let me just climb onto my soapbox for a minute here
i'm just going to put my two cents about the whole pedro mendes shindig here, because it's easier this way and i'm lazy. (posting this mostly for snuzzie)
in case you're a normal madridista and have been paying more attention to tomorrow's match, here's what happened: in the ajax game, jose mourinho subbed in pedro mendes for his debut. the fallout from this is basically what i want to address, because some of it is ridiculous. (NB: by 'the fallout', i mean 'the english speaking internet response', because that is what has been shoved in front of my face, on twitter and at hala_madrid. i have not bothered to look up spanish speaking internet response or any other response, mostly because i'm lazy, and partly because i like to avoid deliberately going into things that might make me angry- which is why i didn't comment on the discussion at hala.)
i don't have screencaps of the twitter fallout, but the hala post is here, if you want to catch up on what's been said so far.
ANYWAY, right after the match, my timeline exploded with sentiments such as 'pedro mendes didn't deserve that' and that he 'hadn't earned his reward of playing with the first team'. it was a lot of blaming pedro mendes for a coaching decision. here are the problems with that: pedro mendes has as much control over coaching decisions as any other player does. it is not his fault that he played ahead of other castilla players. this is what i texted snuzzie after i poked my head into the twitter wank and i think it still is the most accurate rendition of how i feel about this: sorry if i started shit on twitter. i just don't like the immediate conclusion everyone jumped to that mendes only got to play because mou likes him. player and coach both deserve more credit than that IMO.
the simple fact is that nobody else knows what mou was thinking. nobody can pretend to know why he called up mendes ahead of nacho, for example. and i posit that it doesn't matter. it's a coaching decision and while we may not have to agree with it personally, the obvious conclusion shouldn't be that a player is only getting called up because of his nationality. because to be frank, that's stupid. jose mourinho is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
the main argument against mendes being 'deserving' of a debut seems to be that he doesn't see a load of time with castilla. firstly, this is a decision on tamil's part, not mou's part. maybe he doesn't fit in well with tamil's style of play, or maybe there's a coach-player dispute. i certainly don't know what goes on behind the scenes at castilla (and i have a hunch that most of the people stirring the pot here don't know either) but there are plenty of reasons a good player might not be getting playing time. yes, one of those reasons might be that he isn't as good. but that is not the only reason a player might not get a lot of minutes- see also: esteban granero.
(in the course of this argument, someone decided to compare nacho and varane. here's what i have to say about that: varane played not quite a full season for rc lens in ligue 1 before transferring. rc lens is a terrible team (sorry to any fans who might be reading this!) who were relegated last season. varane started playing in mid october, if i remember correctly, when their starting centerback was injured. but the thing with raphael varane is that he is a world class defender already who has been capped quite a few times at the u-21 level and who has proven himself playing top flight football. nacho, as much as i love him, has not done either of these things. he's good, but he's not world class yet, and that's why he isn't seeing regular first team action- and for that matter, i would hardly call varane's first team playing time "regular".)
back on track. what i don't understand is where the "the are more deserving canteranos" argument comes from. what are we defining as 'more deserving'? have they been with the team longer, sure! are they better players? we don't know! i don't, at least. that's not for me to know. that's for the coaching staff to know. and the coaching staff haven't given us any reason to believe that they are incapable of making this call. furthermore, as someone whois actively involved in competitive sports, it's typically not considered favoritism to play one player over another, especially in a meaningless game for less than a whole half. coaches call up and put in the match the players they want there. that's how it works. if you're going to consider that favoritism, you might as well just say that mou favors the entire first team XI. THIS ISN'T TO SAY THAT A COACH MIGHT NOT HAVE A FAVORITE PLAYER. sure, it happens. it sucks. but for me, there isn't enough proof that it's happening in this situation. the way people have been arguing (that i have observed), it just looks like they're pulling out of nowhere that jose mourinho favors pedro mendes because he's portuguese.
i think this will be my last point here, in part because i have to run to class. but after the favoritism bit, folks started bringing up that the club doesn't have faith in the cantera and that's why our youth teamers never get playing time with the first team.
i will preface what i'm about to say/c/p from the one comment i did make on this thread by saying that i have long thought that real madrid needs to reevaluate its use of resources re: the youth system. i am not happy with the way things are right now.
