Real Madrid News

The 1986 World Cup winner has doubts that the Catalans can eliminate Milan, and believes United’s defensive approach against Madrid cost them

Former Real Madrid director Jorge Valdano believes that Barcelona’s recent defeats against AC Milan and los Blancos have hurt the Catalans’ confidence.

The Blaugrana were beaten 2-0 in the first leg of the tie at San Siro in February and they will be looking to turn things around at Camp Nou on Tuesday, and the Argentine is curious as to how they will respond.

“Barcelona’s confidence has fallen into the abyss in the space of just a week,” Valdano was quoted as saying by Marca.

“We don’t know how Barcelona are going to respond to adversity; they’ve never faced it before. Maybe we have underestimated the importance of the coach at Barcelona.”

The Argentine then looked back at Real Madrid’s win over Manchester United earlier this week, and voiced his opinion that the Red Devils were too focused on defending their lead.

“When Manchester United scored the goal they just sat back, but there was still a lot of time left.”

Madrid booked their ticket for the quarter-finals by beating United 2-1 at Old Trafford after recording a 1-1 draw in the first leg.

The 71-year old says his players’ “legs went to water” after the Portuguese received a red card during Tuesday evening’s Champions League defeat to Real Madrid

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted his players “couldn’t recover” from the blow of losing Nani during their Champions League defeat to Real Madrid on Tuesday.

The Red Devils held a 2-1 aggregate lead over the Spaniards in the last-16 second-leg clash at Old Trafford before the Portuguese was red carded for a high challenge on Alvaro Arbeloa in the 56th minute.

The visitors subsequently scored two goals in quick succession to put themselves 2-1 ahead on the night, and held on to seal passage to the last eight courtesy of a 3-2 aggregate victory.

And Sir Alex has claimed that his players’ disbelief at the “astonishing” decision to give Nani his marching orders changed the game.

“You just couldn’t believe it [the red card]. Quite astonishing. I think, in general, we know it was the wrong decision. I think, after looking at the game again a few times, the players were shocked,” he told MUTV.

“They couldn’t recover from it until we lost the second goal and then they galvanised themselves and were fantastic in the last 15 minutes of the match.

“They were absolutely brilliant and we could’ve scored five goals. It was a fantastic performance by the players with 10 men but, in that period after the sending off, they played in shock.

“Knowing we’d had a bad decision against us again, we couldn’t get going for 10 minutes. Their legs went to water. That cost us. It really did.

“If it was a justified sending off, in our eyes, it’d have been okay because it was an absolutely brilliant performance tactically. They never made a chance so I think we’d have got through the game.”

The 71-year-old took the controversial decision to omit Wayne Rooney from his starting line-up against Los Blancos but believes the risk paid off in the form of a tactically “perfect” performance.

“Our analysis of Real was perfect with exactly all the qualities all the players have. We made sure we were going to be a problem for them,” he added.

“Playing Ryan Giggs in off the right-hand side gave the left-back a big problem, whether he should push in or stick and protect the area because Rafael was hunting that space all the time. And Nani’s performance in wide left against the boy [Alvaro] Arbeloa was terrific.”

Real Madrid will have home advantage in the Spanish cup final which is to be played on a Friday to avoid a broadcasting clash with the Eurovision Song Contest the following day

The Copa del Rey final between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid will take place at the Santiago Bernabeu on Friday, May 17, kicking off at 20:30 GMT.

The decision to play the match on the Friday is to avoid television scheduling problems with the Eurovision Song Contest which is being hosted in Malmo, Sweden, on the following day.

Each team will have an allocation of 35,000 tickets to distribute to their supporters, leaving just over 10,000 in the hands of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).

The final will be the third meeting between the two sides this season. The last time they did battle at the Bernabeu was in December when Real ran out comfortable 2-0 winners. The return Liga match takes place at the end of April.

On their way to the final los Blancos knocked out Barcelona, Valencia and Celta while Atletico came through tests against Sevilla, Betis and Getafe.

Former presidential candidate Villar Mir has revealed he ordered ex-club chief Ramon Calderon to be followed after losing out to his rival in the 2006 elections

Real Madrid are the latest Spanish side to be embroiled in a ‘spying’ scandal following claims that former presidential candidate Juan Miguel Villar Mir paid for private investigators to follow former club chief Ramon Calderon.

Villar Mir, president of the multinational construction and civil engineering company OHL, lost out to Calderon in the Madrid elections of 2006 amid much controversy after a failure to count postal votes meant he did not assume the Santiago Bernabeu hotseat, instead losing out to his rival.

It was then, the businessman told a court hearing in the Spanish capital last month, that he arranged through a member of one of his companies for Calderon to be tracked by a private investigation firm.

According to a judicial document obtained by El Confidencial, he told a judge: “Given the wish to be president of Real Madrid and to find out the state of the internal accounts, I asked [Daniel Santos, head of security at the Espacio real estate firm, one of the companies belonging to the OHL Group] “if he could carry out a ‘following’ of Real Madrid and he said ‘yes’.”

Villar Mir also revealed in his statement: “The ultimate objective of the assignment was to follow Calderon.”

The judge added: “[The espionage was carried out] after his candidacy for the presidency, when he won the elections but wasn’t recognised due to a bad recount.”

The real estate company, Espacio, contacted Mira Detectives to carry out the espionage.

The news follows claims in the Spanish press late last month that former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola contracted private investigators to spy on Gerard Pique during the early months of his relationship with Shakira and prior to his courtship with the Colombian singer.

Barcelona have refused to comment on those reports.

Our Spanish expert Phil Kitromilides thinks Madrid have enough to win, but will not keep a clean sheet in Galicia

One of the greatest weeks in recent memory for Real Madrid ends on Sunday night in Vigo, a particularly unglamorous corner of north west Spain. After the euphoria of successive Clasico wins and Champions League progression at the hands of Manchester United, Los Blancos will be aiming to keep their momentum going by gaining three points against a Celta side who are involved in a desperate battle against the drop.

Despite a poor record on the road this season and having already lost in Vigo in the Copa del Rey, Coral price Madrid as the overwhelming favourites at 4/9 (1.44).

That price is perhaps a little short for us to consider investing in, especially given that Celta’s home record is actually pretty decent, with their away form the aspect of their play which has really put the Galicians in trouble. A home win at Balaidos can be backed at 11/2 (6.50) with the draw offered at 7/2 (4.50).

Expect changes to the starting line up for Madrid, yet whichever eleven takes to the field should have enough to beat a Celta side extremely low on confidence having lost four of their last five matches.

While Jose Mourinho’s side have been winning matches recently they have not been keeping clean sheets so the price of 9/5 (2.80) for Madrid to win not to nil, is well worthy of consideration.

This bet has paid out in each of Madrid’s last four games in all competitions, and with Celta scoring in 11 of their 14 homes games this season, this selection looks to offer a great chance of some decent profit for punters.

For some slightly higher odds back Real Madrid to win both halves at 5/2 (3.50) which, if they get the first goal, looks extremely likely.

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Phil Kitromilides is a sports anchor working on TV in Madrid. You can also follow Phil on Twitter.