crinkly_ears | Madrid Clinches The League, Mesut Does The Simple Things Brilliantly: The Barca v Madrid Spam! (Reply)

Madrid Clinches The League, Mesut Does The Simple Things Brilliantly:
The Barca v Madrid Mesuty Match Spam!

The Crözil phenomenon, illustrated.

Pre-Match Notes

The lads had a lead of 4 points going into this six-pointer of a match. Win and they'd be 7 points up. Lose and they'd still be leaders with a perilous 1 point lead. Draw and they'd be a comfortable but not particularly safe 4 points up.

Plainly though, the fact they'd be leaders no matter what must have calmed the lads down. They all looked very calm in practice at any rate.

Is it just me or has Albiol been getting around lately? Here he is using sign-language to illustrate a point.

The lads at the airport - a German and French contingent!

And the absolute lack of expectation must have helped. As The Guardian's Sid Lowe has pointed out there was a wide-spread assumption that Madrid's lead was always padded by 3 flase points. A 4 point lead that was "really" a 1 point lead - because no one expected them to win. But, as Sid noted sagely, that was hardly a given since "Madrid are really a very good team!"

I love how their lips are all doing different things!

Poor Aitor Karanka probably had no nails left by the end!

If Madrid won, the league would literally be sewn up. 4 matches to go, only 6 points required. No one would bet against them - or on Mourinho becoming the first coach in history to win the English, Italian and Spanish leagues.

Another thing that must have calmed the lads down was the curious lack of atmosphere in the stadium. Beautiful as it was - with the placards and the colours and the crowd singing the anthem, it did not seem very intimidating.

Sid Lowe (twittering away at the stadium) noted that it seemed more like a cup match. He put the lack of an intimidating atmosphere down to the sunshine. In recent years Madrid has always played the away fixture in November or December, when the cold and dark makes the trip more intimidating. This year it was still light and 20 degrees when the game started.

The Match Spam

The First Half

LOL

I was in Canada of course, as the match was starting. Our beloved

sashatwen noticed me having a very public nervous break-down on Twitter in the run-up and offered to telephone. Just as the match began she rang me up and we spent 3 comparatively calm hours together watching the match and analyzing it afterwards until my phone died mid-sentence while we were admiring Pepe's post-match photographs of Mesut sans shorts (of that, more later)!

Mesut was much calmer than

jenny_jenkins

It's entirely possible that if she hadn't telephoned I would have died of a heart-attack at kick-off, and someone else would have had to step into the breach to make the match spam! (I'm looking at you

andriy_7)

And it was great, because when Sami Khedira scored his record-breaking goal (Madrid have never scored 108 times in a league season) we pierced each other's ear-drums with mad shrieking! Sasha is Sami's greatest stan, after all!

And when this happened -

Manly, awkward bromantic moment.

- we thought of our friends at Of Headbands & Heartbreak at once! They do so love their Sami-Sergio bromance! I said to Sasha - "I bet the girls are freaking out!" As it happens I have post-match confirmation that they did (freak out) and that the clientele of a certain NYC sports-bar are now fully apprised of what a "Khedergio" is...possibly!

Mesut and his luscious lashes looked pleased as Punch!

A couple more looks at goal number 108!

And NOT offside!

Lovely, determined, bloody-minded, quite Teutonic goal!

Friend Sami's brilliance caused the bald-head of Ibrahimovic's enemy to glisten with perspiration! (As an aside - anyone who wants a link to Ibra's hilarious account of his time at Inter with Mourinho and Barca with Pep just PM me your e-mail address for serious lolz. I can send you a complete link and an extract I've made of the juicy bits!)

Madrid had been dominating to that point. While the possession stats were later said to be around 70% - 30% I personally had the impression (something I've seen echoed on other blogs) that it was around equal. Madrid pressed well, and Barca's passing game was too disrupted for them to get anything done.

Madrid had lined up 4-2-3-1 (or 4-5-1) - with arguably the best players in the side. Barcelona put Iniesta on the wing, and shoved Dani Alves up the pitch to create width in a 3-4-3. From this community's viewpoint it meant that Mesut had a great deal of room to operate in behind his forwards.

In the last Clasico - a game Madrid deserved to win - Kaka had played in the centre with Mesut on the right. That had neutralized Busquets, who drops back when they play 4-3-3. Since he was occupied with stopping Kaka, Mesut simply cut in, gave Abidal a nightmarish experience, and had plenty of space to do it. This is a complicated way of saying that Kaka, who has played well with Mesut this year and created a good raport with him, was not missed on the night thanks to Barca's bizarre formation. Di Maria (on the wing) and Mesut (in the centre) had plenty of room to make mischief.

And Mesut's finest moment of the first half (a couple of well-delivered corners and some absolutely stellar defensive work aside) was making Iniesta and Thiago look rather foolish - with Sami's help!

Really a marvellous run. One that left Phil Shoen's usual observation about "lack of stamina" looking foolish and, ultimately, incomplete: "Özil on the ball, he's been criticized for lack of...[radio silence]" and Ray Hudson cooing over the "wonderful little German, Maysooht!"

Note the anticipation of Thiago's move. Rather mal apropos of Mascherano, actually!
Now if only the camera had lingered a little...

There was even an attempt to out-jump Busquets!

And many instances of dragging the extremely over-worked Adriano out of postion -

All in all a most satisfying first half!