that said, here's how i see it: it's not a matter of not having faith in the castilla team/the youth system. it's the fact that castilla- castilla plays in segunda b. (sorry to bring it up, but for comparison's sake, barca b plays in segunda- and have dominated. if barca wasn't in the primera, they would be, and if their first team wasn't so saturated, most of these players would be on it. why? because they have plenty of playing experience at a more competitive level than our castilla team does.) castilla, until this season, hasn't even topped segunda b. I LOVE OUR CASTILLA TEAM, DON'T GET ME WRONG. but they are clearly not close to level with our first team. knowing this, from a player development standpoint, it makes perfect sense to loan out promising players to primera division teams where they will get regular first team experience, rather than letting them languish in segunda b and only playing 5 or 10 minutes every couple of months for the first team. let them develop and reach a greater level of experience and maturity elsewhere (with our loan deals, which typically include not only a buyback clause but a clause stating that the loaned player can't play against us, this doesn't hurt anyone) and then buy them back when they're ready to start playing first time. does it always work out? no. see: juan mata. does it sometimes work out? yes. see: callejon, granero (kind of), arbeloa (albeit in a roundabout fashion). our castilla boys need a much higher level of experience if they're going to be able to successfully break into the first team, and with the system that we currently have, the way to do that is through loan deals. in order to change this, the club needs to reallocate resources and pour more into the youth system, in order to help them move up and become more competitive. (which should be done, imo, i'm just commenting on how things are at the moment.)
but i guess the bottom line here is that people should phrase their complaints better. saying "pedro mendes didn't deserve his debut" is downright disrespectful to a player who hasn't done anything to warrant that kind of backlash. kinda sucks for him that he gets his debut and it should be happy, and instead all anyone can do is complain about how he sucks. so if you're going to complain about this and it isn't because pedro mendes sucks (and it shouldn't be, because frankly i think nobody involved is qualified to make that call, myself included), please phrase your complaint as such: "i don't like jose mourinho's decision to call up mendes ahead of player x".
and the bottom bottom line, really, is that while we may not always agree with mourinho's decisions, they are his decisions to make and we should respect that. because as i said above, jose mourinho is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
/soapbox
in case you're a normal madridista and have been paying more attention to tomorrow's match, here's what happened: in the ajax game, jose mourinho subbed in pedro mendes for his debut. the fallout from this is basically what i want to address, because some of it is ridiculous. (NB: by 'the fallout', i mean 'the english speaking internet response', because that is what has been shoved in front of my face, on twitter and at hala_madrid. i have not bothered to look up spanish speaking internet response or any other response, mostly because i'm lazy, and partly because i like to avoid deliberately going into things that might make me angry- which is why i didn't comment on the discussion at hala.)
i don't have screencaps of the twitter fallout, but the hala post is here, if you want to catch up on what's been said so far.
ANYWAY, right after the match, my timeline exploded with sentiments such as 'pedro mendes didn't deserve that' and that he 'hadn't earned his reward of playing with the first team'. it was a lot of blaming pedro mendes for a coaching decision. here are the problems with that: pedro mendes has as much control over coaching decisions as any other player does. it is not his fault that he played ahead of other castilla players. this is what i texted snuzzie after i poked my head into the twitter wank and i think it still is the most accurate rendition of how i feel about this: sorry if i started shit on twitter. i just don't like the immediate conclusion everyone jumped to that mendes only got to play because mou likes him. player and coach both deserve more credit than that IMO.
the simple fact is that nobody else knows what mou was thinking. nobody can pretend to know why he called up mendes ahead of nacho, for example. and i posit that it doesn't matter. it's a coaching decision and while we may not have to agree with it personally, the obvious conclusion shouldn't be that a player is only getting called up because of his nationality. because to be frank, that's stupid. jose mourinho is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
the main argument against mendes being 'deserving' of a debut seems to be that he doesn't see a load of time with castilla. firstly, this is a decision on tamil's part, not mou's part. maybe he doesn't fit in well with tamil's style of play, or maybe there's a coach-player dispute. i certainly don't know what goes on behind the scenes at castilla (and i have a hunch that most of the people stirring the pot here don't know either) but there are plenty of reasons a good player might not be getting playing time. yes, one of those reasons might be that he isn't as good. but that is not the only reason a player might not get a lot of minutes- see also: esteban granero.
