Wesley Sneijder arrived at the Bernabeu heralded as David Beckham’s replacement, and just two games into his La Liga career, the $37 million Dutchman has already hinted that he’ll be even more valuable to the Merengues than the former England captain. At least that’s what Real coach Bernd Schuster says.
“Beckham was a right winger more than anything else, and Sneijder, despite the fact that he has a similar touch on the ball to the Englishman, can cover more ground,” he said. Sneijder’s man-of-the-match performance against Villarreal on Sunday left the German coach purring: the Dutch winger scored twice and assisted another in a 5-0 rout at El Madrigal. The Spanish media were also mightily impressed with both Sneijder and the team’s performance; several papers described it as Real’s best in four years.
Commenting on his experience as Real Madrid manager so far, Schuster had praise for former coach Fabio Capello, who won the La Liga title with Real last year, but was fired anyway. “I don’t know how he must have felt. If I was him, I would have felt happy having won a title, but not so happy because I think I would have deserved to continue,” he said, adding that some of the Real players have displayed the attitude of entitlement that plagued the club during the “Galactico” years. “I have noticed that some bad habits have stuck around, but they’re not due to Capello, who is a disciplined coach…young players are easily influenced by that negative attitude and become part of the problem.”