Real Madrid at Borussia Dortmund :: 5-0

By: Dancy | August 19th, 2009

Today is like the best day EVER! Not only did Real win 5-0 away, SO IMPRESSIVELY (in the 2nd half anyway), but my new favorite player, Alvaro Negredo, found a beautiful new home at SEVILLA, my instant #2 favorite club in La Liga now! Over the last couple of days I’ve sort of fallen in love with this guy – he is our future Number 9 for Madrid. He looks more like a gentleman caller than a bad-ass footballer – nicknamed the “wild animal” – and hopefully he’ll help Sevilla do well in the CL this year before rejoining our ranks once Ruud retires. Oh, oh, and Barca lost against EPL pretenders Citeh in their own stadium and trophy cup game, no less, 0-1. LOLOLOL!!!! Whatev – on to REAL!

Lass, Metz, Albiol, Marcelo
Pepe, Xabi
Ronaldo, Kaka, Granero
Benzema

This is gonna shorter than usual, since streams can’t be freeze-framed, unfortunately. <3

2:40 GOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!! GRANERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a beautiful back-heel by Kaka! Releasing Granero – perfect, perfect – he has eyes on the back of his head! And Granero finishes with aplomb – it is too easy for him. 1-0, just like that!

Dammit, then it goes downhill. We’re being dominated off the ball. It is Dortmund’s centennial, after all, the crowd filled to the brim with yellow and black shirted supporters. So it’s in their blood, for sure. When we attack – we are wayyyy too slow. Not decisive enough. This is a bit of a new formation for us – 4-5-1 – are we too crowded in midfield? We want to play 1-touch – but we can’t. We have no idea where to go, how to move. Very, very frustrating to watch. Also, both CR9’s free kicks dips straight to the keeper – perrrrfect. *sighs*

33:00 WTF, CR?? Sergio or Gonzalo would’ve taken on those defenders head on and steamed ahead! How else do you think Pipita scored those 2 goals against Toronto? But he is just so timid tonight. He’ll do a step-over or two – then lose heart and send it backwards to a teammate. His free kicks, too, are tame. This run would’ve been a GREAT counter – but he stopped and sent the ball safely back?? C’MON!!!!!!!!!!

Kaka has lost two major balls now at the sideline, RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR OWN GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both losses resulted in DANGEROUS attacks and almost goals by Dortmund. WTF?

The problem in our midfield now is that players don’t move into positions – they WAIT for the ball before moving. This slows us way down and teleports every move for the opposition. So now Kaka once again loses a ball that the opposition can see coming before he even does, moves faster than he, and tackles it away. POOF! GONE! #*&@dnflkandlfkiwdu?!?!?!

45:00 ROBBEN’S ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come rescue your team, plz!! Robben on for Granero. Good idea to swap for a winger, we kept losing balls along the wings.

47:30 ROBBEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG, how happy he is!!! What a ROCKET of a shot! And goes to slap high five to? Sneijder deep in the bench! Awww! Poor Sneijder – being told he won’t play and essentially forced off to Inter. It was off a corner from Kaka – a Dortmund player headed it backwards – right into the path of Robben, who simply rifles it first touch, such power! 2-0!

69:00 YAY, PIPITA’S ON! He hugs Benz, then comes to join the fun.

73:00 GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!! Kaka running, running, running, to Robben who tries to beat the keeper, can’t but gets the ball back, sets it up perfectly for a flying Higuain, who beats the defender at the goalline for the GOAL! Fast, decisive, and dead-on – that’s our Pipita! 3-0! Man, I love it when Robben and Higuain combine – they’ve got such a good understanding that their chemistry absolutely crackles.

76:00 PENALTY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Robben tripped and brought down in the box! He gives it to KAKA! GOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4-0! Haha, I love this sharing of goals! And Kaka, finally, gets his sweet first goal for his new team, and beams into the heavens.

77:00 Kaka off for Raul, Metz off for Garay. And Christoph gets a hearty round of applause – so amazing to see.

