Galacticos at Real Madrid ready to take on Barcelona

The return of Florentino Perez as chairman of Real Madrid sees the policy of signing big-name stars – or galacticos – back at the Bernabeu as Los Blancos look to challenge Barcelona in the La Liga and on the European stage.

Last season was Barcelona’s most successful in a long time a Josep Guardiola – in his first year as manager – led the Catalan spearheaded by Lionel Messi to success in La Liga, the Champions League and the Spanish domestic cup – the first time a Spanish club has won those three trophies in one year.

Perez has signaled his intent to challenge Barcelona early on by breaking the world record transfer fee twice. First, the Brazilian Kaka was signed from AC Milan for £56million before Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo was bought for £80m. This mirrors Real Madrid’s transfer activity when Perez first took over the club in 2000, when he signed Luis Figo for a then record fee of £37m before breaking that record the following year when he purchased Zinedine Zidane from Juventus for £46m.

As well as Kaka and Ronaldo, Real Madrid has confirmed the signing of Raul Albiol, the Valencia centre back. In his previous tenure, Perez was criticised for his buying policy as he tended to focus on attacking players too heavily and, indeed, the sale of defensive midfielder Claude Makelele to Chelsea is seen by many to be the downfall of Real Madrid after a promising start to Perez’s presidency.

The 2008-09 season saw Barcelona lauded for playing attractive, attacking football and as well as winning a historic treble, the club beat fierce rivals Real Madrid 2-6 in the El Clasico derby – this is the most goals scored by Barca in this fixture and the biggest win since the 1970s when Johan Cruyff led Barcelona to a 0-5 win.

Before the start of the season, a motion of no confident was raised club president Joan Laporta who narrowly survived the attempt to oust him. Spurred into action, he made major changes to the playing staff and brought in former player Guardiola to take charge of them.

This brought great success to the club and many eyes are looking to the Catalan club to see what their next move is. By the end of June, they had yet to make any additions to their squad although journalists had written about many players taking Barcelona flights to join the Spanish and European champions as they look to fend off a new challenge from Real Madrid.

Coaching Soccer Players to Take Shots on Goal

As many newer coaches continue on with their efforts to learn how to coach soccer they will have to deal with the issue of taking shots at the goal.  Surprisingly, for many young players this is an area they have real problems with.  It puts your team in a situation where they control the ball, play stingy defense, yet find themselves on the losing side of the scoreboard at the end of the match.

Problems with taking shots on goal fall into two ends of the spectrum; players who never saw a shot they didn’t like, and players that will try for one more dribble or pass even if they have an open shot.  Either way the result is that your team gives the ball back to the opponent.  Learning how to coach soccer players to score requires that you understand the two extremes, and help your team overcome the problems.

The first problem comes when the player believes that they are the only person that can take a shot, and they will take the shot regardless of whether the shot is really there or not.  Once they cross into the attacking third of the field, they begin to look for the goal.  The player could be triple-teamed, with a team mate wide open in front of the net, but they will still try to force the shot.  The result is shots that are easily blocked, or shots that are taken from so far away that the keeper has no problem catching the ball.

The side of that is the player that lacks the confidence to take a quality shot, even when it is staring them in the face.  This player could be wide open with a great look at the goal, but will insist on trying to dribble just a little closer.  They will also look to make one more pass, often times to a player that is in a worse position to take the shot.  The result is usually that the defense has time to get into position to take away or block the shot.  Just like with the person that insists on taking bad shot, at the end of the play there is not a score and the opponent comes away with the ball.

Learning how to coach soccer is a mix of joys and frustrations.  As you continue to teach your players what it takes to win, the good times will very much outweigh the bad.  Teaching your players how to take appropriate shots on goal will be a big step in that direction.