Must win game for Real Madrid as Ramos tries to be a magician

There is no doubt that Real Madrid are one of the biggest teams in world football. From the great Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas team of the 1950s and 1960s that won the European Cup five times in a row to the great ‘galacticos’ teams of recent years including the likes of Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Ronaldo, they have been famous the world over.

Six years

Despite that, recent years have not always been so kind to ‘Los Blancos’. They haven’t lifted the European Cup for some six years. Even domestically, after winning the title five times in a row at the end of the eighties, things have not all been plain sailing with La Liga titles only coming six times in the seventeen years since then. All in all, in terms of the history of the club, recent years have been a little disappointing.

Flagging fortunes

The question at the moment is whether Juande Ramos is the right man to try to revive the slightly flagging fortunes of this great club.

It does seem strange to talk of flagging fortunes when they have won La Liga two years in succession for the first time in eighteen years, but flagging they seem to be. When Ramon Calderon became President he handed the manager role to Fabio Capello. He duly obliged by winning La Liga. That wasn’t enough apparently and Capello was dismissed in the close season.

Bernd Schuster was appointed as his replacement and he again won La Liga in his first season. Despite that, a few poor results this season have seen him fired as well.

Crisis

So a club that has been national champions for two years has sacked both managers who achieved it and appears to be in crisis. It doesn’t really make sense.

The current situation facing Juande Ramos and his team is a twelve point deficit to their arch rivals Barcelona. Only once in the history of La Liga has such a deficit been overturned. Not only are they so far behind Barcelona but they are actually sitting in sixth place in the table behind their city rivals Atletico after three successive defeats.

Despite that predicament, the Real Madrid fans might have seen enough promising signs in their defeat at the Camp Nou last week to feel a little more positive about the immediate future.

A plan

For the first time in a while Real Madrid looked in that game like a team who were working hard for each other and had some kind of plan. It may have been a pretty defensive sort of a plan, but any plan is better than none. Many times this season it has been difficult to establish what the plan was or indeed, whether there was one at all.

Ramos knew that they would be up against it playing the in-form and spectacularly good Barcelona side and he sent his team out with a mission to make life difficult for their opponents. They did it well and almost succeeded in getting an unlikely point.

Must win

This Saturday sees Real Madrid take on second placed Valencia at the Bernabeu in what has become a ‘must win game’. Real will be desperate to show that under Ramos they can claw back the deficit on Barcelona and the others and mount a serious challenge for a third successive title. Defeat would leave them seven points behind their opponents whereas a victory would narrow the gap to a single point.

With Barcelona facing the difficult trip to fourth placed Villarreal a victory for Real Madrid could leave La Liga table looking a lot healthier for them by the end of this weekend.

Rescue

Slowly but surely, Juande Ramos could still rescue this season for both himself and for Real Madrid. If he does, of course, going by previous happenings he could still find himself sacked at the end of the season. It seems the only thing that will satisfy Calderon is domestic success and Champions League success.

The question is, can Real Madrid achieve both. The answer in relation to La Liga is, probably not. The answer in relation to the Champions League is, almost certainly not.

Damage limitation

Juande Ramos masterminded a pretty good damage limitation act at the Camp Nou. But he would have to be a magician to achieve what his President wants and the fans expect. He did well at Sevilla but his record prior to that was average at best and his performance at Tottenham was, at times, strange. His appointment smacked of a little bit of desperation and was clearly something of a gamble. This weekend may go some way towards showing whether that gamble is likely to pay off.