Comeback Kids Defend The Bernabeu

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

The First of Two Make or Break Matches

Sorry if this prematch thought preview is coming to you all a little late. I'm coming off an epic Thursday night. (For those who have gone or currently are attending college, you know what what I mean) However, I'm sure everyone I was with last night was getting a little annoyed at the fact that I kept talking about this fixture. Real Madrid vs Sevilla in Fortress Bernabeu. The first of two whopping fixtures in a few short days. Real are currently two short points behind their rivals and can't afford to fall three more behind with the way Barcelona is playing. Our players escaped the international midweek unscathed by injury and we performed well on the world stage collectively (minus Lass, looked poor for France. But Hey, it's hard to look good against Spain at the moment). Ramos and Higuain both starred against very established national teams each having themselves a goal a piece. Kaka played 90 minutes against the Republic of Ireland in Brazil's 2-0 win. Ronaldo played a half in Portugal's 2-0 victory over China. Van der Vaart came on as sub to torture the U.S. (sigh). This further shows me that I want him to play a bigger part in these up coming fixtures.

The squad has been named (not Castilla players) for the home match against the team that beat us 2-1 at the Sanchez Pizjuan earlier this season. Madrid's only goal came via Pepe who we all know is tragically absent for the rest of the season with a devastating ACL tear. It's a big one. Barcelona are not likely to drop points and we essentially have to win a big game just to keep pace at the moment. Their toughest fixtures don't come until the last few weeks of the season (excluding El Clasico). One of the most important issues that I wrote about last article is do we rest players? It's been a ritual for Champions League teams to sit important players the weekend prior when the European competition is on the horizon. However, Sevilla are in the Champions League at this time and even though they aren't playing on Tuesday or Wednesday due to the new format, they should still beat treated as the Champions League team they are. Like I always say: "With great power comes great responsibility" (again, Uncle Ben from Spiderman) Players like Ronaldo, Kaka, Higuain need to play because we need them to play. Simple as that. We know fatigue is setting in but we don't have a whole lot of options when we need three points. Obviously we can help plug in players who were not called up for internationals. Even though Benzema and Drenthe are still injured, Granero, Raul, Guti, Diarra, Gago, and Garay all weren't too busy this week except for a 3-1 win over Castilla in which two of the first team's goals were scored by Castilla players filling in for absentees.

We fell to the Rojiblancos earlier this season but we are a much different team now. We were also Ronaldo-less when we traveled to Andulusia. I know that sounds like we depend on him but I had to include cause anyone with a couple brain cells knows he's a major factor. I'm not saying we NEED to have him on the field. I've constructed just a line up of my own this week. I'm totally baffled to what Pellegrini will do. The one question I have is do we give Xabi Alonso 90 minutes? He is suspended for the Champions League clash against Lyon so we don't have to worry about his fitness but do we need to get some high pressure practice without him. It is clearly visable that our creativity and pass accuracy percentage in midfield drops when he is on the pitch. We are boosted greatly by Guti who has been included in the squad list. You should remember from the 2007-2008 season in this exact fixture, Guti tore apart Sevilla with some master vision and master class passes that lead to three goals. Also in my memory of many thoughts I remember a Guti back heel just as magical if not more divine as the play at Riazor against Sevilla at home to Zidane that resulted in a goal. Don't remember? Look it up. Classic.

If you haven't noticed by now, I decided that we're just going to half to tough this one out. We can't rest players. Someone said to me the other day "You can sleep when your dead." I just kinda smiled and applied it football. Not to say that's always the correct option but in this case, I think it pertains. I chose a Marcelo-less back four. Although he had a pretty decent game against Tenerife, his defending will be no match for Navas who was sprightly after coming on against France in the second half this week. Navas is a must go for the World Cup this summer. Anyways, this also the back four we will most likely see against Lyon. Grab a seat Marcelo. I opted to have both big Diarra and Xabi Alonso playing in holding midfield. Most people I know I'm a fan of the single pivot rather than tho double pivot but like I said above, we need Xabi Alonso because it would be stupid not to play him but we also need Mahamadou to get some game time before he faces his former club before our Do or Die on Wednesday. I sat Granero. As much as I love him, he hasn't been himself lately. Maybe starting off on the bench will motivate him to make a difference when coming on. I replaced him with Guti (I already explained why, btw.. big Guti fan if you couldn't tell). Obviously the evil genious can't play 90 minutes here and expect to play a major part agains Lyon on Wednesday. His body can't take. Not to mention he is coming off an injury. So Granero can replace him sometime in the second half. No surprises other than that. Ronaldo, Kaka, and Higuain just have to be the counter attacking trident we saw against Tenerife. You might notice I didn't say Van der Vaart. This is the only player I want to rest. I think he can tear up Lyon. Agree?

As for Sevilla. What can we say? Big forwards, good service. It was brought to my attention that we will have to be efficiently offensively to survive defensively. We'll have to score because we will probably get scored against. It's just the nature of how it will be. If we don't get scored on, I'll be the first to brag about it but I'm just saying with Kanoute and Negredo both of size it will be an aerial battle all match. That's one of the reasons I chose Garay at center back, good header of the ball but him an Albiol will have to keep a better eye on people in our own area than we did against Tenerife. Arbeloa will have his hands full with Navas. That's a bit worrisome for me. As much as I've grown to like Alvaro, his defending still scares me. He was questionable at best against France. Ribery gave him issues and he fouled a good bit. Also his ability to defend the one-two is poor. That being said, I think he is a good defender but has some stuff to work on, way better than Marcelo though. Renato isn't bad player either though. We'll have to keep and eye on him.

Alright everyone. I am going to hop in a much needed shower and then head back to my hometown of beautiful Erie Pennsylvania for my spring break. Although I'll hardly be relaxing with our fixture list. If we win hear, the pressure will starting getting to Barca. They play Almeria who has been pretty respectable in the last few games. Hopefully the Blaugrana slip up. They ALMOST did against Malaga (another sigh).

Hala Madrid!

Bobby