Mourinho's Madrid

Day 30 – After arriving around lunchtime into Madrid we quickly checked into Flat5Madrid to a surprisingly cheap stay at 35 EUR a night. After dumping our bags, and our ever growing shopping back it was off to hit the streets of Madrid. As we didn’t really know why we were in Madrid in the first place this was no easy task! After wandering aimlessly for a little while I took a gamble and decided we should head to the Mercado (very similar to our Markets) for lunch. For the regular readers this was a gamble, something that I’d chosen to do, normally ended up in disaster! But Alas! Success. Arriving at Mercado de … We found a lovely enclosed market with an enormous range of tapas available. We sampled freely with a highlight being the goat’s cheese and apple focaccia and the duck sandwich.

The tapas from markets - Good photo composition by head assistant photography Mark

Not wanting to tempt fate further I absolved myself of all responsibilities in regards to deciding what to do for the afternoon! The afternoon was spent wandering back through the shops (seemingly our favourite European pastime!). Some crazy lottery is on at the moment here because one particular agency had queues that must’ve been a kilometre long stretching around and around the shops. It’s killing us to know what it is/was but our grasp of the Spanish language didn’t lend itself to finding out. After an afternoon rest and blog back at the hotel it was off to sample the famed Madrid night life.

BUT it was a Monday… Katrina set me up by suggesting we come back to this cool looking restaurant if nothing else took our fancy. Not finding anything ground-breaking we returned. It was Vegetarian/Vegan… What’s the point? But in all seriousness the meal was lovely, if different, with a goat’s cheese pizza entrée and a vegie burger for main, whilst Katrina shared the pizza, but isn’t a fan of goat’s cheese (revenge) and had an interesting cold ravioli main. Good work Vegetarian restaurant. Afterwards we searched high and low for a drink but nothing either a) took our fancy b) was open c) was open yet (maybe we were too early for the Madristas!). So it was an early (European early, 11:30pm) night!

Day 31 – We enjoyed a rest and went down to Starbucks for coffee and some free Wi-Fi before a free walking tour by our hotel. Unfortunately returning to the hotel at 11am as told by reception the day before, we were told the tour left at 10:30! So anyway we were on our own again for the day. Not all was lost with this giving us a chance to duck out to the Stadio de Bernabou (Real Madrid’s home ground) to buy me a ticket to that night’s champions league fixture (but more on that later).

Me with my Champion's league ticket!

Again with Madrid as our oyster we spend the day wandering aimlessly around the city, down to the biggest unknown fountain ever (anyone know what it is?). Then past the palace to see some sort of officials leaving for the day with full military send of/change of the guard type action. A lovely lunch of Lomo (a Spanish pork burger with cheese and peppers for me) and vegetable soup for Katrina (now I write all this down, maybe she’s going vego on me…) was had in a back street somewhere. Once again shopping at one of the big department stores where we both found jackets that we liked but just couldn’t bring ourselves to buy/pack/carry/send home!

The unknown fountain, no signs, not on any map...

The Spanish Government plotting against everyone else? or running from financial turmoil?

I retired for a nap in preparation for the night’s late kick off (20:45 champions league kick off) whilst Katrina just surfed the web etc. Katrina joined me for dinner at a place which became known as ‘chips and…’ as you could get every kind of meat you wanted served with chips for under 10 EUR. I had a snitchzel (a little taste of home… yes I get the irony when it’s German) and Katrina a salmon fillet (with chips of course!). For anyone looking for it in Madrid, it’s actually called Oskars.

Night 31 – The Bernabou!!!!!!!!

Well, quite by good fortune rather than good planning, the soapbox was back where it should be, watching football, the second game in less than 4 days! This time it was a ‘dead rubber’ champion’s league fixture between Real Madrid and Dynamo Zagreb. Whilst the result was unimportant, and it wasn’t the strongest Madrid line up to take the field (no Ronaldo, no Kaka, reserve goal keeper in goals etc.), it certainly didn’t disappoint!

The bernabou in lights!

'Baby' Madrid as was the headline...

The game started at a frantic pace and before some people had even taken their seats it was 3-0, in under 8 minutes. Madrid were a combination of very clinical and Zagreb very poor. There are quite often early chances in football but due to either a) bad early touches or b) good luck they are very rarely converted, especially 3 in 8 minutes. From then on the game was over and you could have forgiven (for once) Mourinho (Madrid’s coach) for ‘parking the bus’ as the saying goes in football. But to his and the Madrid players credit they didn’t and what followed was an absolute master class!

