La Liga: Previewing Real Valladolid VS Real Madrid
After one of the worst weeks in their history, Real Madrid prepare to take on Real Valladolid in La Liga as they know that even though winning this competition is practically impossible, any more losses will result in increased criticism from the fans, which is something they simply cannot afford anymore.
Real Madrid have had reality hit them extremely hard after seeing their hopes of winning any competition this season gone after being eliminated by Barcelona in the Copa del Rey before losing yet another Clasico to see them 12 points behind the leaders. If that wasn’t enough, a humiliating 4-1 loss to Ajax saw Los Merengues knocked out of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 and has ended their European dominance.
In the past week, football matches have taken a backseat to the rumors and speculation about who would be the next Real Madrid manager as Santiago Solari is expected to be replaced while the transfer talks have escalated with people suggesting who should leave the club and who the board should be looking at in order to have a team capable of fighting once again next season.
Today, we take a small breather from all the media rumors as we watch our team take the pitch once again. Even though they don’t really have much to play for (other than securing a top-three finish), they cannot get complacent and will have to fight to win all their remaining matches to avoid increased criticism from the media and fans alike. The players know that winning the league is almost impossible but that should not translate to them not giving their all in all the remaining matches.
As for Solari, it’s going to be interesting to see how he sets up the teams from now on (until he’s dismissed). Will he give chances to players such as Brahim Diaz as he rotates the team accordingly or will he continue with his preferred starting lineups for the rest of the campaign?
📝 Good morning, #RMFans! Here's our 19-man squad for tonight's #RMLiga clash against @realvalladolidE! #HalaMadrid pic.twitter.com/9Pl9yfT6QM
— Real Madrid C.F. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@realmadriden) March 10, 2019
Real Madrid have had some extra bad news throughout the week as Daniel Carvajal, Marcos Llorente, Vinicius Junior, Gareth Bale, Mariano Diaz and Lucas Vazquez are all recovering from injury while Sergio Ramos is serving a suspension. The slighting baffling point is that the manager has decided on not calling up Isco, which definitely has to do with the comments the Argentinean made in his press-conference when asked if all the players were representing the badge:
"“Most of them have and as for those who haven’t, I’ve told them as much myself”."
Even though Solari is clearly not a fan of Isco, this shouldn’t be a reason to continuously keep him out of the team, especially in times like this where a change is needed and Isco’s abilities are undeniable. In my opinion, he should have been the first name on the starting lineup for the match tonight.
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Because of the changes, Solari has decided to call up a couple players from Castilla as Jaime Seoane and Cristo Gonzalez were chosen to join the squad on their trip to Valladolid.
Predicted Lineup:
I’m going to be a little hopeful when choosing my predicted lineup today while keeping in mind that many of the starting players are going to be mentally and physically exhausted. Even though Solari doesn’t usually like to rotate his squad much, I’ll take my chances here:
Thibaut Courtois, Alvaro Odriozola, Nacho Fernandez, Raphael Varane, Marcelo, Federico Valverde, Dani Ceballos, Toni Kroos, Brahim Diaz, Marco Asensio, Karim Benzema