89:00 GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAUL! WAAAAA, WHAT SKILL! WHAT A SHOT! Seriously just one touch and that’s all he needs to beat the keeper with a razor-sharp shot into the net, such diagonal sting! WHAT QUALITY! Ronaldo, can you do that? You’ve had, what, 5 tries? Raul does it with 1. ONE.

And you can see just how much experience and instinct Raul has. MUCH MORE THAN BENZEMA at this point. Benz ran around today like he had no clue. I don’t want to criticize him, but to compare him to Raul? OH MY! They show the replay, Higuain is level with the last defender, Raul a bit off further back, behind him – sneakily so that no defender is right by him. As the ball flies forward – Higuain moves horizontally to take a defender with him (not sure if by design), but RAUL! He lasers in on that goal as if a homing missile, knowing exactly where it will fall and sprinting towards it, way faster than any defender and beating TWO to it, then deftly turning his body to both hold off the defender and move his hips towards shooting that ball diagonally into the far right corner, eluding the keeper who had come out in panic. Absolute whale of a shot, all cunning and beauty, all by himself, and worthy of the final cherry on top. LOL, when Hamburg beat Dortmund 4-1 they called it domination, what will they call this now? 

5-0, and thank you Dortmund. Your fans were amazing!

Post-game
Man of the Match is without a doubt Arjen Robben. Up for sale all thoughout the preseason – including and up to just a few days ago when Perez continued to ignore Pellegrini’s praises for him and demand cash for his expensive spending and bank debts this summer – I thank God that nobody came in to swoop him up. He played Ronaldo off the pitch tonight. Yes, his impact was that immense.

And it’s not the first time. Remember the first half of the DC United game, when Pipita and Ronaldo played together to no avail? The young striker looked unfamiliar with Ronaldo’s movements and thus unsure where to go. Sometimes CR9 can look like he’s in his own world, with no real clue or desire to link up with the rest of the team. Obviously this will come with time. But when he came off for Robben in the 2nd half of the DC game – instantly, that understanding was there. That chemistry – you can never buy chemistry. Those two combined for a brilliant goal – and even Pipita’s first one, Robben knew how to take a defender off him.

Today, again, the first half was terrible. Aside from that opening minute brilliance when Kaka engineered that jaw-dropping back-heel to an alert Granero – the rest of the play was slow, unimaginative, and even overpowered, as the Germans looked buoyed by the crowd, and we kept losing possession, esp along the wings. Maybe it’s because we missed Lass in DM? At halftime, I would’ve liked Xabi to come off, I still have no clue what he’s doing here – but it was Granero who came off for Robben (not Granero’s fault, he was everywhere as always). And instantly, like magic – the goals started pouring down!!!

The thing about Robben is he looks far more confident and direct in his approach than Ronaldo does in open play. Maybe Ronaldo is playing it safe, maybe he’s feeling the weight of his transfer tag (the Zidane Syndrome, as Marca calls it) – but it was Robben, repeatedly, who took the attack straight at his defenders and got by them, rather than do unnecessary step-overs and pass it back, in order to link up with his teammates and make it flow.

How many chances did he give us? COUNT’EM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First it was his goal off the corner, making it 2-0. Then that alert cut-back for Pipita, 3-0. Then that dart into the box for the penalty that he kindly gave to Kaka, 4-0. There: 1 goal and 2 assists, and you are still not doing him the justice of how much he impacted the game. All in one half too! Oh, Arjen – if only you could stay healthy, you could seriously give Messi a run for his money.

And Raul. Ahh, ahh, Raul. He is who he is, after all. The captain. The goalscorer. The record-breaker. 18 goals last season, and already 4 in this preseason, including this beauty tonight. What more can you say? 5-0, like that. 

I am just amazed, once again, at the stunning amount of QUALITY that we have now. And Sergio is still AWOL! Imagine having him back??? Him linking up and overlapping with CR9? But to bring Robben, Higuain, and Raul off the bench, is just . . GAH! Almost criminal. PLUS Ruud. PLUS M. Diarra. PLUS Gago (9 assists last year!). Ronaldo still finding his groove yet. Benzema still looking green and tentative at times. Freaking amazing. Wait til you see us gel! Wait til we get the hang of it and start putting speed and movement into our one-touch passing game . . watch out, world!!!