Crinkly Ears

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Gorgeous, isn't it. That's Mesut on the left exchanging the quick passes with Adebayor and skipping past the entire Racing defence before squaring.

This was the first game Mesut ever "headlined" - Ronaldo was injured and he stole the show away from home in a game we were expected to struggle in. He was featured in a piece on the Real Madrid website the next day with a dozen headlines quoted to show how "Ozil's Magic Sweeps The World!"

It's also the game where Ray Hudson (in ecstasies over this goal!) said he had seen pictures of Mesut's house and "he only has the big television and the video games...he's like that nice little kid you have next door, who just wants to play football..."

The approving tone when Ray noted he seemed to have no outside interests (based on his house!) was comical. Ray Hudson was a football coach. I think a slightly single-minded boy like Mesut would have appealed to Ray Hudson! He would have loved coaching him. Ray probably never had time for complicated intellects on a football team with outside interests. It was bad for morale!

I have two more gifs...

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And there will be more at the bottom of the post - which you will have to get to by reading through it...I am sneaky!