crinkly_ears | Apples & Oranges: The Mesuty-Benzilistic Apoel Match Spam! (Reply)

Apples & Oranges: The Mesuty-Benzilistic Apoel Match Spam!

Madrid, Mesut, and Mesut's eyelashes all played a master-class in breaking down a hyper-defensive team during their visit to Cyprus to meet Apoel Nicosia - whose supporters wear orange in the stands and who burn orange fireworks too!

As an aside, Mesut wore his new Mercurial cleats to match the supporter's colours. We'll be having a post about them soon but here they are - set off beautifully by the pure white of his kit.

I know they are actually rather garish, but the colour appeals to me. It's so brazen! And Sami and Cris wore the same ones -

First of all though the boys had to warm up on the pitch. This photograph is a favourite of mine actually - mainly because of Mesut's expression and the way his leg is set off but also because we have a nice view of certain perfect bits of Sami's anatomy!

The boys were looking beautiful in blue!

From the following photograph one would think the lads were distressed for some reason. Arby looks vacant, Mesut is covering his face as though he's seen something he doesn't like, Benzema looks confused, Pipita is day-dreaming and Cris seems lost in thought!

Mesut relieved the tension by whispering to Benzema and praying at the centre-circle, as he always does. And it must be said, the Apoel players looked far more nervous than our boys did!

Apoel Nicosia are the only club remaining in the competition who have never won it. They have never been in the quarter-final (no Cypriot team has). They had to play two extra qualifying rounds to even get into the competition. They scored the fewest goals of any team in the group stages but finished top of their group on the back of a number of very close games - a few of them won in the final minutes. There was great excitement in Cyprus about the team, the population having really taken the underdogs into their hearts!

In the group stage they had already beaten Lyon, a team that was once Madrid's bête noire in a thrilling pair of games in the last sixteen that went to penalties in the GPS arena.

Mesut had a game that was statistically perfect. Heat maps show that nearly all his passes were forward. He and Sami Khedira ran the furthest on the team. Mesut had a pass rate of just over 95% and had ZERO turnovers. That is to say: he did not once lose the ball to an opposition player. The vast majority of his passes were made forward and his pressing game was outstanding.

In other news, Nuri Sahin started the match in the place of the suspended Xabi Alonso. As many of us know, Nuri has had a difficult season, being injured on the first day of the preseason and unable to train at all until November. He played a beautiful game next to Sami Khedira in the defensive midfield.

This post's gratuitous Sami Khedira gif!

And another one!

Apoel posed no attacking threat. Madrid didn't allow it. Any time they had the ball they were crowded out of it by Sahin, Arbeloa, Coentrao, Khedira or Mesut (or the defence) so quickly that if Apoel managed to string together two passes I certainly didn't see it. Casillas made absolutely no saves.

Leaving a throw-in for Arbeloa.

Ball possession hovered around the 75% mark.

Around the hour mark, Mourinho brought on fresh legs. Madrid had spent so long breaking down and frazzling the defence that the substitution of Kaka and Marcelo for Higuain and Coentrao brought nearly immediate results.

With one striker off the pitch there was more room for all the forwards to work in and Kaka put Benzema through on goal after 70 minutes of sustained pressure on Apoel's defence.

Interestingly, Benzema's diving header was Madrid's first headed goal in the competition.

There was much love for Benzema for breaking the deadlock and notice who got to him first!

Then the substitutes combined and Kaka scored when Marcelo put him through on goal with a delicious cross -

Marcelo's determination to get his pass was quite wonderful!

A bit of Brazilian Samba!

Mesut was still to have his finest moment of the evening with a gorgeous final pass for Benzema in injury time. The pass can only be appreciated by watching the build-up because one can see how Mesut waited and waited and waited to be absolutely sure Benzema was onside before passing with the outside of his left foot.

Benzema was, to put it mildly, absolutely thrilled. And Mesut threw himself into Benzema's arms.

Assists are just a good excuse for two good friends to have an on-the-pitch love-in! Mesut looked so blissful with his head resting, as he likes it best, firmly on Benzema's shoulder!

Much happiness and many cuddles resulted. Being 3 goals up had essentially put the tie to bed. Apoel Nicosia will have to visit the Bernabeu and win 4-0 outright to make it into the semi-finals. The odds of that happening are in the hundreds to one.

Mesut's assist was beautiful so it got him lots of love. Sami looked on jealously as first Arbeloa and then Pepe deliberately approached him to congratulate him for his outstanding final pass.

Stats and Press Reviews:

In Germany, the coverage is focused on one main theme: that Madrid are nearly certain to get through to the semi-finals. If that is the case, they will meet Bayern Munich in April. Bayern have a 2 away goal lead over Marseilles which means they are almost certain to go through. In 55 years, only 5 teams have overcome a home defeat to go through to the next round.