Year: 2016

Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos picked up a knee injury back on October when he was performing for his national side Spain as they locked horns with Albania and this injury arrived at a fairly risky time as Real Madrid have a schedule with important matches already played and left to be played which could have left Sergio Ramos unable to perform in these games.

Even though Real Madrid is one of the clubs that has one of the most talented and skillful squads in the entire world of football, missing out from a player like Sergio Ramos can affect the team as Ramos is the captain of Real Madrid and his absence can be felt even in such a stacked team such as the one of Zinedine Zidane.

Ramos was not featured in Real Madrid’s derby match against Athletic Madrid but they still managed to come out on top with a 3-0 triumph as Real Madrid continued their charge at the top of the Spanish League.

The 30 year old Spanish defender is now fully recovered and he managed to make a full appearance in Real Madrid’s Champions’ League group stages match against Sporting CP and Sergio Ramos made a huge impact upon making his return to the pitch as he delivered a superb pass to Karim Benzema and the French attacker scored the winning goal which edged out the victory for Real Madrid as the final scoreboard displayed 2-1.

Sergio Ramos was also given full playing time during Real Madrid’s latest La Liga match as they played against Sporting Giyon and scraped a 2-1 triumph and the squad of Zinedine Zidane sealed 3 crucial points in their journey of becoming the new champions of Spain.

From the looks of it, Ramos is fully recovered and back which is great news for Real Madrid as the captain of the club was initially expected to be out of action for a longer period of time but Ramos has quickly gone back to full fitness.

Sergio Ramos is set to miss one month of football after being injured while playing for Spain against Albania.

The Real Madrid defender has picked up an injury in the leg and will have to go through further test to assess the extent of the injury.

This will be a bad news for Real Madrid’s manager Zinedine Zidane as Ramos will be joining players such as Luka Modric, Casemiro, and Marcelo on the injury list

The first statement from the team said that the injury appears to be a sprain and that the player might be out for one month. However, further tests need to be carried out before an accurate assessment can be made.

Sergio Ramos has enjoyed a difficult start to this season where he has conceded four penalties so far for club and country. Ramos has also been the subject of harsh criticism during recent weeks as Real Madrid went on a run of four consecutive draws. However, with Real Madrid currently short on players, his absence will come at an inopportune time for Zidane as he was counting on his experienced defender at the back.

Ramos will miss three La Liga games and two Champions League game during that period. He is likely going to miss international games with Spain against Macedonia counting for the World Cup qualifiers and also a friendly match against England.

If there is no complication, it is believed that the player will be back for the derby game against Atletico Madrid on the 20th November.

Ramos said that he would do everything he can to come back strongly and to help the team challenge for trophies. He admitted that he has had a bad campaign so far and wanted things to change once he is back in the team.

Sergio Ramos has come up with many important late goals in his career.

One of the most important among them was the goal in the Champions League 2014 final. Ramos pulled the equaliser with seconds of added time remaining in the game against Atletico Madrid.

Real Madrid went on to win the game and ultimately their 10th Champions League title. There was no need for such drama back in the summer, as Madrid comfortably won the Champions League under Zinedine Zidane for the first time. A few days ago, though, the teammate Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup.

The latter was coming into the competition after having won the Europa League three times in succession. As a result, Madrid knew that they were up against a tough opponent. It turned out to be the case as the club could only manage a narrow 3-2 victory. At a time whenKonoplyanka’s penalty gave Sevilla the lead with 20 minutes of normal time remaining, it looked like the underdogs would be able to cause an upset. Zidane made some key changes to the tactical line up of the team that brought about an instant result. Sergio Ramos came up with yet another late equaliser that took the game into extra time when it was won by Daniel Carvajal’s winner with a minute of extra time remaining.

“Sergio Ramos is our captain, an important player and he’s always there to earn us the trophy. There were no special instructions for him. With a player like Sergio, he’s always been the difference. We’ve seen it before. He’s grown as a player, too. In this final he was there just where he needed to be. When you’re looking to do something and you dream of it, you have to carry on fighting until the last second; this has its rewards,” said Zidane.

Pierluigi Collina reckons Sergio Ramos deserved another crack at the penalty in the Croatia match as the shot he had taken originally was wrongly stopped by the opposition goalie.

Danijel Subasic was in charge of the goal post of Croatia in that particular match and moved forward way too earlier than he should have. His feet were actually ahead of the goal-line even before Ramos had made any contact with the ball.

The soccer rulebook does not allow a goalie to do so and so the save was clearly invalid, but, the main referee or even the linesmen failed to take note of it and it went down in the papers as a missed penalty.

The conversion of that penalty might have given Spain a victory over Croatia. It was one-all at that point of time and it could have proven to be a winner which could have set up Croatia’s meeting with Italy rather than Spain’s.

According to Collina, not always do the goalies happen to be out of positions when the penalty kicks are executed. Most of the time, they remain where they should be and thus, it is understandable why the referee, on that occasion, was not too keen on keeping an eye on the feet of the Croatian goalie, but, because of the fact that penalties are enormously important, a referee must always be alert and ensure that neither of the goalie or the shot taker is breaking any rule.

Collina, the supremo of the match officials who work under the Union of European Football Associations, however also believes that the players should have the knowledge of the rules themselves as the match officials at work can’t be telling each one of them what the rules are.

Real Madrid captain and defender, Sergio Ramos played decent football as the club make final push for the La Liga title this season.

