CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: ¿WHERE IS THE EXCELLENCE?(This article is available in English and Español)

Since Bernd Schuster arrived to Real Madrid, I am asking some questions ¿ in what is better Schuster than Fabio Capello? Of course I think that he is worse and he is not the adequate coach for Real Madrid, since the team plays horrible and it is far from the excellence promised by the Real Madrid´president, Ramón Calderón and for example tonight it has made the ridiculous and it has received a soccer´s exhibition from the Italian Claudio Ranieri-I have criticized Ranieri many times in this blog, but today his team was perfect; maybe his only bad decision was about Giovinco, because the excellent young player would have been lethal with his speed and quality-, whose team showed an excellent organization, work and definition-of course we must remark the show of the superb Alex Del Piero (hey, Casillas, ¿does you know to “place a good barrier” during a Del Piero´s free-kick ?!!). About the tonight´s game, I do not understand the Dutch Royston Drenthe´s presence in the field throughout the game, since he was horrible when he passed the ball or when he tried to dribble the slow central defender Olof Mellberg-tonight he played as right back.- So, he played a calamitous game, but I think that Schuster was more calamitous, since he did not know to find a solution to Drenthe´s problem and of course he had many other options for this position and for example a quick Marcelo could play as left midfielder or Javier “El Pibito” Saviola could have been a good choice, since he is a smart and quick player and of course Ollof Mellberg would have had many problems…but the German coach has his absurd ideas and meanwhile Drenthe was in the field, Sneijder-excellent player for a free-kick- and Van Nistelrooy were on the bench and Rafael Van der Vaart and “Pipita” Higuain only played some minutes during the second half, ¿anyone can explain it to me? –possibly the only explanation is that Schuster was benevolent with Drenthe, since he knows that Drenthe had received a tremendous anger from the Real Madrid´s fans during a substitution – .
So, we saw a tremendous defeat and of course the Santiago Bernabeu´s stadium did the normal things in these situations: to get angry with its team and to applaud the Italian star, the great Alex Del Piero-he scored the 2 goals of the transalpine team-. Ahh, of course, Real Madrid can not justify this defeat because it suffered the horrendous work of the referee-Mr Platini, do you have any problem with the Spanish teams? Yesterday we saw a "theft" when Atletico Madrid suffered an unfair penalty in the last minute( it is also true that there was a Perea´s hand-ball during the second half ) and tonight the referee did not see 4 penalty in favour to Real Madrid: 3 were very clear (a Tiago´s hand, a Giorgio Chiellini´s push to Van Nistelrooy and another push from Nicola Legrottaglie to Raul) and 1 was a bit doubtful (a Nicola Legrottaglie´hand)-.

In addition, we want to remark the situation in the group A after the AS Roma´s unexpected victory (3-1)over Chelsea FC(I do not understand the level of the Roman team during the Italian Scudetto - 6 defeats in 9 games, including the monumental defeat in the game against Inter Milan at the Olimpico-,because a team with Totti-ok, he is not in his best moment, but he is still a top class player-, Alberto Aquilani, David Pizarro, Julio Baptista and Mirko Vucinic –we want to see his best level( when he played at US Lecce)again!!-or De Rossi-perhaps this team needs a pure "9" to be complete team and in fact there are some speculations about the arrival of Hernan "Valdanito" Crespo and Kevin Kuranyi to the AS Roma in the winter market- must be on the top positions of the standing) and the victory of Girondins de Bordeaux in Romania in the game played against CFR Cluj (1-2)-we want to remark the good season in Bordeaux of the powerful Brazilian Fernando Menegazzo(this very good midfielder, after a good level during his Juventude´s period, is being an important player in the European football) and Yoan Gourcuff(he needed to return to France to recover his confidence and to be ready to play at AC Milan in some year).

Moreover, we want to remark another open group, Group G, since anything is possible there after a Fenerbahçe´s good draw in the game against Arsenal - miracle! the Aragones's team did not received any goal in a game! (which is commendable, because the defensive line is playing horrible this season, since it is playing as beginner, committing many absurd mistakes)-, and after the FC Porto´s victory at Kiev thanks to a goal scored in last minute of the always determinant Lucho Gonzalez- he scored a goal and he received 2 yellow card in 3 minutes-(1-2, Milevski scored the Dynamo´s goal and Rolando and Lucho the FC Porto´s goal). In the other groups, we can almost say that teams as Manchester United, Villarreal CF, Olympique Lyon, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, FC Liverpool, FC Barcelona-yesterday it played without the necessary attention and now it will have a difficult game at Lisbon(Sporting recovered Liedson) to guarantee the first position of the group-, Sporting Club de Portugal and Inter Milan will play the next round of the Champions League.

Cheers,
J&F