Zagreb kept turning over cheap ball in midfield both due to strong tackling from a dominant Madrid midfield especially Xavi Alonso, and just poor decision making when attempting to play out from the back. The poor Russian manager spent the whole night in the rain screaming at his players. At one point when Madrid went up 4-0 before the 30^th minute I thought he was actually going to pull his right back from the game when he instructed his bench to warm up and exchanged ‘encouraging’ words with him!

As much as it pains me to admit it, Mourinho is indeed brilliant, whether or not he is really ‘the special one’ only history and titles will tell us, however one thing I will note is something about the way Madrid played on this night. It may be my footballing ignorance but I haven’t seen a team play with their right and left backs interchanging with the two holding midfielders at will. It is a joy to watch and I imagine a nightmare to play against. Whilst the Dutch ‘total football’ I believe allowed for players all over the park to cover for each other, as should be the case in any professional (or amateur for that matter) setup, with some amount of interchange, I have never seen what I saw Madrid play. It creates the opportunity for more overlaps than simple wingbacks and doesn’t leave you as exposed as playing with a back 3. It also I imagine, enables you to ‘park the bus’ when the need arises as you haven’t sacrificed either a back 4 for a 3, or 2 holding midfielders for 1, but still generate massive amounts of attacking options going forwards. Maybe it’s old news to the more football educated, but to me it was brilliant!

To their credit the Zagreb fans, high in the eaves of the stadium, helped create an amazing atmosphere, singing and chanting for nearly 90 minutes. My personally favourite being “you’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona!”

Did I mention it was raining? Well it was and it continued to do so until the half time whistle blew and most of us retired to the comfort of somewhere dry. Not being able to take too many photos on the first half I devised an impromptu lens cover from a coke cup and used my beany to shield the body of the camera, from some (lots) of second half photography. Unfortunately whilst I was still piecing this engineering master piece (modest as ever) together Madrid were already back on the field and 5-0 up (47 minutes in!).

Benzema slotting home number 6...

Mourinho was then spotted in the technical area for the first time of the night prompting insane applause from the Madrid faithful and I took some happy snaps for Bob. I say happy snaps, but for a manager whose team is 5-0 up he was far from it. I suppose you don’t get his results/reputation by being a happy go lucky type of guy!

Mourinho happy when his team goes up 5-0.... ? hate to see him unhappy...

I was lucky enough to see some great play from Madrid including catching both their 6^th goal, and an awesome Benzema bicycle kick (which hit the cross bar) through my coke cup lens! 6-0 in the 80^th minute and I honestly belief Madrid were then victims of their own arrogance. Searching for a 7^th they got caught well by Zagreb on the counter attack and conceded their first goal of the night, this brought a fresh round of cheers from their fans. Not to be out done the Madrid faithful brought on a round of end to end chanting from opposite goal mouths (would love to tell you what was being said…).

The Madrid faithful...

Benzema bicycle 1

Benzema bicycle 2

Benzema bicycle 3... it hit the cross bar... damn...

Zagreb then slotted a scrappy 2^nd home which caused some of the faithful to remove shirts and celebrate like it was an equaliser or even a winner, not 6-2!

The final tally...

Then with the final whistle that was that, a 1.5 string (not 2^nd string, still contained Ramos, Benzema, Alonso etc.) Madrid side had sent an ominous warning to all their opponents (including I might add, Barcelona with an impending Classico coming up). In fairness to Madrid and their fans, I think the atmosphere was better at the Bernabou than it had been at the Nou Camp 4 days earlier, maybe to do with the fixture but also I suspect from the acoustics of the eaves at the Bernabou reflecting much more sound back to pitch level. Also my seats from 6 rows behind the Madrid bench and next to the corporate boxes helped!

But then the moment that I will remember as why nobody likes Real Madrid. After 90 minutes of not heavy but consistent rain, Mourinho and quickly followed by the players exited stage left without so much as a glance to their adoring fans. Ok a few of them gave half hearted claps above their heads, but the majority, heads down retreated into the change rooms. Poor form in my books.

So Madrid, both in football and in city is no match for Barcelona in our books. Worth a night or two, but don’t lose sleep if you miss it! In the words of the Zagreb fans…

You’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona!

All our love

M&K