By Carlos Reyes Stoneham
Managing Madrid is a SBNation run blog covering all news surrounding Real Madrid, from injuries to potential player buys, Managing Madrid follows all of the intricacies of Real Madrid news. Managing Madrid provides a clean, visually interesting, and easy to read portal for Real Madrid news. For any Real Madrid fan, Managing Madrid provides a concise, quick portal to keep up with Real Madrid players, matches, injuries, and trades.
Writing Style
In many ways, Managing Madrid is written in a different style than many other Soccer blogs. Instead of covering major issues or happenings in depth, Managing Madrid focuses on every detail of Real Madrid. It does this effectively by employing two basic strategies. The first strategy is the use of several different contributors, unlike some blogs that are run by individuals who diligently work on a blog, this blog has several contributors, which helps keep it up to date. This, however, is not terribly unusual, especially for a blog run by a larger news organization but it does help bring every detail of Real Madrid to the surface. The second, more unique aspect of this blog is that all of the posts made are incredibly short, almost all are under two (short) paragraphs, and many consist of no more than three or four sentences. For some this is an incredibly easy way to keep up with Real Madrid news, as almost all of the blog posts can be read in under five minutes. While it may seem to some that these posts are too short, it can be argued that they are actually the perfect length. By increasing the volume, and thus breadth, of articles available, this blog effectively allows Real Madrid fans to keep up with everything on a surface level, and if there is a specific issue (such as a trade) that interests them, they can easily research it elsewhere in more depth.
Below is a sample post for Managing Madrid that highlights the concise, straightforward approach that Managing Madrid takes to their blog posts:
Bad news for Real Madrid, as Sergio Ramos was forced to leave the match against Sevilla with a muscle problem. The Spanish defender will likely miss Saturday’s Derby against Atlético de Madrid because of this injury. With Ramos and Pepe out, Ancelotti will need to start Varane and Nacho in the center of the defensive line, and both are reserves when Pepe and Ramos are healthy.
Further updates on this apparent hamstring injury should come up as soon as he gets tested this Thursday, but again, his presence on Saturday’s Derby seems quite unlikely. It is a very cold night in Madrid, so the injury is probably related to a lack of proper warm-up exercises. Ramos was able to leave the field on his own, so he should not miss a lot of time, and Pepe might be ready for the Champions League tie against Schalke too.
Ancelotti will need to figure something out for his defensive line.
Sections
Within Managing Madrid, there are several sections: News, Liga BBVA, Transfer News & Rumors, Bernabeu Bites, and Podcasts. The main component of the site is the News section, which encompasses all of the major news that surrounds Real Madrid; who they’re playing, line ups, match reviews, match previews, and more. Liga BBVA focuses more on the bigger scope of La Liga. However, it does so from a Real Madrid perspective, that is, how Real Madrid interacts with other teams, and news of other teams that is relevant to Real Madrid (who is getting what player, how a certain team’s performance will affect Real Madrid when they face off). Its important to note that there is a good deal of overlap between the articles in this section and those in the News section. Transfer News & Rumors is essentially the “buyers guide” for Real Madrid, scoping out all of the players that Real Madrid has expressed interest in acquiring. The Bernabeu Bites section consists of bullets list of a particular topic, which tries to quickly convey the most important information in a small amount of space. Finally the Podcasts section is a collection of radio-style conversations that recap games, talk about the direction of the team, team injuries, and more.
Best and Worst Aspects of Managing Madrid
Managing Madrid is an extremely accessible Real Madrid fan blog, the front page is laid out very nicely, with top stories depicted on a nice, corresponding photo. Its designed to be very inviting, and succeeds in doing so. However aside from the home and article pages, the rest of the site is a bit tough to navigate and could benefit from a restructuring effort. In terms of the articles themselves, they are pretty uniform: concise and clean, however one of the styles of articles on the site is significantly different from the others, the Player Ratings articles. These articles provide a list view of all of the players in a given game and how they impacted the game (for better or worse). This is a great way to summarize a game, as many readers tend to be very interested in not only the team’s performance but the players performances as well, and this type of article provides great insight into each player’s impact on the game. For example these are the player ratings for the Seville match.
One final negative aspect of Managing Madrid is that it doesn’t have enough video content. Many blog readers like to see short snippets of plays, interviews, or game recaps in a fan blog; its glaringly obvious that Managing Madrid doesn’t have this, and thus forces readers to go to other content sources to watch highlights, interviews, and the likes. This is significantly different than sending readers to other sources for more information about a particular event as it is much more difficult to find a source of aggregated videos for a particular team than a specific article.
Overall Managing Madrid is a great blog for Real Madrid fans to keep up with all of the latest Real Madrid news. It provides small snippets of absolutely everything that goes on with Madrid so that readers can keep up to speed with the team efficiently. While Managing Madrid is a great blog, it is a bit unorganized, and does not provide enough video content for fans. However if you are a Madrid fan and want something light and easy to read, Managing Madrid might be the perfect option.
For over three seasons I have been advocating a major overhaul of the entire Real Madrid (RM) defense. None of the key decision-makers at RM has heeded this call. The problems we are experiencing now are the same problems that have been the reason behind every coach who has come and gone since 2007. Sergio Ramos and Pepe are good on a good day and those days mostly few and far between. Verane too is proving to be unreliable. We need fresh legs in their respective positions. I and many others screamed for N’golo Kante to be bought to help Casemiro in that position – but to no avail.