Real Madrid in Brazil's Série B!
Carlos Alberto, a former European champion with Futebol Clube do Porto, said that Real Madrid, if they played in Brazil's Série B, wouldn't be champions.
The Brazilian sports site Yahoo Esportes decided to test that claim with a simulation…in Football Manager 2019!
To do so, the Spanish giant had to be placed in Brazil's second tier (Série B), in place of Guarani, currently bottom. To make the adjustment harder for the Galácticos, their new home would be Brinco de Ouro da Princesa, the replaced team's stadium.
Another change, due to the CBF's foreign player limit (a maximum of 5 per game), was adding Brazilian dual nationality to some squad members, so everyone was available.
Paulistão
Just like in real life, the season would begin with the São Paulo state championship, in a group that included São Bento, São Caetano and São Paulo.
All told, the initial stage of the state championship ended with Los Merengues on 8 wins, 3 draws and one defeat in 12 games.
Only Ponte Preta managed to beat them. They also drew with Palmeiras and the mighty Oeste and Novorizontino.
Until the end of the competition, only one more defeat, this time in the quarter-finals at the Morumbi against São Paulo, whom they then knocked out at home with a 3-0 thrashing.
Palmeiras in the semis and Corinthians in the final were the next opponents, both beaten in both legs of their ties.
Despite winning the trophy, all the individual awards got away. Santos' Arthur Gomes was chosen as the best player of the state championship, while Ricardo Goulart won the top scorer award, with the same goals (6) as Gareth Bale but one game fewer.
The team of the tournament was a different story. Keylor Navas, Carvajal, Nacho, Modric and Bale were all in it, along with three Palmeiras players (Bruno Henrique, Lucas Lima and Ricardo Goulart), two Santos players (Felipe Aguilar and Jean Mota) and one Corinthians player (Ramiro).
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”38″ gal_title=”Paulistão”]Série B
It was a walk in the park. With seven rounds to go, out of 38, the Madrid side had already been crowned champions and ended up breaking the competition's points record (currently 85, by Corinthians in 2008) with 100 points!
Only the defeats against América Mineiro, a game in which most of the squad was unavailable (international duty), and against Sport Recife, prevented an unbeaten season.
This time the individual awards smiled on the club. Sérgio Ramos was voted the best player in the league, followed by full backs Álvaro Odriozola and Carvajal. Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo were the breakthrough players of the competition. Finally, the Série B team of the season included five Merengue players: Navas, Ramos, Kroos, Dani Ceballos and Bale.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”39″ gal_title=”Serie B”]Outras curiosidades:
Real Madrid finished with 493 goal chances, 129 more than the second team, Sport Recife. In passing accuracy too, the gap to the rest was huge. While Real completed 11740 passes, Ponte Preta only completed 8739!
Article by Yahoo Esportes
