Vieira´s value to Real rises in Turin aftermath
By Matt Dickinson, Chief Football Correspondent
ACCUSTOMED to the arrival of a new superstar every summer, Real Madrid’s supporters will be even more expectant now that their club has failed to live up to all its promise by reaching the European Cup final. The difference now is that David Beckham would be seen as a luxury purchase. The team needs Patrick Vieira or a top-class centre half.
Real’s players returned home to find the local press damning their defensive failings during the 3-1 defeat away to Juventus in Wednesday’s semi-final second leg, which saw the Italian club progress 4-3 on aggregate. Luis Figo missed a penalty while Raúl, Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane never hit their stride, but it was Fernando Hierro, the captain and ageing talisman, who was ferociously criticised.
Defeat, and the reaction to it, should determine Real’s summer strategy because it would be reckless and negligent to take as the lesson of Turin that they need to score more goals. Even before Wednesday night, when their flaws were exposed far beyond expectations, it was clear that the area for improvement was at the back after all the millions spent enhancing the attack.
In midfield, the absence of Claude Makelele through injury was as telling, if not more so, than the lack of match sharpness that slowed Raúl and Ronaldo. Steve McManaman is not the only Real player who knows the Frenchman’s significance. “I would argue that Makelele is our most important player,” Roberto Carlos has said.
Without Makelele building the midfield platform for his more celebrated team-mates to parade on, Real looked flimsy against a tigerish Juventus. What is even more surprising is that Real have made no attempts to convince their holding player that he should stay at the Bernabéu. By far the lowest-paid player of the regular starting XI, he has thus far been denied a new contract. Manchester United have been alerted to his availability and although, at 30, he is only 18 months younger than Roy Keane, Sir Alex Ferguson is weighing up a bid.
Even with him on the books, Real have shown interest in Vieira and, should Makelele go, it would make most sense to spend their transfer budget on the world’s best holding player. “I know Madrid wanted me,” Vieira, the Arsenal captain, said this week and his club’s need for money would make it impossible for it to turn down a bid near £30 million. Edgar Davids is another obvious alternative after his brilliant showing in the Stadio Delle Alpi.
Aside from midfield, Real must also start preparing for the day when Hierro is no longer good enough and many in Spain seem to have concluded that the end was reached in Turin. Written off before, Hierro is likely to survive in the short term, but Christian Chivu, the Romania left back turned central defender, has been a long-term target of Real, who may make Ajax an offer they cannot refuse.
Real would have been popular finalists at Old Trafford on May 28, even though they knocked Ferguson’s team out in the quarter-final, but the victory for Juventus should also be celebrated for its basis on bold, attacking football as well as staunch defence. Victory set up the competition’s first all-Italian final, against AC Milan.
“I don’t know if it is the prettiest,” Marcello Lippi, the Juventus coach, said, “but Italian football should be respected. Right from the start of the season, Italian football had the desire to show it was not as bad as people were saying. All four teams in the Champions League survived the first group stage, three reached the semi-finals and now two are in the final.”
Ferguson once said of Lippi, 55, that he is “such a good-looking bastard he makes most of us look like Bela Lugosi”, and the United manager has one more reason to be envious. While the Scot has reached only one European Cup final, this will be Lippi’s fourth in two stints at Juventus. Lippi’s team will be favourites against Milan, although the absence of the suspended Pavel Nedved is a big blow. “I am so sad I could die,” the Czech said.
=>Times Online....
