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Spanish League

Tenerife vs. Real Madrid

Real Madrid is still on its mission to overtake the first position in the league from Barça. Tomorrow they have the chance of becoming leaders for few hours as they are playing before Barça and they are just 2 points away from them. Last match they played very well and trashed Villarreal 6-2 after supposedly receiving “a confidence blow” losing in Lyon in Champions League so you can see that in league it’s a different story; they are very confident and determined. There are very good news for Real Madrid with the long waited recovery of midfielder Guti who should prove to be the solution to all Real Madrid problems in midfield and the one everyone is looking up to beat Lyon in two weeks as he is so far the best one of midfielders who is capable of linking defense and attack effectively. The rest of the stars will be on the field except striker Benzema who is doubtful but for this match, just like against Villarreal, they won’t need him to win this match. In fact this should be a relief for manager Pellegrini who every weekend seems to have problems to decide what to do with so many big guns and where to put them and the big debate of “Higuain or Benzema?” that always goes on in the press. With Guti available and Higuain lining up for sure with the doubtful Benzema on the bench I expect Pellegrini to use his successful 4-4-2 diamond formation that worked so well against Deportivo away with a 1-3 victory, Espanyol at home 3-0 and Xerez 0-3 away. For some reason after Xerez he trashed this formation against Lyon and received criticism for changing the formation to a more conservative one all of a sudden and losing. He again used the diamond formation against Villarreal and the result is clear with the big 6-2 victory.

Tenerife is nineteenth on the table and currently looking to escape relegation zone. Normally this team scratches points from their rivals at home so I can understand why the bookies don’t give them a higher handicap now. With 5 victories and 3 draws out of 12 home matches you can see that their home form has been pretty good for a small team. But unfortunately for them against Real Madrid it is going to be a very difficult task to get a point. The matches that they usually get a point or more are usually tight matches against teams who are weak away and their rival on Saturday is no weak team far from home. I think that tomorrow they will probably admire the stars in front of them and lose concentration just like when Barcelona arrived at Tenerife and trashed them 0-5 about one month ago.

Real Madrid with Guti is always a better team than without him and now that he is recovered plus the late performances taking out the one against Lyon, I think that this team could win this by a goal margin of at least two goals.

Real Madrid -1. 5 AH @ 1. 88 looks great.

Record Date : 26/02/2010 10:08