20 of the best moments of the 2011-12 season

The La Liga season is over and here starts the miserable days of Madridistas who will be deprived of seeing their team play for almost a couple of months. It really feels like yesterday when Real Madrid beat Zaragoza 6-0 on the opening day of our season – which was also on the day of my birthday, 29^th August.

Anyway, since the season is over, we bring to you the top 20 moments of the 2011-12 season.

20. So we will start off with how our season started – the 6-0 win against Real Zaragoza where Cristiano scored a hattrick

That win really set the tone for the season. Our expectations grew bigger and there was a sense of optimism. Cristiano scoring his first hattrick of the season in our first game of the season was also another moment to cherish.

19. This one is for the ladies: Iker Casillas stripping himself after a game

It looked like a Banana peeling itself and the fangirls out there lost their breath for that particular time. Gifs and images of that moment were flying all over Twitter and Tumblr. If you were a male, like this writer, you would have got frustrated after a while, but it was also funny to see the fangirls going all gaga over their captain (and probably crush) stripping himself.

Sorry for the heart attack

18. 42 passes tiki-taka goal against Ajax

Those who thought that only one team (a team located in Catalonia) in this World can play tiki-taka, then think again. Real scored a beautiful tiki-taka goal, which was the product of 42 successful passes almost all over the pitch. The patience and composure shown by the players, who were involved in the build-up of this goal, was exemplary.

Best part is that we scored a lightning fast counter attack goal against the same team.

17. Orgasmic counter-attack goal against Ajax

Woof! That was one hell of goal. The best counter-attack goal of the season and, personally, my favourite goal, hands down. Those lovely one touch passes between Ozil, Kaka and Cristiano; that brilliant drilled cross from Benzema and that awesome finish from Cristiano made it one of the best – or, probably, the best – counter-attack goal of all time.

This was one of those goals which one can watch over 100 times and still not get tired of it.

Scoring these 2 goals against Ajax made it a bit more sweet, than it would have been if we scored them against other teams, as Ajax were the roots of tiki-taka and one-touch total Football.

16. “¿Concentrao? ¿Quién es ese jugador?”

When a journalist mispronounced Coentrao as ‘Concentrao’, a surprised Cristiano replied, “¿Concentrao? ¿Quién es ese jugador? [Concentrao? Who is this player?]”, before teaching the journalist how to correctly pronounce the name. He couldn’t stop laughing while answering the journalist’s question and in the end referred to Coentrao as Concentrao himself.

The Madridistas still have a good laugh about this and, till date, jokingly refer to Coentrao as Concentrao.

Reporter: “What do you think about Concentrao?”

Ronaldo: “Concentrao? Who is that player ?

Reporter: “Yes the player”

Ronaldo: “Concentrao? Coentrao!”

Reporter: “Coentrao, Yes Coentrao”

Ronaldo: “Concentrao is a good player, he proved that last year in Benfica and I’m happy that he’s with us”

Another Reporter: Are you concentrated ?

Ronaldo: “Yes I’m concentrated”

15. Callejon celebrations

Well, this deserves to be on this list just because it is one of the coolest celebration styles of all time. Whenever he scores a goal, you know you would see his right index finger pointing at the crest – and that is why whenever any player celebrates like this, it is known as the Callejon.

14. Cristiano and Marcelo dancing on Ai Se Eu Te Pego

‘Nossa! Nossa!’ And then came the epic dance from Cristiano and Marcelo after the former scored a goal against Malaga. The celebration was so epic that this song, by Michel Telo, became one of the most popular songs in the world.

In fact, Marcelo and Cristiano inspired Neymar & Ganso, Dani Alves & Eric Abidal, and many other footballers, to dance on this while celebrating a goal. In the end, it was a win-win scenario for Michel Telo.

13. Roberto Carlos opening the game against Levante at the Bernabeu

The legend was back, and so were his legendary calf muscles (probably the largest calf muscles I have seen a footballer have). Roberto Carlos was given a tribute for his astonishing, and loyal, services to Real Madrid. He kicked-off that game with his epic left-foot and was given a standing ovation by the fans at the Bernabeu.

Certainly was one of the best moments of the season, and why not? When a legend comes back to the club for kicking off a game, it has to be one of the best moments of the year!

12. “I thought Barca didn’t talk about referees”

Probably the quote of the season. In a world where people fall short of words to praise F.C. Barcelona and their values, Jose Callejon actually points out the truth: the truth that Barca are just like other clubs when things don’t go their way.

“I thought Barca didn’t talk about referees,” Callejon responded to a journalist who asked him about his thoughts on Xavi and Messi criticising referee decisions. “Something must have changed. I don’t know why,” Callejon concluded.

This peach of a quote went viral; some, mostly Barca fans, went mad at Calleti for saying this while the others, such as us Madridistas, were lauding Callejon for these outrageously witty words. Bravo, Calleti!

11. Drunk Xabi Alonso

Full time at San Mames and Real Madrid are officially the champions of La Liga. And then came the celebrations at the Cibeles – and that’s where we saw another side of our ever-so-classy Xabi Alonso.

The calm and collected midfield boss was nowhere to be seen in Xabi. Instead, we saw an unleashed Xabi, a drunken Xabi.

