Juande Ramos replaced Bernd Schuster as head coach of Real Madrid on Tuesday and didn’t have much time to get ready for his first game on Wednesday but it didn’t matter. Real Madrid defeated Zenit St. Petersburg 3-0 in the Soccer Betting Champions League as Raul Gonzalez scored twice. Arjen Robben also scored as Real Madrid finished second in Group H and now will advance into the next round of the Champions League.

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The win for Ramos was somewhat expected since Zenit is not that strong but it was still an important win for Real Madrid. Ramos took the job on Tuesday, replacing Schuster who had said it was “impossible” for Real Madrid to defeat Barcelona on Saturday. Real Madrid has lost three of its past four league matches and trails Barcelona by nine points. It didn’t take Ramos long to find a job again after being fired by Tottenham in October.

The firing of Schuster was a surprise since it was just six months ago that Real Madrid won its record 31st league title. The comments he made though riled up ownership and he was let go. He said that Madrid would “would try to play a good game” but that this was Barcelona’s year. Ramos immediately made more positive comments about Saturday’s game after getting hired. “Madrid is a team that whichever game it has to play it will go in with maximum motivation to play it,” said Ramos. “Barcelona is playing really well but Madrid is playing well enough to not renounce a victory in any stadium in the world.” The comments by Schuster may have been true since Barcelona is unbeaten in all competitions in their last 20 matches but rarely do owners of a team want to hear that their team has no chance to win.

Real Madrid sports director Pedja Mijatovic said that the split with Schuster went well. “We talked about all of the difficulties that we had over the past months … and we decided to take this decision,” Mijatovic said. “He accepted it with great humility.” It was a short time on the job for Schuster but a successful time as Madrid defended their title. “He did a great job last year and we hoped things would work out, but as you know in the world of football there are streaks you can’t shake,” Mijatovic said. “We enjoyed our time with him.”

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Real Madrid, UEFA Champions League. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.