Real Madrid kept their La Liga title hopes alive until the final fixture of the season with a vital victory over Valencia at the Santiago Bernabeu. The victory was much more cherised as Atletico Madrid blew their chance at the title as they lost. League leaders, Barcelona won their in style, pushing the league competition to the last round of games.

The game for Madrid was also became the stadium’s farewell to Alvaro Arbeloa. This event somehow distracted both the squad and the fans, as what was a key match for the title race became a leaving do for the hosts well before the final whistle.

For this match, coach Zinedine Zidane missed four starters: Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Daniel Carvajal and Keylor Navas did not even make the bench due to minor injuries. The improvised lineup worked out well for the Frenchman in the first 45 minutes, but his second half substitutions and a revived Valencia forced Real Madrid to struggle mightily to grind out a win.

The La Liga title will be decided next weekend. Barcelona, with a one-point advantage plus the tiebreaker, travel to Granada. Real Madrid, at La Coruna, will have to win their match and hope Barcelona do not win theirs.

Ramos played much better than he was in previous months. He was Real Madrid’s last man standing on several occasions in the second half, Casilla’s only help against Valencia’s front line.

He would need more of such decent performance to help their new coach lift a trophy in his first season in charge as they have the UEFA Champions League also to contend for.

Real Madrid had to settle with a goal-less draw against Manchester City as both clubs faced off on April 26 in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

The 1rst leg was played in the home stadium of Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium and it would’ve been a huge advantage for Real Madrid if they had managed to score an away goal but it did not happen.

Sergio Ramos is the captain of the Spanish club and as one of the main figures of Real Madrid, the experienced defender took the chance to voice his thoughts and things that occurred during their Champions League match against Manchester City.

‘’We are happy for the reaction of the team in the second half. We had more ball possession and created a lot of chances. Everything will be at stake in the second leg. We’ll play in our stadium with the support of our fans, if we knew that at the beginning of the season, we would have taken it.’’

‘’Playing away we would have liked to score. It wasn’t possible but the team felt more comfortable in the second half. We kept the ball better and created chances even though we weren’t lucky enough to finish. But I’m happy with the team’s attitude and for the way we delivered. Our last chance will be at home.’’ Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos said as he talked after drawing against Manchester City in the first leg of the semi-finals against Manchester City.

Cristiano Ronaldo was absent from this match due to injury as well as KarimBenzema and both of them still haven’t been confirmed for the 2nd leg. The 2nd leg of the semi-finals will be played on March 4. The Champions League is the priority competition that Real Madrid is aiming to win in this season and ZinedineZidane will try to do everything in his power to seal his first Champions League title as a manager.

After an unlikely victory over archrivals Barcelona at the camp Nou, defender Sergio Ramos insists that Real Madrid are still in the title race.

The two teams had a huge gap of 10 points coming into the match with Barcelona running away with the title. Their unbeaten run of more than 35 games came to an end after the 2-1 defeat. The victory for Real Madrid was achieved with 10 men after Ramos was given a second yellow card. Due to these reasons, there is a lot of positivity around Madrid at the moment. Ramos reckons that the club can utilise this feeling and aim for the title in the final few matches of the campaign.

Madrid will have to rely upon Barcelona dropping points and the Catalan club being involved in the Champions League can help them in this regard. Barcelona are up against Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals of the European competition while Madrid have a much easier fixture against Wolfsburg. Manager Zinedine Zidane, though, will want Ramos to change his mentality especially against the top opposition. The defender has already been sent off 20 times in his Madrid career. His record is especially poor when it comes to games against archrivals Barcelona.

Rather than concentrating on the league, Madrid may also look to winning the 11th European cup. “Now we’re seven points behind, there will be people who consider La Liga closer and a possibility. As long as there is a chance, and as long as there are points available, Real Madrid must fight. They are three important points gained on Barcelona, our strongest rival, and it’s great for us mentally going into the final stage of the season. The pride and commitment the boys showed when they went a man down fills you with satisfaction. This victory tastes glorious,” said Ramos.

Zinedine Zidane reckons his boys were a bit unlucky to be held to a 1-1 result at Benito Villamarin.
This was the first instance of Madrid dropping points since Zidane has taken over.

In each of his first couple of games in charge, Zidane had seen the Blancos scoring 5 goals and winning by a big gap.

Things were not predicted to be any different against Real Betis either.

Betis had been one of the most out of form teams in La Liga lately and there were minimal chances of them posting any kind of challenge to Madrid.

But, people found themselves in for a shocker pretty early as Betis scored the opener in just the 7th minute.

However, they could not make the most of that and failed to keep Madrid under pressure.
Madrid’s possession percentage was much higher in comparison to Betis at every stage of the game and they were always looking the better team

The Whites could not find the leveller for a long time though, and had to wait till the 71st minute for that when the old fox Karim Benzema eventually came up with a beauty to make it 1-1.

It was, however, disappointing from Madrid’s point of view that they could not sneak another goal in thereafter to collect the full points. They had opportunities, but, they let them go begging.

According to Zidane, the game is all about taking the opportunities which Madrid was not able to do and fortune didn’t favour them either on occasions.

The manager was quoted as saying, “It’s never easy for the opponent teams over here with such an enormous crowd, but, I think, what cost us is the fact that we lapsed a little bit in the beginning of the game.”

“However, seeing it on an overall basis, I feel we were slightly unlucky as well.”