During the last couple of months, things have changed dramatically at La Casa Blanca. A new president, a new manager, three new players and most importantly, a tremendous and consistent performances from the team have reduced the gap with Barcelona from 12 points to just four in a matter of three weeks.
In this article, I'm going to highlight four factors that I think have helped Real regain strength and form in La Liga.
1) The sacking of Bernd Schuster
The German had been brought to bring sexy football or that's at least was Calderon's justification of sacking Capello.
It was rare that Schuster's Real played that sexy football. He only did his job by winning (which is more important), but the German's job was easier than Capello's as he found a team that had gotten its spirit and winning mentality back.
What I'm trying to say is that, Schuster didn't fulfill his promise and delivered the attacking style. He won the league and the Spanish Supercup but there was nothing extraordinary.
Real's good results combined with Barcelona's awful form and inconsistency in the league were simply the two reasons that Los Blancos won their second consecutive league title.
In the Champions League, Real where humiliated and eliminated by AS Roma and so the last 16 jinx continued.
Schuster's stubbornness and negative relationship with the press were also two factors that had a bad influence on the squad.
The fact that he had surrendered before we played Barcelona at the Camp Nou also suggests that Schuster didn't have a winning mentality and was easy to be conditioned by crisis.
2) The Appointment of Juande Ramos
This is no brainier. Juande Ramos has dramatically turned things around at the Bernabeu. He possess superb tactical and analytical skills that differentiate him from other coaches.
He knows how to analyze games well and how to “respond” by making smart substitutions and changing the way his teams play. He is also pragmatic, that is realistic. He doesn't differentiate between his players and he knows how to get the best out of them.
His decision to let players such as Robben, Rau'l and Higuain to play freely has had a positive effect on the team's results. This should have been done before, but it was only under Ramos that we saw the real Robben, the world-class winger that is a source of constant danger to most defenders.
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