Part One: Valladolid vs Real Madrid - The Long-Awaited Mesuty Match Spam!

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Part One: Valladolid vs Real Madrid - The Long-Awaited Mesuty Match Spam - With Exclusive Gifs By Andriy-7!

It was a game featuring two lovely goals from our lovely boy, a bunch of very handsome lads in green, a frozen pitch, a more than usually concerned Papa-José, and three come-backs.

Elegant dribbling from Mesut and a back-heel assist from the Kitten-of-War.

And as always, this community provides the best perspective, thanks to the genius of our resident gif artist - andriy_7

This game was special for our modern-day crinkly-eared hero. He scored twice. He was MASSIVELY FEATURED on the sporting pages of every single paper the next day (that link will take you to this community's screen captures of the newspapers a day later). So this spam will be split into two halves. Also, Andriy sent too many gifs and beautiful pictures for the Internets to handle :p

Welcome to Valladolid - a stadium that holds perhaps 25,000 - and it was full. It may be about a quarter the size of the Bernabeu but the stadium made about twice as much noise.





Valladolid plays in white shorts, so the lads played in their green away kit. They were also frozen solid. It was 1 degree Celcius on the thermometre. Nevertheless, this ground holds some happy memories for Madridistas. Specifically: it was the ground on which Zidane made his first attempt at "The Roulette" (that links to Youtube footage). That was, amazingly, the first time we ever saw that move. David Beckham - Il Fenomeno - Zinedine Zidane - 3 of 4 Galacticos involved in that move. He didn't score, but who cares? Mesut's hero was a ballet dancer on the pitch.

And anyway, he scored against them at home - a very famous goal off a pass by team newbie David Beckham that floated across 50 metres of pitch. Zidane hit it on the volley and the ball (which only began to spin over the last few metres) dropped onto his foot like a child landing on a very soft mattress covered in a goose-feather stuffed duvet. Please click on the link to watch Beckham deliver a ball more accurately than most people can throw one. It's worth every second.

Unfortunately, the game did not look to be getting off to a good start. Madrid conceded, completely and shockingly unpredictably off a corner (ha!) and had to come back from behind. Cue bug-eyed distress...

In moments of despair, his eye-lashes become very eloquent don't they?

...And a very sexy outraged Captain Iker Casillas, who has seen this happen a few times in front of his goal this season. Who needs an actual gif of us conceding when Iker's ever-eloquent expression and gestures tell you everything you need to know about the state of our defending on set-pieces this season?

Spankings for everyone!

I downloaded and watched this game a couple of times. Madrid were very threatening on the counter-attack, but weren't given much space and Valladolid, to their enormous credit, never stopped attacking in that first half. They are a first-class team when they play at home having lost only once this season.

Incidentally, andriy_7 kindly provided a couple random gifs of community favourites Crispy Ronaldo (who does not allow a goal to ruffle his impeccably gelled hair)...

And damn it ladies, it may be near freezing, but Sami Khedira is Hot with a capital H.

Baywatch audition right there.

Madrid equalized thanks to a mistake covered in Goal-keeping & Defensive Errors 101 - the short, weak back-pass made in front of your keeper, pounced upon by opposing winger (thank you, José Callejon!) and finished after quick pass to striker (Karim Benzema) who would have to try to miss from that distance.

Valladolid's #24 with egg on his face, right.

Incidentally, am I the only one who feels that Karim's hair-growth is kinda cute? Or do we think he should go back to bald?

Mesut, as is his wont, arrived to present Karim with a manly high-five as War-kitten raced the ball to the centre-circle like a good boy to get the game restarted.

It should be noted that neither Mourinho nor Mesut looked particularly relieved by the goal, which is just as well...

Because in entirely unpredictable, unfathomable, unforeseeable fashion (ha!), Madrid promptly conceded off the next corner kick...

Cue more bug-eyed despair. Off on the side-lines, Angel di Maria was warming up as an ominous warning to Papa-José's boys that another early substitution would be made.

I love how all the bench-reactions are always so synchronized.



"Spankings for everyone!"

Before we get to the half's amazingly Mesuty dénouement, some pictures and gifs of the beautiful boy in action:


Swiping his nose before taking a corner -

And getting fouled - kindly note an outraged Sami Khedira hovering at the left -

And then, at the stroke of half-time, just around the time the comms on my download were ragging him for having "a quiet game." I have always found that this is a sure sign - unless it's Ray Hudson, in which case Mesut normally does it while he's praising him to the skies - that he's about to explode and do something fantastical - in fact, they should do it more often.

There's already been some comment on Alvaro Arbeloa's reaction to this goal - which was sensibly ear-centric. Rather as though he was thinking: "Damn me! Why can't I nibble it in public?"



"He has that new puppy-smell..."

I leave aside a suitably predatory looking Sergio Ramos:

But Mesut's reaction was equally sweet - in the midst of all that affection he only wanted to thank Karim Benzema for his scrappy and intuitive pass.



Xabi got to him first, eh ladya_sama?


Note: smidgen of Serzil.

And a couple more looks at it from every angle (thanks to the indefatigable andriy_7). Note Sami Khedira's perfect work dragging away defenders in the longer version of the move. He may have exchanged passes with only one player, dribbled past three and needed the rub of the green in the finish, but Mesut's goal was a beautiful team effort and actually, Sami's move is of a type we've seen Mesut make countless times - the arcing, counter-intuitive run designed to confuse gullible fullbacks.

Note Mesut's skipping feet!

We finish part one of the spam with Mesut and Karim - the evening's sweetest gif - and the moment captured in every headline the next day: a flushed, crinkly-eared boy with his hands held up. It made the cover of Marca, As, and ABC the next morning, as we've already noted in our review in the community of the press coverage.

Part Two To Follow Shortly!

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