Translated material
Badly lying "gold"
In Spain, everything is ready for the start of the national championship
Last season, Real Madrid, led by the experienced Fabio Capello, managed to snatch the championship from under the noses of Barcelona and Seville, who had long practiced politeness by letting each other get ahead. This time, one of them may well take revenge on the “royal” club, which so far simply seems not ready for serious tests.Real has already failed one of them, losing to Sevilla without much objection in the first match of the Spanish Super Cup and receiving five (!) goals from them in the second. And this despite the fact that the champion has strengthened himself more than impressively - nine newcomers and 70 million euros in expenses. True, these millions came from only three foreign players: the Portuguese Pepe and the Dutch Drenthe and Sneijder. Real Madrid head coach Bernd Schuster even entrusted the latter with a place in the starting lineup in the match at the Santiago Bernabeu, sending Guti, who was the team's best player in the preseason, to the reserves for him.
With Shuster, “Madridistas” will still cry; if only because he still does not have a clear plan of action - neither in terms of tactics nor regarding the formation of the squad. And this despite the fact that he began discussing his arrival at Real in early spring. In transfer policy, the German wants everything at once, and it is not surprising that the “royal” club firmly ranks first in terms of the number of failed deals. Well, with tactics it’s a completely dark forest: the new coach can’t decide on a scheme, let alone put all the players in their places.
Barcelona, whose head coach Frank Rijkaard is a La Liga veteran (the coming season will be his fifth at the head of the Catalan club), has not changed their tactical scheme for a very long time. It won’t change this time either, if only because they don’t look for good from good; The game with three forwards gave stable results, and there is no reason to abandon it. Moreover, with the arrival of Thierry Henry, there are now four high-class strikers in the team (Ronaldinho, for all the scale of his actions and versatility in Spain, is still classified in this role), and Rijkaard will have to rack his brains over how to play out this “solitaire”.
The "blue garnets" have two more problems, one of which - fatigue after the commercial Asian tour - can greatly complicate their start in the championship. And then another one will periodically arise - a huge number of football players from national teams (at least ten), who will regularly go “outside”. Well, if an epidemic of injuries hits Barça, as has happened more than once, they may not have enough strength for the entire distance.
Valencia also hopes that injuries will bypass the team, because they were the ones who clipped the wings of the “bats” for two years in a row. In terms of player selection, Valencia is only inferior to the two giants, but at the same time superior to them in terms of bench length. Just look at the attacking line alone: David Villa, Fernando Morientes, Joaquin, David Silva, the two-meter giant Nikola Zigic, bought from Racing for 15 million euros... And at the last line, old Canizares now has a more or less equivalent replacement - - Timo Hildebrand, who came from Stuttgart. The head coach of Valencia, Quique Flores, will no longer be prevented from implementing his ideas by Amedeo Carboni, whom club president Juan Soler decided to sacrifice for the sake of peace and stability. If only Soler himself would interfere less often in internal team affairs, and working conditions at Valencia could be considered ideal for winning the championship title.
Sevilla is pursuing a similar goal, winning one trophy after another: in 15 months there have been as many as six, and for complete happiness the only thing missing is the “gold” of the championship. True, winning it will be more difficult than last year, when not everyone accepted the Andalusian club as a real contender for the championship. Now everything will be different, and in the confrontation with Real Madrid, Juande Ramos' men have already demonstrated their potential.
Before the transfer window closes (August 31), Sevilla has only two serious issues left to resolve: to sell Daniel Alves to Chelsea, who no longer sees himself in the capital of Andalusia, and to buy another forward, since due to Chevanton’s latest demarche they are in the team actually had three left (Frederick Kanoute, Luis Fabiano, Alexander Kerzhakov). The president of Sevilla, Jose Maria del Nido, did not give money for his purchase at first (which is why, in fact, a black cat ran between him and Juande), but now it seems that the parties managed to come to a compromise.
“Shadow” contenders for victory in the national championship are “Zaragoza” and “Atletico”, which purchased various “products” for 80.5 million euros by selling its Vicente Calderon stadium. Already in the first round, the seriousness of the intentions of the “mattress players” will be checked by Real Madrid itself, which hosts them at the Santiago Bernabeu, and in the remaining matches of the tour they meet: Deportivo - Almeria, Valencia - Villarreal, Mallorca » - Levante, Murcia - Zaragoza, Racing - Barcelona, Espanyol - Valladolid, Athletic - Osasuna, Sevilla - Getafe ", "Recreativo" - "Betis".