Sneijder - "I came, I saw, I conquered"

Indeed, the Dutch playmaker would be fully entitled to repeat Julius Caesar's immortal words after a swift victory in battle: "Veni, vidi, vici - I came, I saw, I conquered."

   This is exactly what Sneijder has done in his first two matches for Real Madrid.

 Last Saturday he ran the Real midfield in the derby clash against neighbours Atletico - and hit the late winning goal with a low drive from outside the area.

 On Sunday Sneijder turned in one of the most compelling displays of his short career, leading Real to a 5-0 romp in Villarreal, their first away win by this scoreline since 1996.

 Real coach Bernd Schuster started with Sneijder on the left of midfield. From that position, in the 38th minute, he played a breath- taking through ball for captain Raul Gonzalez to score the first goal.

 In the 47th minute Sneijder made it 2-0 with a classy free-kick that went in off the near post.

 Schuster then allowed him to move to a more central position, where he did so much damage whilst captain of Ajax. From there he masterminded several clever counters, and made it 4-0 by finishing one off himself with an intelligent low drive.

 Schuster was brought in to replace Fabio Capello with the task of returning Real to its tradition of handsome, flowing football. Sneijder, of course, is a fundamental part of Schuster's plan.

 The former Ajax star is top of the scorers' chart with three goals - and is already being compared with previous Real playmakers like Zinedine Zidane, Fernando Redondo or even Alfredo Di Stefano.

 Radio station Cadena COPE claimed on Sunday that "Sneijder could become Real Madrid's leaders for the next five years at least," while television channel La Sexta commented that "Madrid have unearthed a player of massive potential."

   The 23-year-old featured on the front page of most Madrid newspapers Monday morning and sports daily Marca said that his performance in Villarreal "really invites optimism."

   Barcelona paper Sport, for its part, grudgingly accepted that Sneijder "has already made an important impact."

   Many Barcelona fans are asking why their own club did not sign Sneijder, given their tradition of bringing in exuberant Dutchmen.

 Curiously, Barca do not have a single Dutch player in their squad now - for the first time since the mid-1980s - whilst Real have four(Sneijder, Royston Drenthe, Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Arjen Robben).

 The fans of Valencia are also annoyed at missing out on Sneijder. They had the chance to sign him from Ajax in the summer for 15 million euros (20.45 million million dollars) but coach Quique Sanchez Flores preferred to go for Hamburg's Rafael Van der Vaart, who stayed in Germany in the end anyway.

 Real stepped in and paid 24 million euros for Sneidjer - and are already reaping rich rewards for having done so.

DPA