Comments on: La Liga Week 11: Dirty Real Madrid lose to Sevilla as BarÃ§elona close the gap

By: tazza

tazza — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:02:11 +0000

sevilla play quality football, and they deserve some luck after a tough start, but more unfortunately, the loss of puerta

By: Larry11

Larry11 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:32:12 +0000

The Sevilla gameplan was very obvious from the start – kicking down the Madrid players, especially Guti and Gago were targeted. And they got away with it.. The referee allowed brutal and cynical tactics. After a while the more hot tempered Madrid players; Diarra, Ramos and Cannavaro fought back since the referee had allowed it. Then the rules changed and the Madrid players were punished.
Saying that, the Sevilla victory was still well earned. They had a great game and I don’t think any team in the world could have stopped them that night.
Madrid also started well and until the goals the match was even in chances as well as in possession. Since Gago entered the midfield it’s finally clicking.
The keys to the Sevilla victory were in my opinion: 1. A very aggressive game that was allowed by the referees 2. The home audience 3. The Madrid forwards (RVN, Raul, Robinho) inability to create chances or even get passed the defence, or you could say a very good and tight Sevilla defence 4. The referees different scales 5. Kanoute, who had a great comeback from injury. Madrid couldn’t handle him 6. Keita’s wondergoal.

By: razrhead

razrhead — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:01:54 +0000

were you even watching the same game???!!it was sevilla that played dirty what with Capel’s incessant diving and Alves overly aggressive play among other examples.Typical example of biased journalism.

“Bernd Schuster showed a lack of elegance after the game by referring to the fact that the referee was Catalan when he only had his players to blame for the defeat.”
Schuster did in fact acknowledge the team’s responsibility for the defeat.

By: avrv

avrv — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:54:04 +0000

“Dirty”. Sevilla, playing at home (where referees are statistically shown to be far more permissive towards the home side), 24 fouls to Madrid’s 16? The elbow from Poulsen to Van Nistelrooy? Poulsen’s tackle on Guti? Capel’s diving left and right, including the play that got Sergio Ramos the second yellow card? Alves alone called for 8 fouls, some of them truly filthy, yet only shown one yellow card?

Sevilla took their chances in that two minute span, and had a couple more from counter attacks which they failed to take once Madrid was down to 10 men. Madrid didn’t create chances, and this is why Sevilla won. But Sevilla’s game plan was simply to kick Real Madrid all over the pitch, and they got away with it thanks to the ref’s permissivity. This goes a long way to explaining why Sevilla are particularly strong at home, and generally get dominated away – because a ref who allows this type of play, which is totally antithetical to football itself (using fouls to stop a team playing football) would get crucified. Sevilla invariably gives up loads of dangerous free kicks and/or penalties when they play away from home, or end the match with 10 or 9 players, and these things contribute to their quite poor away record this season. At home, playing like this, they are extremely difficult to beat.

Stick to writing about BarÃ§a.

By: iqnadirshah

iqnadirshah — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:23:03 +0000

I think it is good for Seville that Ramos left. He may have been their inspirational leader, but it is clear that the furore with spurs was on his mind and the players as well and maybe that was why Seville suffered in the beginning. Plus they tragically lost a young talented player who was a regular. Now both the players and management can focus on all the games without any outside interests…………