Let me start this post off with a Hell Yeah! The match ended 2 hours ago and my hear is still a thumpin'! I can't even wipe the wide smirk off my face. It's a great view from the top! Where do I begin? I mean at the end of the first half I was turning over furniture in my room and throwing pillows, just screaming at the heavens asking how we hadn't scored at the top of my lungs. I'm surprised my neighbors didn't call the police because it probably sounded like a domestic disturbance in this place. In all honesty, even though Sevilla didn't get like any shots off, we were dominated the first 20 minutes. We saw no possession, had no good chances to speak off either. I was sitting with a dumb look on my face thinking to myself "this is gonna be a long match..." How much more wrong could I have been? I know it may be bias but this could be one of the matches of the season. So let's get to the game itself.
Started off awful. It just wasn't pretty. This was at the stage when I thought we were in for a rough night. I had to watch the game on an online feed so I was already sour to begin with. With about 10 minutes into the game after I had clearly notice that we were well below standard my feed froze but the sound continued. I hear "GOOOOOOOLLLL GOL GOL GOLLLLL!" I scrambled fiercely. I refreshed my page only to see a smiling Alvaro Negredo trotting off to the corner flag. My heart sunk. "It would be him.." I muttered but after seeing the replay it appears as if Xabi Alonso got the last touch. Arbeloa just seemed to lose track of where Navas was on that right side. His cross missed two unmarked Sevilla attackers before it was put back across by Capel and into our own net by Xabi. I was upset, but composed. There were still 80 minutes to be played so I wasn't as concerned as if the opening goal would have came against us with 20 minutes to spare.
All of a sudden with the blink of an eye on exactly 20 minutes it would seem, the lethargic, uninterested, and outplayed Madrid transformed into the up beat, feisty, creative Madrid. It was like night an day. A lot of times u hear of a game of two haves but our form picked up dead smack in the middle of half 1. We had 14 shots at the end of the first half. I checked the stats. Seven of those shots were on goal. Sevilla had zero. Yeah.. ZERO. I was like how can we possibly be losing? They haven't even had a shot. There second goal can't even really be considered a shot either. It was a fluke. I was livid at that point that we had gone 2-0 down at Sevilla had not even once shot at our goal. "How can this be happening!" I cried. Safe to say at this point my family stopped checking up on me to see how the match was going. So I'm not even going to count their second goal as a shot either.
This surely should have killed our momentum but Pellegrini stole the show. He removed Arbeloa who has very little to offer offensively, moved an attack minded Marcelo to left back, removed a creativity lacking Lass, and injected a Van der Vaart and a Guti into midfield. How much more straight forward attacking can you be? We were essentially defending with just Garay and Albiol with Ramos and Marcelo acting like wing-backs. So our formation looked something like 2-5-3. That clearly was the turning point in the match. No doubt in my mind. VDV added an extra energy and Guti contributed vision that we hadn't seen all game. The players caught on immediately. Marcelo's pass into the area took a little deflection and found none other that Ronaldo who one timed it past Palop who had been brilliant to that point. "About time!" I screamed as I shut the door to my room. Couldn't have any disturbances at this point. I just always had the feeling we were gonna get two after that one went in. You could see that the Ronaldo goal broke Sevilla's spirit. They knew they had awoken a sleeping giant.
For minutes later Mr. Ramos headed home a corner, scoring against his former club. I love Ramos. I was glad it was him. I was a little puzzled by the nipple rub celebration though. Just me? Whatever. That was the last thing I was concerned about at this point. Two in four minutes? Now we have 25 plus some to score one more, but it was elusive. Guti's magic vision found a couple open players and I bet if you were on the pitch right now and felt the frame of the goal, it would still be rattling and vibrating. Guti rocked it, Higuain blasted it. I can't believe we only scored three. When Raul came on for Kaka, I sort of went "why?" Raul was amazing but I felt like we had such a good thing going already I didn't want to disturb it. Nothing against el Capitan. Nonetheless I was still confident he could do a job. This was around the same time I noticed the first Sevilla shot coming from Jesus Navas (clearly Sevilla's best player today). I checked ESPN's Soccernet and I was right. It was the 79th minute and other than the two goals, the Rojiblancos recorded no other shots than that.
So my heart is racing and I can hear the fortress in full song. There must have been so much atmosphere that it was spilling out of the computer and into my room. I could feel it. Fifteen minutes to go, no goal. Ten minutes to go, still no goal. Stoppage time now, at least there was four minutes. I didn't want to think it quite yet but the though that Barca tied today made me think at least we're not losing ground on them. Just as that thought was passing a lose ball is open in the area. Ronaldo has the whole goal to shoot at. Raul tries to move out of the way but in the wrong direction and with ball aimed at the side netting, it strikes the Numero Siete and away from the goal. I just closed my eyes. That was it. That was the chance. To my utter delight I was incorrect. Ramos curls a ball into the area a moment later. Higuain gets up and nods a header toward the goal. Palop deflects. "OHHH- wait - get it- GOLLLLLLLLL!!!!" Van der Vaart is now ripping off his jersey and flying torward the corner.
