover fully from such a protracted and serious injury.

Better options

Mesut Özil, the young Turkish-German playmaker, was a revelation last season after arriving from Werder Bremen as a replacement for Kaká. The bug-eyed wonder made Madrid fans forget all about the Brazilian with his silky one-touch passing and sublime through passes. We know Kaká doesn’t play well with another playmaker beside him, as Brazil found out in trying to play him with Ronaldinho, so should he displace a man who inarguably is in much better form? That would be unfair to Özil, who seems to be the future of Madrid’s offense.

Wrong man for the job

Kaká to my mind is something of a rare breed nowadays, an old-fashioned playmaker of a type that no longer really exists. He likes to occupy the central area in the final third and play the killer passes or receive the ball and take the shot himself, either from outside the area or after ghosting into the penalty box from deep. He doesn’t drift into channels or switch places in a fluid offense like Özil, and he won’t pop up on the left before delivering a killer cross, like Benzema. Going back to Gabe’s article on possible formations, there’s not much of a space for a player like Kaká, who only really thrives when a team is built around him, as it was at Milan.

There, he often played as a trequartista behind two forwards in a diamond formation or as a second striker in a 4-4-2 (but with two deep-lying midfielders behind him in Ambrosini and Pirlo). In a 4-3-3, Kaká can’t play as deep as the central midfielders are required to, and in a 4-2-3-1 the central player in the trident needs to be more mobile. It’s possible that he could "do the job" in the latter formation, but I think Özil is more flexible and more suited to the position. Even if Kaká does recover some of his old form, he’s unlikely to be a regular starter because he just doesn’t fit into the kind of tactical systems that Mourinho prefers.

Poll

Will Kaká make an impact this season at Real Madrid?

Yes

18 votes

No

12 votes

Maybe (I'll tell you what I mean in the comments)

6 votes

36 votes | Poll has closed

Elite Clubs Gear Up For 2014 Battle With FIFA, Threaten Breakaway NFL-Style Superleague

jzeitlin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:03:12 -0000

I'm Josh, co-editor of Managing Madrid, the Real Madrid blog on SBN, and BB's editor-in-chief, Sebastian, asked me to write a little something here about a story I wrote for our site. For a more detailed view, go to our site and read the article.

Despite all the bad blood stirred up by last season's Clásicostravaganza, Real Madrid and Barcelona are coming together, along with Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, the Milan clubs and a few others, in order to redefine the relationship between club and international football.

The elite clubs of European football are getting sick and tired of a system that exploits their resources while completely marginalizing them from the decisionmaking process. For instance, FIFA makes over $1bn per year in a non-World Cup year, which is primarily generated off of the backs of the stars employed by the elite clubs. Last year, the World Cup made FIFA $3.7bn. Of that, only $40m - just 0.01% - was distributed to the clubs that provided the players in compensation.

If the clubs have a problem with the way things are done in international football - say, with the ridiculous and disruptive international friendly schedule - they can send a delegation to FIFA's sumptuous $150m palace in Switzerland, only to be told to go through proper channels. "Proper channels" means the European Club Association, part of UEFA; these grievances are diluted with those from the other four confederations before being heard by the 21-nation FIFA Committee on Club Football, where club delegations from countries like South Africa and New Zealand get to make choices that have an impact on the revenues of Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Only seven delegates are European. FIFA as a whole is beholden to its corrupt 208-nation congress, which means the incentives are there only to benefit small countries and national associations, not the European clubs that drive the popularity of the sport.

So what are they to do? Well, the clubs (under the auspices of the G-14 group) agreed a deal with FIFA and UEFA the last time things got heated over international football's treatment of the clubs in 2007 wherein they agreed to release their players for international duty until July 2014 - and now they're threatening not only to not renew that deal, but also to form a new breakaway league based off of the NFL and other American sports, with no promotion/relegation and an end-of-season playoff elimination tournament designed to torpedo biennial international tournaments. We'll see how this plays out, but my thought is that it is a bluff designed to force FIFA to the negotiating table. Either way, we might see some significant changes in the hallowed corridors of football politics, because one of the conditions the clubs want is reform of FIFA and UEFA!

Madrid Leads New G-14, Threatening Breakaway League

jzeitlin — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 05:17:08 -0000

Well, I’m back, and what better way to return to writing for Managing Madrid than by tackling one of the thorniest and most complex issues in modern football, one that has massive implications for the governance and future of the game?

Yesterday, the British newspaper the Guardian reported that, under the leadership of Florentino Pérez, the Real Madrid president, as well as Bayern Munich directors Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the world’s wealthiest and powerful clubs are planning to unite once more under the banner of the G-14. Club football is gearing up for a conflict with the powers that govern the game, and the victors of this battle may determine what we will be watching on television for decades to come. Sensing weakness in a FIFA riddled with corruption and scandal and alienated from profits and decision-making power in the international game, Europe’s elite clubs see this as their opportunity to establish their primacy by threatening to break away and form a European super league.

Before we look at the implications of this, a history lesson is in order.

The G-14 was originally formed in September 2000 to allow clubs to present a united front in negotiations with Fifa and UEFA over international football. Its founding members, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester United, Juventus, AC Milan, Internazionale, Marseille, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Ajax, PSV and Porto, were soon joined by Arsenal, Olympique Lyon, Bayer Leverkusen and Valencia in 2002. The G-14 engaged in several significant legal battles against FIFA in an attempt force that organization to compensate the clubs for the use of their players and for injuries sustained while on international duty.

