Valencia CF vs Real Madrid - Match Preview

Valencia CF vs Real Madrid

Stadium: Mestalla

19.11.11; 22:00 CET

11th matchday, La Liga

Expected Attendance: 52.000

Coaches: Unai emery and Jose Mourinho

Its that time again in the new season where we face the title chasers and favorites for winning it, the kings club Real Madrid. The matches between Valencia CF and Real Madrid have always been very entertaining and have attracted huge crowds and a lot of viewership not only in Spain, but all over the world.

No doubt this is going to be an interesting clash once again and an entertaining game and in a lot of ways its a measurement for Spanish clubs in recent years to assess their strengths against the giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, but this time will be different though as Valencia CF brought the game to Barcelona when we faced them and managed a strong performance, earning a draw with a chance to have won it. Real Madrid so far look the most solid in La Liga so this will be a sterner test than even Barcelona and a positive showing and result which would include a draw also would be great for the confidence of the players and will enable us to stay up there to Real And Barca.

Unlike Barcelona though all Real Madrid players are in their prime time and have shown better performance this season that the previous ones and with new signings like Coentrao to strengthen the squad even more Real Madrid look very strong. Xabi Alonso is as good as ever, Ronaldo has improved in his overall game and even provides assists now and Benzema has truly become much better.  So unlike Barcelona with aging and diminishing players like Xavi, Abidal, Puyol, Villa, etc... we are going to face a Real Madrid side better than ever.

With all that said Valencia CF is a different team as well and with the defensive duo of Rami and Ruiz as well as the great performances from Mathieu we have a defense better than what we've had in the past 5-6 years and with some re-surging players like Tino Costa, Albelda we have a chance. 

Valencia CF gets 40 million TV rights money, Real Madrid gets 120 million TV rights money. Valencia champions league qualification is considered a success, while for Real Madrid second place in the biggest failure.
The contrast between these two clubs is huge, especially in recent years, but when these two sides meet on the grass what matters is only the performance on the pitch and nothing else.

Head to Head
24/04/2011	SPL	Valencia vs Real Madrid		3 - 6
05/12/2010	SPL	Real Madrid vs Valencia		2 - 0
19/04/2010	SPL	Real Madrid vs Valencia		2 - 0
13/12/2009	SPL	Valencia vs Real Madrid		2 - 3
10/05/2009	SPL	Valencia vs Real Madrid		3 - 0
21/12/2008	SPL	Real Madrid vs Valencia		1 - 0
18/08/2008	Spain Super	Valencia vs Real Madrid		3 - 2
01/11/2007	SPL	Valencia vs Real Madrid		1 - 5
27/11/2006	SPL	Valencia vs Real Madrid		0 - 1
24/10/2005	SPL	Real Madrid vs Valencia		1 - 2
23/10/2004	SPL	Real Madrid vs Valencia		1 - 0

Valencia CF is coming to this match after two good wins in the Spanish league and champions league. In the last match against Levante Tino Costa had an amazing match providing an assist and scoring the second goal. With Banega injured for at least 3 weeks, its up to Tino Costa to organize the midfield and link-up play, Emery has told him to step up his game and he did it against Levante, but this is Real Madrid and he will need to step up his game once again over his stepping up previously.

Valencia is currently third on the table and close within Real and Barca and getting a positive result in this match will do wonders. At this point there are no new injuries and Emery can choose from pretty much of of the squad.

Valencia CF squad: to be announced...

Real Madrid is coming to this match after several convincing victories including a 7-1 mauling of Osasuna, so they will be full on confidence. Cristiano Ronaldo had a little injury scare, but he is reported to be recovered and will feature for Real Madrid. Di Maria is an unknown and Kaka is I believe still inured so we are at least not going to see him. To remind everyone Kaka was the main player to destroy Valencia last season in the second match between these two teams.

Real Madrid squad: to be announced...

Technical Details Valencia CF (probable setups):
Formation: 4-2-3-1
Line-up: Guaita; Miguel, Rami, Ruiz, Mathieu; Albelda, Tino; Feghuoli; Jonas, Alba; Soldado.
Tactics: Low defensive line, own half pressure, double left side cover, high frequency wing attacks, counter attacks, mixed passing.

Technical Details Real Madrid (probable setups):
Formation: 4-2-3-1
Line-up: Casillas; Arbeloa, Ramos, Pepe, Coentrao; Alonso, Khedira; Callejon, Ozil, Ronaldo; Benzema.
Tactics: low defensive line, all round pressure, interchangeable left side, long shots.

Result Prediction:
Valencia CF 1-3 Real Madrid
Lets be real here we are going to loose and loose badly. We are going to be defending most of the time and concede two goals, we are going to get lucky on the counter attack and score one back, but Real will take control and completely dominate and score a third goal to put the game to rest.

Report: Players on international duty

Turkey; Mehmet Topal
Mehmet Topal did not start for Turkey and unlike the previous match he did not come in as substitute either.

