£80m an expensive motivational tool

From the Times Gabriele Marcotti

Sometimes change can work in the most unexpected ways. Real Madrid acquired ten players last summer at a cost of about £80 million. It was an attempt to overhaul a team who, under Fabio Capello, won La Liga but supposedly came up short in the entertainment department.

Four months on, Real sit top of La Liga. Is it evidence that spending money guarantees success? Not quite because, amazingly, of Real’s ten newcomers, only one - Wesley Sneijder, the Holland playmaker – has started as many as half the club’s matches this season.

The others’ impact has ranged from the fleeting to the impalpable. Pepe, the £20 million Portugal defender, missed ten weeks with injury. Christoph Metzelder, the Germany centre back, has made six starts, while Royston Drenthe, the much-hyped Dutchman, has made four. The quartet of players who used to ply their trade in England – Arjen Robben, Gabriel Heinze, Júlio Baptista and Jerzy Dudek – have started seven games between them. And the pair of strikers, Javier Saviola (plucked on a Bosman free transfer from Barcelona) and Roberto Soldado (back from his loan spell at Osasuna, where he scored 11 goals in 21 appearances last season) have accumulated only three starts between them.

What is curious here is how Real have thrived without the contribution of those players who were supposed to strengthen the team, but rather relied on the veterans, in some cases the same veterans who were apparently past it. Take Guti, for example. Eleven months ago Ramón Calderón, the club president, was caught on tape lambasting Guti and his unfulfilled potential, saying that he has been “a promising player” for his entire career. This season the 31-year-old, originally pencilled in as a reserve, has been a fixture in midfield, playing some of the best football of his career.

Raúl, the club captain and a veritable superstar early in his career, seemed to hit the skids after his 26th birthday, failing to reach double figures in league goals in each of the past three seasons. This season he has amassed eight league goals already.

Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos, as always, have been the driving forces defensively and Robinho and Fabio Cannavaro, after disappointing campaigns last season, are back to their best as well. As for Ruud van Nistelrooy, it is the same story: put the ball anywhere near him and he will stick it in the net. His goal against Athletic Bilbao on Saturday evening took his season’s tally to seven in 12 matches and his overall Real record to 32 in 49 appearances.

The fact that the newcomers have contributed little does not necessarily mean that they are duds, although if you showed up at the Bernabéu with a reasonable offer for any of them (except Sneijder and Pepe, whom Predrag Mijatovic, the sporting director, described as “the best central defender in the world”) you would not be turned away. Rather, it would seem to indicate that new faces and competition for places can help veteran players to regain their drive and form.

Spending £80 million just to give your starting players a kick in the rear is an expensive strategy, of course. Nor was it, most likely, what Bernd Schuster, the manager, intended to do. And there are plenty of question marks remaining, not least who is going to fill Mahamadou Diarra’s big shoes when he goes to the African Cup of Nations with Mali because Real have no other natural holding midfield player.

But for now things are working fine. Real are top of La Liga and are almost through to the knockout phase of the Champions League (a draw at home against Lazio tomorrow will do the trick). And Schuster may even want to patent his motivational technique.

French with tears?

It is a huge week for French club football. Marseilles and Lyons are on the brink of elimination from the Champions League at the group stage. A draw will probably be enough for Marseilles against Liverpool, Lyons have to win away to Rangers. If they both falter, it would be the first time in five years that no French club has qualified for the last 16.

All of which may be a reflection on tough times in Le Championnat. Despite a huge new television deal, even though France produces as much talent as any European country and despite the quality of coaching, something is not quite right across the Channel.

Compulsive obsessive

Some managers are so obsessive that football seems to be the only thing on their minds. Take Ivica Osim, who was managing the Japan national side when, on November 16, he suffered a stroke and fell into a coma. For two weeks his family, much of Japan and most of those who knew him rallied round and prayed for what, at the time, looked like an unlikely recovery. Two weeks later he regained consciousness, his wife, Asima, by his side. And, according to reports, what were the first words out of his mouth? “How’s the match going?”

With their World Cup qualifying campaign starting in February, the Japanese FA have now been forced to replace him as coach, but at least we ought to be thankful that one of the more colourful managers in the sport is still with us.

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