Real Madrid and the curse of the eighth of final (Yahoo)

For the sixth consecutive year the Real Madrid could not pass the eighth of final of the Champions League, being surprisingly eliminated by the French of Olympique of Lyon, but this time, the feeling of defeat and depression is different from the previous cases. The enormous investment in registration of players of first level and the fact that the final of the contest is played this year in the stadium Santiago Bernabeu gives this competition a place that since years they had not.
The days after the elimination are being lived in Madrid with the same confusion or worse. Few find an acceptable reply as valid explanation and some request heads to be cut, meanwhile others already talk about the change of coach and even of the sport director and appear, as always, lists of players that should leave the club in June when the present season ends.
The truth is that the euphoria of the last week end, when the Real Madrid gloriously remounted a 0-2 in the Bernabeu vs the very strong Sevilla for the League to win 3-2 in the last play, stays to far away, same as a certain Catalonian depression for a Barcelona that is not very similar to that of the last season. So that when the Barcelona was covered by snow that obstructed movements of the inhabitants, Madrilenian media made jokes saying that the city awoke under the “white menace” , an irony referring to what remained of the League and of the Champions..
All this was covered in a few hours by sad faces. Not even was useful the early goal of Cristiano Ronaldo, that equaled the eliminatory making many suppose that the Real Madrid vs Lyon will be just a walk, almost an anecdote. But there came the unexpected: Gonzalo Higuaín himself who never fails in the League, could not convert. Once he gave in the stick with the French goalkeeper defeated and the other was brilliantly covered by Hugo Lloris when the Argentinean forwarder had defined well.
The truth is that the first half finished with a small 1-0 and when everybody imagined that the whites will tighten the accelerator after the rest, there occurred all the contrary, and the merit is of the coach Claudio Puel, who made changes that seemed against the nature and ended blocking the local mid field thus to win the ground, playing with the depression of the Madrilenians, by the pass of the minutes without being able to break the marker and finished shooting the task with the tie that obliged two goals more of the Real Madrid failing nine minutes and already without reaction.
Further to this elimination, that adds to the very hard vs the humble Alcorcón for the King’s Cup, what is happening to the Real Madrid full of stars and with a coach such as the Chilean Manuel Pellegrini, that seemed agreeing with the group? When the match finished, and on the edge of the game field and for the TV, Guti said that “we have to play more with the team and less individually”, meanwhile the Brazilian Kaka, who was substituted between whistles, was protagonist later when his director of communication and his wife attacked the coach accusing him of “coward”.
These episodes are perhaps an eloquent sample of confusion of a club that entered into a negative dynamic and that there is an intimate reasoning that dealing with the football entity most successful of the XX Century should have the best players of the World in every position and this, logically, will derive in national and International trophies..
But football is neither logical nor mathematical, and the sum of stars doesn´t assure a good result and the composition of a team requires varieties, players of different type in the group and a compensated team.
More than once we have written in these columns that for instance, the Real Madrid has no more than one creative player in attack function, Guti, who is already a veteran and has intermittent characteristics and does not seem to render the ninety minutes, but if not, everything depends on Xabi Alonso who is midcenter of good shot and long passes. But who does not manage the pause for the offensive. In change, the Real Madrid was tented for the figure of a great player as the Brazilian Kaka but with counter attack characteristics, for which he needs spaces that he will never have in a team that has to attack in all the stadium and is what starts to be seen by the local specialized press..
The press also went against Pellegrini, what is typical when a team is unsuccessful and though the Chilean obtained what nobody did in the last time: that the Real Madrid practices a good football and is not casual that in the inquiries only a third part of the electors wants his withdrawal even in the worst days. Others, blinded, blame Higuaín (the same that converts every week) being the reason that he had not the same luck vs the Lyon, as if the centimeter of distance of the goal to the stick could determine more or less the quality of his game.
Touches this defeat to the sport director Jorge Valdano? Even when he gave the face talking about the “Institutional sobriety” to calm the spirits, everything indicates that his future (as that of Pellegrini) is tied to win a League, something that nobody is prepared to foresee when only a week ago many gave it as certainty. Today, even the crushed Valladolid is transformed in a dangerous rival.
And the worst had not arrived yet. Many fans of the Real Madrid do not want even to talk about of the final of the Champions, in which the Barcelona could re-edit their success in the worst possible scenery, the same Bernabeu and one more for the streak of bad luck, that the final of the King’s Cup will be very soon played there, and it could be won by the other archrival, the Atletico Madrid.
The graphics humorist Ricardo resumed very well in the newspaper “El Mundo” showing the president of the Real Madrid Florentino Pérez, observing on a blackboard the composition of his team with these players, Patience; Project of long term, Stability, Calm, deaf ears to the hysterics; Sobriety, Tranquility; Modesty, Intelligence, Serenity, Cristiano Ronaldo.