Hello there...
It's four months into the year and only now I found the time to write a post. As usual we will talk about football and my civil services preparation...
So, the mains result was out in February and I didn't clear this time too. I am eagerly waiting for my marks, which are expected in June, to see what went wrong. There is some pressure from my parents to take up some job because they want me to get married soon. But my desire to clear the exam is still intact and I haven't given up on civil services. I want to give another attempt as of now. Two things I plan to do differently this year are
1) I couldn't complete the entire syllabus of public administration even after three attempts and this time I wanted to be thorough with my optional. So, I am reading more hours per day compared to the previous years.
2) Most questions asked in the exam felt familiar and I that I had read those topics sometime, but in the exam I couldn't recollect, so i realised revision of topics is vital. Hence, I plan to revise every topic regularly. Plus I heard some ranker saying that revision is what separates toppers from others.
Let's see how my fourth attempt goes. Now coming to football. We are seven points behind Barcelona in the league with seven matches left to play, so it seems like the league is a lost cause. At least we won the clasico at camp nou and avoided the humiliation of double. We were eliminated from Copa after fielding an ineligible player. So the CL is the only trophy left to fight for this year. But our team put an awful performance against Wolfsburg, and now we need to win the return leg with at least 2 goals margin. Hope our boys realise what it means to be a Madrid player and win the tie and go on to win the competition. We can't have two back to back trophy less seasons while Barcelona continue to win trebles.
Benitez was sacked after poor results, but I won't blame him for that. As a manager he is talented, we know that as he won the league with Valencia and won CL with Liverpool. But apart from tactics and other stuff, a manager is also expected to keep his team motivated and listening to him. Now this is where I think he failed to handle the big egos in the dressing room. Succumbing to pressure from the board, media and others, he didn't select casemiro and opted for James in the first Clasico and our midfiled was exposed. We lost 0-4, utter humiliation. Plus, there was no clarity on our starting eleven. He wanted to rotate the players to keep them fit and to give chances to everyone, but that only turned players against him. Contrast this with zidane, after our Derby loss to atletico at home, he didn't start with James because it was known by then that we need a defensive midfileder and casemiro became a regular starter. He proved invaluable in 1-2 away victory over Barcelona. Benitez couldn't do this and he was sacked. I feel sorry for him, but he is a true Madridista. He was emotional when he was appointed as the manager; he is the first Madrid player to be appointed as manager in more than a decade; he said few bad things about the president and players after his dismissal, but it must be said that he was largely silent about the unfair treatment and the constant targeting by the press meted out to him. I believe he didn't have the freedom in team selection and some players underperformed during his time. Cristiano was unhappy with benitez, because of the latter's tactics which gave importance to Bale. Ramos was angry after Benitez criticised him, when he fouled an atletico player in the box and conceded a needles penalty. Now these are some things where benitez can improve in his man-management skills. You have to treat stars differently and not like other players.
Zidane is our manager now and the first one in nine years to win his debut El Clasico in 9 years. Plus our results at home have been promising, we are winning matches and playing good football. Everyone in the dressing room respects him. Away results are not all positive, but recently we won at Camp Nou, so we can improve. It would be nice if we win CL this season considering we have nothing to fight for. Plus, even if we don't win, the president should stick with zidane. He needs time to get the team to play according to his tactics, he needs time to sign the players he wants. Anyway, let's see what happens...
There is some problem with my laptop. Over these last four years, I have used it - for my preparation, for watching movies, for playing FIFA... some sort of attachment developed with my laptop, but now, it's not alright. There is some charging port issue and it takes around 20k to get it repaired. I am so sad...
Anyway Adios...
