Balague’s mid-season review

Guillem Balague talks world-conquering Real Madrid and Lionel Messi’s new level in his mid-season La Liga review…

Simplicity the key for all-conquering Real

Zidane can defend everything he does at Real Madrid with one stat. Just two defeats from 53 games in 2016. How has he done that?

Well, Real Madrid are comprised of individual players, players who feel as though they need to run the team. The players have to feel things are done in a way that leaves them in a comfort zone. That is what they feel now. They feel Zidane is not on top of them, giving them too many instructions.

His job is to manage the squad. He is the first coach to have rotated and replaced Cristiano Ronaldo, and he has taken that well because he realises the need to conserve energy.

Zidane has done the same with Isco and James and brought in Lucas Vazquez, Casemiro and Mateo Kovacic – a lot of the second string, players who accept the importance of having an impact from the bench. That has been crucial to Zidane’s success at the Bernabeu.

The negative aspect to this, though, is that the team has won a fourth of their games this year in the final 10 minutes. They don’t play as a team sometimes, they relax and don’t have the intensity at the start of games and then they have to bring on the quality, but they have the quality at this moment in time so that’s why he has taken them to where they are.

Barca back to basics as Messi reaches new heights

After a period where they had forgotten that control is as necessary as hitting your opponents with the full force of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar, Barcelona have reverted to controlling games more in recent weeks. If there is a period where the front three aren’t playing so well or not scoring, especially Neymar or Suarez, they tended to suffer but it appears they have moved to address this.

Andres Iniesta and Denis Suarez have started two of the last three games together in midfield, leaving Ivan Rakitic on the bench. Rakitic is on the bench because he has some niggling injuries so he is being rested for the time being, he’ll be back as one of Barca’s three midfielders.

The return of Iniesta has certainly helped Barcelona to be more recognisable, while Messi has just gone up to a new level. Messi is the greatest of all time and the fact Ronaldo has been able to match him, and even been superior in some seasons, shows that what Ronaldo has done has been absolutely extraordinary. But Messi is a step above, as he showed against Espanyol yet again.

He has scored more goals than Ronaldo both with the national team and Barcelona, he has given more assists and is more influential. Ronaldo of course won the two big trophies and that’s what earned him a fourth Ballon d’Or.

El Madri-goal!

Villarreal are doing extraordinarily well. Fran Escriba is very similar to Marcelino, so he has continued the same defensive structure and it has been working. Against Monaco in the Champions League play-offs, Escriba had eight players missing but they have all returned with the exception of Roberto …

continue reading in source www.skysports.com