The Second Half

A Musical Interlude For Half-Time:

It may have been warm, but it was bloody wet by the time the second half came around because the song is correct! The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!

But this is hardly a tragedy when first-half hero Sami Khedira stalks off the pitch looking dark and dangerous - a moment I can assure you that Sasha and I enjoyed immensely!

sashatwen: "It's Sami! Sami on our screens!"

But it led to much slipping and sliding around - and gave Mesut a chance to stand around swiping at his nose and looking concerned when one of Dani Alves's crosses quite literally knocked out bromantic interest Fabio Coentrao (who had a splendid game, as it happens!) -

And helping Pepe out in his arguments with various of the Barca defence as tempers began to rise -

Can we please play some football?

Mesut also (finally!) surpassed his red-card count for the year toward the end of the game (at a highly impressive TWO straight red cards for our hot-Turkish-tempered little thing!) by picking up his third ordinary caution of the year for taking his time setting up a corner kick -

And when Barca scored in the 69th minute, Mesut provided the perfect bug-eyed back-drop of pissed-offedness.

So much so in fact that he decided to put an end to it all with a beautiful pass that really summed up the failings of a 3-4-3 system against a team as strong as Madrid. One simply does not leave a Mesut Özil, a player who thrives when he's given time and space in which to pick his pass, with that much room to move around in.

It was the go-ahead goal and it was scored 2 minutes and 49 seconds after Barca equalized through substitute Alexis. Off in the GolTV studios, Ray Hudson was going wild. It was a perfect pass from "Maysooht" to "Mr Slick".

"Deadly. When he we see this again it's curled into stride...Guess who it's from? Wonderful avatar eyes...to the man who is in behind the defence like a cat burglar.

You cannot over-commit. Because if you have a player like Maysooht Özil...you cannot underestimate that wonderful kid who is Maysooht Özil...Brilliant from Maysooht!

One suspects that Mourinho agreed! The goal saw a reprise of his shopping-cart celebration!

Mesut, as is his wont, threw himself into Crispy's arms -

And this picture of him made a great many front-pages the next day - including The Guardian's write-up of the match!

You all know how much I adore Crispy Ronaldo so here's Cuatro's take on his awesome "I've got it so calm down people" celebration -

Ray Hudson: "I'm running this show now baby!"

And with that assist, Mesut over-took Ryan Giggs of Manchester United for the player who has assisted the greatest number of CR7's goals. A scarier partnership in European football you are not likely to find!

Or one with sweeter cuddles!

Our bug-eyed hero was switched off for Jose Callejon with one and a half minutes of regulation time to go having run nearly 11 km in his time on the pitch.

There were hymns of praise from Ray Hudson as he left the pitch! "Ever since we've seen him in his German days for Schalke and Werder Bremen we've known he's just a star-footed little futbolista!

"Took all the blades of grass into consideration. And he worked himself into the ground defensively for the cause..."

Post Match Nudity & Cuddles!

There was much rejoicing at the final whistle! Iker Casillas (who had had a quite splendid game at his end of the pitch!) cuddled his two footballing geniuses -

We see you and Arby together Mesut!

And Arbeloa - who must now definitely count as one of Mesut's bromantic interests since he has now been observed for months putting his arms around him after post-goal congratulatory cuddles and lecturing away at him as the game starts up again - gave him a nice hair-ruffle!

For once Casillas didn't yell at his defence at all - not even a little - he was as thrilled with them as they were with him!

And no one, I'm sure, was surprised when Ramos and Mesut found each other straight away!

And then, because he knew hip-dip and belly afficiandos

openmoments and

lovinthelads were watching from far away, Mesut crowned a wonderful game by taking off his shirt -

*sniffle* it was only a year ago his ribs were still showing!

And then topped it all off like a cherry on a sundae by removing his shorts as well - a habit I am sure community members are hoping will take!

This more than exceeded the expectations of Ray Hudson! "The boys will be wearing their after-shave by the gallon!" and (never one to leave much to the imagination!) "There'll be some hoochie-coochie in the bedrooms of Madrid tonight!"

It took me two hours to notice Iker was naked under that Varane jersey!

And Pepe deserves a

crinkly_ears gold-star of approval for posting this lusciousness on Twitter!

Press Reviews

Waving at his adoring public!

Marca.com

    Özil 8/10: Está cansado, pero es tan bueno que fue decisivo. Asistió con corbata a Cristiano en el 1-2. Tiene mucha clase, aunque acabó asfixiado.

As.com

    Visto el desenlace, el sacrifico defensivo de Özil y Di María sólo puede calificarse de heroico.

    Acuciado por la cercanía del Barça, el Madrid golpeó de inmediato. Di María lanzó la contra y Özil la cargó de inteligencia. Su pase a la carrera de Cristiano hubiera hecho pleno en una bolera.

El dandy Özil

    Trabajó bien en la recuperación y dio claridad arriba. Brillante fue su asistencia de gol a Cristiano.

    un Mago de Özil que lleva seda y porcelana en su bota izquierda

I have been moving, which is why we are behind on match spams! The lads play Athletic Bilbao this afternoon at San Mames and could formally clinch the title.

Love and love and more love to

andriy_7 who makes it quite a chore to choose pictures! He sent 250+ still photographs and more than 50 stunning gifs of this wonderful game!