The clubs also demanded a fair share of the enormous profits that FIFA and UEFA were raking in from the use of their players at the World Cup and European Championship. Under the leadership of the formidable Lyon chairman Jean-Michel Aulas, the G-14 began to expand further, extending invitations in 2007 to twenty-two additional European clubs. Fearing the G-14’s growing power and influence, UEFA president Michel Platini decried it as an ‘elitist’ organization and demanded that it disband, promising that the clubs’ grievances could be redressed through new structures within UEFA. As tensions mounted, the G-14 and UEFA eventually struck a deal. On 21 January 2008, the elite clubs signed the Memorandum of Understanding, a peace treaty that stipulated that FIFA and UEFA would pay compensation to clubs for injuries to their players on international duty; in return, they agreed to release their players for internationals until the 2014 World Cup and to dissolve the G-14.

While the clubs were placated temporarily, it was only a matter of time before relations with the international bodies soured. Much like the United States Senate, which accords desolate Wyoming the same number of votes as California, which has sixty-six times its population, football’s hierarchy is deeply unequal. Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, is elected by his organization’s 208 national delegates, few of whom care much for Real Madrid or Barcelona’s profit margins. This leads to perverse incentives, where the body’s decisions are guided by the interests of national associations, not those who employ the players, earn the TV revenue and provide, as it were, all of the value that FIFA packages and sells with the World Cup. The only means of redress for the clubs is through UEFA’s European Club Association (ECA), but its power is diluted by combination with the other four confederations which are treated equally despite providing few, if any, of the players that earn FIFA over $1bn a year in World Cup-related revenue. The FIFA Committee on Club Football consists of twenty-one club representatives, including teams from Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Colombia, Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire, the United States, Honduras, South Africa, Australia, Mexico and Japan, and only seven representatives from European teams. This disrespectful attitude towards the clubs is only compounded by the fact that of the $3.7bn FIFA earned from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, only $40m was given to the clubs: just 0.01%.

But the clubs have enormous leverage, as it happens. When the current deal outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding lapses in July 2014, the clubs will no longer be obligated to release their players for international duty. If FIFA cannot negotiate a compromise, the World Cup will be dead in the water. For a number of years now the quality of international football has been steadily declining, and the club game and the Champions League are now universally acknowledged as playing host to the highest level of football. As a counterpoint to UEFA, which runs the immensely profitable and popular Champions League, itself the result of a victory by the clubs over the national organizations which led to a fair distribution of revenues, the elite clubs require comparable leverage.

According to the Guardian’s sources, the new G-14 clubs, which include Real Madrid, Bayern, Inter, Milan, Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal and Chelsea and may swell to encompass other European heavyweights such as Juventus, Roma, Porto, Benfica, Marseille, Lyon, Ajax, Manchester City or Tottenham, will threaten to secede from the current game structures and strike out on their own in 2014 when the accord ends. They would create a pan-European league, likely open only to the invited, to be played in midweek. The big clubs involved would probably seek to play second-string teams in their domestic leagues, counting on their reputations to shield them from being expelled from traditional leagues due to their revenue-generating potential. The league would operate on an American model instead of the traditional promotion-relegation scheme, with a knockout playoff tournament at the end of the season designed to conflict with biennial international competition.

This is almost certainly a mere threat to force FIFA and UEFA to agree to the elite clubs’ (perfectly reasonable) demands: greater access to decision-making power, reform of the game’s governing structures, fixing the international calendar to better align with the club season by eliminating awkward international friendlies, and a far greater share of international revenues for the biggest clubs. But if Blatter and Platini refuse to take the G-14 seriously, the clubs seem intent on forcing the issue this time, with potentially disastrous consequences. While a similar situation loomed before when Florentino Pérez was chairman of the G-14, with a 2007 strategy document developed for the organization discussing "a detachment of the top professional level from all remaining levels underneath, if this was agreed upon by the clubs," several factors have exacerbated the already tenuous peace.

A new breed of wealthy club owners eager to challenge established power structures and maximize club profit has emerged, including the Americans who control Manchester United and Liverpool, while UEFA’s potentially troublesome Financial Fair Play regulations and the financial crisis’s impact on club revenues have combined to create a perfect storm of anti-FIFA sentiment. The institution’s much reported problems of late have chummed the waters and now the other elite clubs have joined the hawkish Pérez and his Bayern confederates, eager to take their opportunity to renegotiate the terms of football governance.

Several positive outcomes are possible from this conflict. As Gabe and I have expressed a few times on our podcasts, international football is terrible and run by idiots. Because of the bad incentives that the system provides, FIFA is unlikely to be reformed from within. While Michel Platini, the UEFA president, is expected to take on Sepp Blatter’s mantle after his retirement in a few years, he is unlikely to be successful in reforming FIFA. However, the clubs have enough leverage to secure some concessions that may bring down the rotten edifice of international football. Additionally, their demands, particularly those for a reform of the international calendar, the current incarnation of which causes immense strain on already overworked players, are by no means unreasonable and would improve the game.

For many, however, the looming alternative if the sides cannot come to an agreement by 2014 is disturbing: a pan-European super league based on the NFL, the death of domestic leagues as we know them, and the relegation of the great international tournaments to quasi-amateur competitions featuring none of the world’s top stars. Imagine Spain taking on Argentina without Casillas or Messi, Xavi or Agüero, Iniesta or Tévez. Now you see why I’m not too concerned about even Blatter realizing he has to make a deal.