France; Adil Rami and Jeremy Mathieu
Adil Rami started and played the full 90 minutes for France and while I didn't watch the match if we were to trust goal.com they gave him a 5 and said he wasn't too good.
Jeremy Mathieu did not start in France's second match as Erik Abidal took his place, although Mathieu played great when given the opportunity and had decent chances to be called for Euro 2012.

Brazil; Diego Alves and Jonas Goncalves
Diego Alves started and played the full 90 minutes of the match and while he wasn't troubled much he did well on those rare occasions and might as well have secured himself a permanent place in the team.
Jonas Goncalves started and played for most of the match scoring two goals in the process to give Brazil 2-0 win over Egypt.

Spain; Jordi Alba
Jordi Alba did not play in Spain's match against Costa Rica in which Spain drew 2-2 with pretty bad defensive display. Monreal from Malaga was given the spot instead and it seems with his poor performance like Jordi has guaranteed his spot in the Spanish team for the Euro 2012.

Italian teams interested in Jeremy Mathieu

Ladies and gents few days ago I wrote a news article "will our defensive trio be sold?", but that wasn't true, its the defensive quad. Jeremy Mathieu is the latest victim of increased interest from top clubs all over Europe with his great performances.

Roma and Milan have been interested in securing his services, Bayern Munich was at one point interested and recently reports say that Inter are interested in the Frenchmen seeing as how Yuto Nagamoto didn't turn out how they hoped he would and Chivu is unreliable.

Right now Valencia CF is in the middle of a new contract extension work that would increase Mathieu's contract and of course increase his buyout clause.

Report: Valencia players on international duty

Brazil; Diego Alves, Jonas Goncalves
Diego Alves started and played the full 90 minutes in Brazil's match. He wasn't particualry tested, but did well on the few occasions he was called in.
Jonas Goncalves played for three quarters of the match and was decent, but was a bit wasteful with the chances he got.

France; Adil Rami, Jeremy Mathieu
Adil Rami started and played the full 90 minutes in France's match and did great, with France not conceding a goal.
Jeremy Mathieu started for the first time for France after being feature in the squad for the last two matches, but not even sitting on the bench. He did good and just might get a permanent place in the squad.

Tureky; Mehmet Topal
Mehmet Topal did not start in his national team 3-0 beating, although he did come in in the fourth quarter. He stabilized the play in midfield, but didn't offer much.

Spain; Jordi Alba
Jordi Alba started and played the full 90 minutes for Spain against England and did good, with few dangerous runs in the first half and a good defensive display.

Official: Paco Alcacer extends contract to 2016

Great news ladies and gents as Paco Alcacer has just extended his contract with Valencia CF to 2016, it was reported on the official Valencia CF website.

Valencia president Manuel Llorente was very happy and said that Paco Alcacer showed interest to stay at Valencia even with several clubs being interested in him; "Paco is an important player in our club and I'm sure that we'll see him in the first team soon and that would make out fans very happy."

Paco said "It's a joy for my family and I to play at a club as big as Valencia, who has shown confidence in me. Valencia is doing things right."

Defensive trio of Rami, Ruiz and Alba to be sold?

The great performances from Adil Rami and Victor Ruiz have not been left unnoticed unfortunately and several clubs have shown huge interest in taking their services.

Real Madrid and Manchester United are currently interested in Adil Rami with both Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson two of the best coaches in the world keeping close tabs and keen to get the defender. In fact with all the interest being show in Adil Rami even so early Valencia CF are going to start negotiations to extend Rami's contract and improve the buyout clause.

Victor Ruiz has also been very impressive and he is also very young so he has still a long way to improve, he is also a Barcelona youth school product so Barcelona have shown considerable interest in him in this past week and there is serious consideration to strengthen their back line either in the winter transfer market or in the summer and with Puyol, Abidal and Maxwell all on their last year probably Ruiz is their prime target.

Another Barcelona youth product that is also friends with Ruiz from the Barca days is Jordi Alba and his been impressive on the left side either in defense or attack and has also caught the interest of Barcelona.
Milan have also reportedly shown interest in Jordi Alba and few other clubs are closely monitoring his performances and situation.

Mathieu to extend his contract with Valencia CF

The French left back Jeremy Mathieu is likely to extend his contract with Valencia CF as his current deal is supposedly to keep him until 2014, but his release clause is very low at only 3 million euros and the club wants to increase the clause to at least 10 million euros, as not to loose him to the cheap.

Right now Mahtieu is worth around 10 million euros and is you go to Mathieu's profile page I have him valued at 11 million euros, so loosing him for 3 million would be terrible.

Mathieu has also recently been called to the French squad and although unlikely to feature more at least this year, with Evra and Abidal on the end of their careers, Mathieu is going to have increased chances to feature for France, especially since he plays with Rami and can form a great defensive partnership.

The new contract should keep Mathieu until at least 2016 and have a release clause of at least 10 million euros, although Valencia CF will probably want more like 15 million clause, which is the same we sold Albiol few years back to Madrid and Mathieu is on that level.