I Heart Real Madrid

Madrid vs Villarreal: A Brilliant Cris!

After the mess in the European stage, the fingers pointed everywhere. However, the man under the heat of the spot light was el Mister. Marca on their Saturday paper had as their headline: “Pellegrini, on trial.” A bit much, no? Nonetheless, the match against Villarreal was crucial on our deflated ego after the sorry image we had offered in Lyon. Madrid needed to repair damage that had been caused and inject the madridismo with optimism that had been robbed from us simply because of one game. We needed a convincing victory… and boy did we get it.

A 6-2 victory led by none other than a sublime Ronaldo, who never looked sharper in white as he did yesterday. When he is unselfish and plays for the team, he is without a doubt unstoppable. A genius, a phenom, un crack,… well there are not enough adjectives to describe this kid when he is fired up. I break my hands in applause with a performance like the one he put on display last night.

I only had a chance to see the second half, but it is easy to say that he was the golden boy who caused the Bernabeu to party all night long. So I will not be posting my complete opinion of the game, but if you are interested in reading what happened click the link to read goal.com’s decent review of the thrashing of the yellow submarine. Nonetheless, I want to share a couple of things that caught my attention:

1. We have one of the best players in the world and its not Ronaldo I am talking about, but my boy Pipita Higuain. After being a sub at the start of the season he has demonstrated with plenty of goals that he is made for this club. Last night he scored another double, taking his tally to 14 with two behind Lionel Messi. Madrid have put aside his contract extension until the end of the season, but with every goal he scores that contract calls to be made and signed! I am confident he will be this season pichichi!
2. I like the associations that were demonstrated in this game. The bromantic Kaka and CR9 connection had already been confirmed at Jerez and once again their friendship shined brightly last night. However, it was good to see those sparks between Cristiano and Pipita, who when they both linked up together caused for Villarreal to split in two.
3. Beside the bromance that I see between Kaka and Cristaino, I found Kaka to be quite sad. It was quite visible throughout the match that Kaka is feeling the pressure of everything that comes with playing with Madrid. His sadness showed with his second goal as he barely celebrated only lifting his arms to praise God. The look on his face of disappointment was evident when he saw that he was the one to be substituted. It also does not help that amongst the applause from the crowd there were jeers thrown his way. This is no way to treat one of your own. 
4. With that said, I think it was a nice gesture of the crowd to call for Raul to take the penalty which would be moments later converted by Xabi Alonso. Raul appreciated the love as he clapped back to show his thanks.
5. Although I am very happy with the performance against Villarreal I am still quite on the edge about Lyon. Villarreal were never really a threat to this Madrid that made the yellow defense look like water, but my problem is that with Lyon Madrid will not have it this easy. And what causes me to grow more concerned is that even with Villarreal showing a weak display of football they managed to score two goals. Our defensive flaws are still a problem and this could cost us the game in the Champions League. However, with an attack like the one Madrid demonstrated last night it makes me feel a whole lot better. Relentless and always looking forward to score the next one gives Madrid a huge advantage.

Well a great game to close the night and send a message of authoritay (in the words of South Park’s Cartman) to Lyon and of course Barcelona. On to the next… the dreaded island of Tenerife.