The Loveliest Goal You'll Ever See - Real Madrid 3 Ajax 0 - The Mesut-Centric Match Report & Spam!

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The Loveliest Goal You'll Ever See - Real Madrid 3 Ajax 0 - The Mesut-Centric Match Report & Spam!

But first -
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Pre-Match Moments!

Mesut spent the afternoon before the game in practice. The cameras captured more than a few lovely moments.

Chatting with Iker -




Rubbing his nose and looking effortlessly lovely in blue -





Trying to make Sami jealous by pinching Sergio -





Pinching Sergio again (as mimsicality once helpfully pointed out, subtlety is not Mesut's strong point) -





And then playing the reluctant virgin when Sergio decided to give him a rather sweet cuddle -





Flirting with Hamit Altintop when leaving practice (notice who is walking just ahead of them?) -


 


Boarding the team-bus with Sami that evening -





- And it would seem that all that effort paid off, after all. Sami sat next to Mesut on the bus and they posed for a picture (want to take bets that poor, helplessly jealous Karim Benzema ended up taking that photograph?). The lads both posted this exact same picture on their respective Facebook sites this morning.





One does hope Nike doesn't mind. On second thoughts though, the lads should just combine Facebook pages and post pictures of the pair of them hanging out and stuff. Now there's an idea!


The Match - Real Madrid 3 Ajax 0



Madrid's forwards were to totally outdo even themselves!


Admit it, the first few minutes freaked you out. There we were, Ajax passing the ball around rather fluently, and Iker Casillas making 3 saves before Karim Benzema rifled a shot over the bar past the 10 minute mark. Our defence looked like they'd never met (which is technically true - they had never met in a match) and 5 substitutions had been made since the weekend. Marcelo, especially, was missed. Carvalho did make a single run up the left-flank but looked so shocked at being that far up the pitch that he promptly tossed the ball toward one of the Ajax midfield.




He doesn't walk - he floats on air!


Bug-eyed-gorgeousness was helping to relieve the stress just by being there and being his usual Mesuty-self, but it was hard-going!





And then...


The First Goal!

Please excuse me while I wax lyrical, but it's been several months since I've seen a team goal this bloody slick.

The bean-counters have already been at work and have provided the following heat-map.





The goal took 6 passes - 11 touches between 4 players. Mesut had the second and also the penultimate passes. He also ran nearly half the pitch to make his two passes.

Here are still photographs of the move provided by the ever reliable andriy_7 who, as usual, provided most of the pictures in this post. They show the ground covered by Mesut extremely well.


Sergio Ramos to Mesut Ozil                                            Mesut Ozil to Cristiano Ronaldo

 


Cristiano Ronaldo to Kaka                                                   Kaka to Mesut Ozil

 


Mesut Ozil to Karim Benzema                                      Karim Benzema to Cristiano Ronaldo -----> Goal!

 


Awfully flash isn't it? And you just know that someplace, somewhere, Johann Cruyff had just burst into tears.

The English comms were beside themselves with the goal. Labelling it (in a metaphor often used by the German press) "Ballet Football".

Also: "Total Football."

And a gorgeous gif (warning - it makes addictive viewing!)





Well, it was smooth sailing after that! Even between two top teams, the one that scores first normally wins. Mesut himself had a lovely shot (off a pass by Kaka) that forced a rather impressive reaction-save out of Vermeer -



Not that Vermeer!


- who in addition to being awfully sweet looking and making 12 additional stops in the game, has quite possibly the coolest last name ever!





Mesut also created two unspeakable scoring chances - one for Karim Benzema (who missed from a few feet out) and another for Kaka (ditto) which involved running the length of the pitch in a move reminiscent of his game against England and his assist for little Thomas Mueller.





And in general, his passing was silky-smooth, his positioning rather perfect, and his work-rate impressive.

Mesut's stats -





10.1 km and weighing an additional kilo since the last time we checked! Well done Mesut!


Cuddles, Happiness & Piggy-Back-Rides!


There were 3 goals in the game (scored, by numbers 7, 8, and 9 in that order!) so there were 3 goal-celebrations.

Goal #1 Scored by #7.

Crispy's goal (see above) resulted in the beyond-adorable sight of Mesut jumping on top of Karim Benzema (and who can blame him?) -





Karim set him down on the ground ever-so-gently - and got a pat on the head for his pains -





And Crispy was pleased as Punch -





Goal #2 Scored by #8





Kaka was thrilled beyond anything by his goal - and why not? It was a beautiful and quite unexpected strike, since everyone watching (Vermeer and the Ajax defence included!) expected him to pass to Crispy rather than take a shot himself.






Kaka was so pleased in fact, that he looked as though he was re-dedicating himself to Jesus, and accepting Him as his personal savior for a second time.


Goal #3 Scored by #9


Well, everyone wanted to cuddle Karim after that screamer of a goal. In contrast to the first goal (6 touches, 4 players, 10 seconds) this goal took 110 seconds, involved every single player on the pitch, and involved 43 touches - just to highlight the versatility and depth behind this team and this particular set of forwards.





Mesut took the opportunity to rub at Karim's shiny head -





Karim looked over-joyed at all the affection too!





And Mesut surreptitiously rubbed at Sami Khedira's arm when he thought the 80,000 fans and 1,000 cameras along the side of the pitch weren't watching.





Some Final Notes -


Mesut was substituted off in the 85th minute.

Dear friend Hamit Altintop came on in his place to make his debut with Real Madrid in the final 5 minutes.





Mesut spent the rest of the match chatting with Kaka (who had been substituted in the 76th minute) and taking in the view -





Press Reviews!

This morning's press-reviews are wonderfully uniform. Goal.com put it thus -


The attacking midfielder caused the Ajax back line all kinds of trouble with his silky passing. Started the counter which led to opening goal  and has every reason to be pleased with his contribution.




That is most definitely a theme to the coverage in the German press - with newspapers referring to an "orderly" and "brilliant" game. Also: there is no longer any doubt that Kaka and Mesut play well together - a theory that had some currency in Germany, and also in the Spanish press.





The next match is against Espanyol in the league (away) on Sunday at 22:00.
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