(in the course of this argument, someone decided to compare nacho and varane. here's what i have to say about that: varane played not quite a full season for rc lens in ligue 1 before transferring. rc lens is a terrible team (sorry to any fans who might be reading this!) who were relegated last season. varane started playing in mid october, if i remember correctly, when their starting centerback was injured. but the thing with raphael varane is that he is a world class defender already who has been capped quite a few times at the u-21 level and who has proven himself playing top flight football. nacho, as much as i love him, has not done either of these things. he's good, but he's not world class yet, and that's why he isn't seeing regular first team action- and for that matter, i would hardly call varane's first team playing time "regular".)
back on track. what i don't understand is where the "the are more deserving canteranos" argument comes from. what are we defining as 'more deserving'? have they been with the team longer, sure! are they better players? we don't know! i don't, at least. that's not for me to know. that's for the coaching staff to know. and the coaching staff haven't given us any reason to believe that they are incapable of making this call. furthermore, as someone whois actively involved in competitive sports, it's typically not considered favoritism to play one player over another, especially in a meaningless game for less than a whole half. coaches call up and put in the match the players they want there. that's how it works. if you're going to consider that favoritism, you might as well just say that mou favors the entire first team XI. THIS ISN'T TO SAY THAT A COACH MIGHT NOT HAVE A FAVORITE PLAYER. sure, it happens. it sucks. but for me, there isn't enough proof that it's happening in this situation. the way people have been arguing (that i have observed), it just looks like they're pulling out of nowhere that jose mourinho favors pedro mendes because he's portuguese.
i think this will be my last point here, in part because i have to run to class. but after the favoritism bit, folks started bringing up that the club doesn't have faith in the cantera and that's why our youth teamers never get playing time with the first team.
i will preface what i'm about to say/c/p from the one comment i did make on this thread by saying that i have long thought that real madrid needs to reevaluate its use of resources re: the youth system. i am not happy with the way things are right now.
that said, here's how i see it: it's not a matter of not having faith in the castilla team/the youth system. it's the fact that castilla- castilla plays in segunda b. (sorry to bring it up, but for comparison's sake, barca b plays in segunda- and have dominated. if barca wasn't in the primera, they would be, and if their first team wasn't so saturated, most of these players would be on it. why? because they have plenty of playing experience at a more competitive level than our castilla team does.) castilla, until this season, hasn't even topped segunda b. I LOVE OUR CASTILLA TEAM, DON'T GET ME WRONG. but they are clearly not close to level with our first team. knowing this, from a player development standpoint, it makes perfect sense to loan out promising players to primera division teams where they will get regular first team experience, rather than letting them languish in segunda b and only playing 5 or 10 minutes every couple of months for the first team. let them develop and reach a greater level of experience and maturity elsewhere (with our loan deals, which typically include not only a buyback clause but a clause stating that the loaned player can't play against us, this doesn't hurt anyone) and then buy them back when they're ready to start playing first time. does it always work out? no. see: juan mata. does it sometimes work out? yes. see: callejon, granero (kind of), arbeloa (albeit in a roundabout fashion). our castilla boys need a much higher level of experience if they're going to be able to successfully break into the first team, and with the system that we currently have, the way to do that is through loan deals. in order to change this, the club needs to reallocate resources and pour more into the youth system, in order to help them move up and become more competitive. (which should be done, imo, i'm just commenting on how things are at the moment.)
but i guess the bottom line here is that people should phrase their complaints better. saying "pedro mendes didn't deserve his debut" is downright disrespectful to a player who hasn't done anything to warrant that kind of backlash. kinda sucks for him that he gets his debut and it should be happy, and instead all anyone can do is complain about how he sucks. so if you're going to complain about this and it isn't because pedro mendes sucks (and it shouldn't be, because frankly i think nobody involved is qualified to make that call, myself included), please phrase your complaint as such: "i don't like jose mourinho's decision to call up mendes ahead of player x".
and the bottom bottom line, really, is that while we may not always agree with mourinho's decisions, they are his decisions to make and we should respect that. because as i said above, jose mourinho is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
/soapbox