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The Football Wrench
Posting a youtube video of a players season highlights does not influence me in any way.
For many years he had to deal with a joke of a defense. Still bailed Real Madrid out many times. 09 / 10, you say?
You could make Ben Foster look like the best goalkeeper in the world with those videos.
That's hardly an argument. That video showed two saves in a single game. That's it. You know the difference between the two. It was just an example of Casillas having to bail out a poor defense on his own.
Is it just me or Casillas for Real is just isn't bothered off late for the past few seasons? He was the best in the world for a while during and a bit after Hierro but now seems like one of those players Mourinho desperately wishes to boot but cannot. Any La Liga fans who can shed some light on this?
There has been a lot of speculation that Iker & Xavi's relationship has been key to the NT not completely unraveling despite Mou's efforts to create a division between the club players...By extension, it's believed that there is no love lost between keeper & manager...and because Iker is an institution for the capital club, he's been the only who couldn't be booted from the squad
Local press has been talking about how Mou had been critical of the NT & their style during the group stages but disappeared from commentaries after the quarterfinals
Article in Sport yesterday had anecdotes from Xavi's father about the Xavi-Mou-Iker triangle as well
The context is Spain has several sports daily newspapers and a lot of football coverage in the mainstream press, long sports segments on broadcast TV news plus a couple of football TV channels. They've space to fill and it's filled with soap opera stuff Real(ity show) Madrid.
Mourinho's complaint is supposed to be that Spain NT players are untouchable - the press adore them. So, mistakes by Casillas go unmentioned and Casillas (and his TV sports reporter girlfriend) get away with feeding gossip to the press. Including criticism of Mou's tactics and team selection (like Coentrao over Albiol)
It came to a head over things like Casillas trying to (too publicly) make peace with Barca after one of the uglier clasicos, and a couple of training ground confrontations. Was Mourinho annoyed enough to want to sell? Probably not, but he was certainly annoyed.
What's the reaction to winning these internatiobal trophies in Spain, fellas? Does it induce national unity? I wouldn't be surprised if Barca fans felt high handed about them being the catalyst in contrast to the failures of the Madrid-influenced squads of pre-2006. Also felt there's a conscious effort to make these victories seem as much a collective effort as possibile even though the Barca influence is bleedingly obvious.
It's even more insane that he won 100 out of those 137 games. First ever player to win 100 games with his national team.
Don't get the criticism. He has produced some of the most memorable saves on the biggest stages. Denying Robben in the 2010 WC final. Saving the penalty against Paraguay in the semis around the 60 minute mark when it was 0-0. Against Italy he denied Di Natale, which was Italy's biggest chance of the game. And if I'm not mistaken he also denied Croatia's biggest chance of the game (header after the Modric cross).
For many years he had to deal with a joke of a defense. Still bailed Real Madrid out many times. 09 / 10, you say?
Is it just me or Casillas for Real is just isn't bothered off late for the past few seasons? He was the best in the world for a while during and a bit after Hierro but now seems like one of those players Mourinho desperately wishes to boot but cannot. Any La Liga fans who can shed some light on this?
Can't agree at all. Dzeko wrong footed him and finished off his left. It was actually quite skillful by Dzeko's standards and I was impressed with the awareness and the finish?
Not 100% sure if Dzeko is a left or not but he opened up and then wrong footed him I thought. Not much he could have done. The FK though. Pretty poor imo. Very lax.
Can't agree at all. Dzeko wrong footed him and finished off his left. It was actually quite skillful by Dzeko's standards and I was impressed with the awareness and the finish.
Not 100% sure if Dzeko is a lefty or not but he opened up and then wrong footed him I thought. Not much he could have done. The FK though. Pretty poor imo. Very lax.
Casillas anticipated a shot across his nets so he shifted his weight onto his left side thus exposing himself to a pass down his right side as he was unbalanced.
Funny thing is the commentators mentioned Hart trying to model himself on Casillas and he mentioned Casillas tries not to anticipate too much and rely on his reflexes to make a save and thats why he is good in one on one's- something hart was trying to emulate.
Would have been cooler if he was walking away not looking at the goal.
This is him celebrating CR's winning goal
This is him celebrating CR's winning goal