The Artful Dodger - Barcelona 2 Real Madrid 2 - The Mesuty Match Review & Spam!

[jenny-jenkins.livejournal.com]

Barcelona 2 Real Madrid 2 - The Mesuty Match Spam!

A game with many interesting points to it - and certainly a large number of lessons. Easily Madrid's best performance against Barca in about 3 years - and away from home too! And since there might be some sadness over how it turned out, we begin with -

Mesut's Tummy

And a bit of tongue

Which I'm sure makes us all feel a little better!

The Mesuty Match Spam


Some lovely stuff from Mesut this game. Good passing, good ball recovery, excellent work-rate and some lovely scoring opportunities created - which these two gifs (the first at greater length) illustrate -

And he didn't only pass well along the floor - he also managed some very neat and tidy dribbling work and a lovely long pass at one point - "Delightful vision from 'The Artful Dodger'" - as Ray Hudson termed this move -

Mesut's Shot

This was the highlight of Mesut's game (His assist aside - on that, more below)

- which wasn't only a lovely shot - it was an example of some terrific work-rate. Watch carefully and you'll see that Mesut is the one who collects the ball after Pinto's save and sets up Higuain for a scoring chance only seconds later -



All it needed was a Russian referee!


And in typical fashion, it had Ray Hudson waxing lyrical about his favourite German "Maysooht" (the relish with which Hudson pronounces Mesut's name is difficult to get across).

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH (Ray's throaty scream is very distinctive) magisterial strike!...that's why I call him 'Avatar eyes'...everyone expected him to take his usual little ballet steps and pick out a pass...what a strike from Mesut, Mesut Mesut this wonderful little player - Turkish descent but German through and through.

Now in '66 that's a goal!

Mesut taking his strike, instead of his usual "ballet steps"

And the following observation at half-time: You get the feeling with Madrid - if that strike doesn't go in it ain't your night.



The world's most terrified and wide-eyed defensive wall!



Madrid had the majority of the chances and were playing by far the better football, but were two down at half-time...


A Second-Half Comeback


...Within 8 minutes however, they had a goal waved off for a "foul" on Dani Alves -

Jenny considers this to be a highly debatable foul.

And then, within a few minutes -


Mesut's Assist For Crispy Ronaldo

The subtitle says it all!

Simple and beautiful.

Which had Ray cooing, as always: Who else is it? I'll give your 15 guesses - Mesut Ozil takes it into stride - doesn't even look for Cristiano - he knows instinctively because he's taken half a dozen pictures in that wonderful computer mind of his before he even gets the ball and guides it beautifully to Cristiano!

And Phil Shoen (Ray's rather dim sidekick in the GolTV studio making an unusually astute observation): Ozil can make plays like that and you wonder why he isn't always out there for the full 90 minutes...




Abidal probably dreamed none-too-sweet dreams of Mesut last night.



And because he was left out on the pitch for 90 minutes, Mesut had the best view on the pitch of Benzema's gorgeous strike only 10 minutes later.

Gorgeous!

Which left Madrid in need of only one goal to go through - a turn-around that had seemed impossible only a few minutes before -

Cuddles for Benzi

A nervy, niggly, bitchy 20 minutes later and Madrid had not managed it. It was sad, because the players certainly created chances (Mesut was to create a further two) but they had arguably scored 3 goals inside 25 minutes and it was a very good comeback. And while it was a disappointment...

...News reports are not only very complimentary on Madrid this morning but as far as this community is concerned the post-game reaction is interesting. For once the press, the blogs, our old friends at Goal.com (even the German and Spanish versions - who are none-too-fond of our boy and in the case of the German version - and to a lesser extent the Spanish - particularly hostile) were all agreed.

Trilingual Love For Mesut - The Press Reviews -

   

Last but not least, Pep Guardiola singled Mesut out by name in his press-conference as a key factor in Madrid's more troubling attack.

And that my darlings is the Mesuty Match Spam.


I don't need to tell anyone how much time andriy_7 put into this spam do I? His final e-mail sending the gifs arrived after 5 o'clock in the morning - so be sweet and say thank you!



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