I'm in extacy. A 10 man Barcelona tied against Ameria away so that means we are Top Of La Liga! On goal differential of course by 2 goal difference. I'm going to go continue celebrating . Already hit up Red Lobster haha.
HALA MADRID!
Bobby
Started off awful. It just wasn't pretty. This was at the stage when I thought we were in for a rough night. I had to watch the game on an online feed so I was already sour to begin with. With about 10 minutes into the game after I had clearly notice that we were well below standard my feed froze but the sound continued. I hear "GOOOOOOOLLLL GOL GOL GOLLLLL!" I scrambled fiercely. I refreshed my page only to see a smiling Alvaro Negredo trotting off to the corner flag. My heart sunk. "It would be him.." I muttered but after seeing the replay it appears as if Xabi Alonso got the last touch. Arbeloa just seemed to lose track of where Navas was on that right side. His cross missed two unmarked Sevilla attackers before it was put back across by Capel and into our own net by Xabi. I was upset, but composed. There were still 80 minutes to be played so I wasn't as concerned as if the opening goal would have came against us with 20 minutes to spare.
All of a sudden with the blink of an eye on exactly 20 minutes it would seem, the lethargic, uninterested, and outplayed Madrid transformed into the up beat, feisty, creative Madrid. It was like night an day. A lot of times u hear of a game of two haves but our form picked up dead smack in the middle of half 1. We had 14 shots at the end of the first half. I checked the stats. Seven of those shots were on goal. Sevilla had zero. Yeah.. ZERO. I was like how can we possibly be losing? They haven't even had a shot. There second goal can't even really be considered a shot either. It was a fluke. I was livid at that point that we had gone 2-0 down at Sevilla had not even once shot at our goal. "How can this be happening!" I cried. Safe to say at this point my family stopped checking up on me to see how the match was going. So I'm not even going to count their second goal as a shot either.
This surely should have killed our momentum but Pellegrini stole the show. He removed Arbeloa who has very little to offer offensively, moved an attack minded Marcelo to left back, removed a creativity lacking Lass, and injected a Van der Vaart and a Guti into midfield. How much more straight forward attacking can you be? We were essentially defending with just Garay and Albiol with Ramos and Marcelo acting like wing-backs. So our formation looked something like 2-5-3. That clearly was the turning point in the match. No doubt in my mind. VDV added an extra energy and Guti contributed vision that we hadn't seen all game. The players caught on immediately. Marcelo's pass into the area took a little deflection and found none other that Ronaldo who one timed it past Palop who had been brilliant to that point. "About time!" I screamed as I shut the door to my room. Couldn't have any disturbances at this point. I just always had the feeling we were gonna get two after that one went in. You could see that the Ronaldo goal broke Sevilla's spirit. They knew they had awoken a sleeping giant.
For minutes later Mr. Ramos headed home a corner, scoring against his former club. I love Ramos. I was glad it was him. I was a little puzzled by the nipple rub celebration though. Just me? Whatever. That was the last thing I was concerned about at this point. Two in four minutes? Now we have 25 plus some to score one more, but it was elusive. Guti's magic vision found a couple open players and I bet if you were on the pitch right now and felt the frame of the goal, it would still be rattling and vibrating. Guti rocked it, Higuain blasted it. I can't believe we only scored three. When Raul came on for Kaka, I sort of went "why?" Raul was amazing but I felt like we had such a good thing going already I didn't want to disturb it. Nothing against el Capitan. Nonetheless I was still confident he could do a job. This was around the same time I noticed the first Sevilla shot coming from Jesus Navas (clearly Sevilla's best player today). I checked ESPN's Soccernet and I was right. It was the 79th minute and other than the two goals, the Rojiblancos recorded no other shots than that.
So my heart is racing and I can hear the fortress in full song. There must have been so much atmosphere that it was spilling out of the computer and into my room. I could feel it. Fifteen minutes to go, no goal. Ten minutes to go, still no goal. Stoppage time now, at least there was four minutes. I didn't want to think it quite yet but the though that Barca tied today made me think at least we're not losing ground on them. Just as that thought was passing a lose ball is open in the area. Ronaldo has the whole goal to shoot at. Raul tries to move out of the way but in the wrong direction and with ball aimed at the side netting, it strikes the Numero Siete and away from the goal. I just closed my eyes. That was it. That was the chance. To my utter delight I was incorrect. Ramos curls a ball into the area a moment later. Higuain gets up and nods a header toward the goal. Palop deflects. "OHHH- wait - get it- GOLLLLLLLLL!!!!" Van der Vaart is now ripping off his jersey and flying torward the corner.
I'm in extacy. A 10 man Barcelona tied against Ameria away so that means we are Top Of La Liga! On goal differential of course by 2 goal difference. I'm going to go continue celebrating . Already hit up Red Lobster haha.
HALA MADRID!
Bobby