A drunken Xabi flies his hands around for no real reason. A drunken Xabi rotates his head around faster than a windmill. A drunken Xabi Alonso doesn’t ‘pass’ the beer can to Gonzalo Higuain. A drunken Xabi doesn’t know what he himself is doing. A drunken Xabi is fun Xabi.

And that is why the Cibeles celebrations were extra fun. Thanks, Xabi!

10. Piggy-back ride on Calleti’s back

It was at the Mestalla. Scores were locked at 2-2. ‘Tensed’ was the one word which could describe the looks on the faces on the Real Madrid bench. And then suddenly, Cristiano scored to make it 3-2 in Real Madrid’s favour. The tensed looks were gone. Jubilation all around the Real Madrid dugout.

Then came the best part of the night: an ecstatic Mou, running like an 18 year old, jumps on Callejon’s back to celebrate the goal, which turned out to be the winning goal.

The expression on Callejon’s face was priceless, the celebration even more so. There wasn’t one Madridista who didn’t smile after watching that epic celebration. If this wasn’t Real Madrid, then this would have been the best celebration of the season.

But no, we are Real Madrid and we have some of the best celebration styles ever – and there was one celebration which even beat this epic celebration to become the best [Real Madrid] goal celebration style of the season. (Will talk more about that somewhere down this article).

9. Callejon returns the favour

Celebrations were at full swing at the Bernabeu after the final league game of the season. When Callejon was given the mic, he said ‘I want to finish the season by doing this one last thing’ and then he ran at Mou and jumped on Mou’s back for a piggy-back ride.

It would have been more epic, however, if each and every member of the Real Madrid squad jumped on each other for a piggy-back ride. Hopefully, we will see that happen next year.

So if you ever want to enjoy a piggy-back ride, you know where you should go as Real Madrid have some of the best piggy-back riders in their camp.

Our club is the most fun club in the World.

8. Remontandas

Atleti, Malaga, Mallorca, Zaragoza, Betis, Malaga: something’s common here, right? These are some of the teams against whom we won after trailing in the game.

These were games which resembled the ‘Juanito spirit’. Games which gave us mini-heart-attacks every now and then. Games which kept us on the edge of our seats, chewing nails, till we scored a goal which gave us the lead.

But in the end, we won, and it was hugely satisfying because if you never suffer from the tension of trailing in a game, you will never get the complete taste of being a fan.

If I had to pick the best remontanda of the season, it’d be the one against Malaga. We were 2 goals down at half-time, but scored 3 in the next half to complete a stunning comeback. That comeback surely made Juanito’s soul proud.

7. Cristiano showing his thighs

Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows my non-secret appreciation for Cristiano Ronaldo’s thighs. It all started when he scored a 30+ yard missile-goal against Osasuna at Pamplona and then revealed his right thigh to the world.

When I was a child, I never thought someone could have broader and stronger thighs than Roberto Carlos. But Cristiano proved me wrong, as his thighs are probably larger than Roberto Carlos’ was (Carlos, however, had larger calf muscles).

Cristiano’s thighs also show us the amount of hard-work he does in the gym to stay fit and be physically superior to his peers. Any man would dream to have thighs like that.

Anyway, the goal was also as brutal as Nile’s Death Metal tracks. The power with which Cristiano shot the ball was out of this world. Some journalist tried a lot to take away all the credit from Cristiano, for the goal, and put it all down to the ball being made of plastic.

But his attempts went in vain as people were busy watching the goal a million times and didn’t have the time to read those journalist’s views.

Once again, sorry for the mini-heart attack.

6. Benzema’s van Basten goal

Pamplonais is always a hard place to win because of the condition of the pitch (‘potato patch’, as most refer to it). Barca lost at this stadium and many were expecting Osasuna to pull off another upset by beating Real.

But those expectations were all shattered by Karim Benzema.

The French talisman scored a beautiful volley-goal from a very tight angle, which had an uncanny resemblance to the goal Marco van Basten scored at the 1988 Euros against USSR, to give us the early lead in the game and calm down our nerves. That, in my opinion, was the best goal scored by a Real Madrid player this season.

5. ‘¡Pipita, quédate!’

When something close to your heart is taken away, it hurts. A lot. The pain of seeing Higuain leave Real Madrid would have been far more brutal. He is not something ‘close’ to the heart – he is the heart of Real Madrid.

The rumours of Pipita leaving were flying all around. It became more intense when all other Real Madrid players signed a shirt for him which read ‘thank you for everything’. Almost every Madridista, who loves Higuain, were worried.

So worried that the fans, and even the players, chanted ‘¡Pipita, quédate! (Pipita, stay!)’ during the Cup-lifting ceremony at the Bernabeu after the last game of the season.

Those chants brought a chill down my spine. Madridistas at the Bernabeu made sure that Higuain knew how much he was loved by everyone who supported the Club.

If Higuain was close to leaving, then the chants from the crowd and his peers changed his mind as he now looks set to play in the white shirt of Real Madrid next season. And, hopefully, every season till he retires.

Ask any true Madridista and he/she will tell you that they want to see Higuain retire at Real Madrid. Such is his love for Madridismo.

Pipita Quedate!

4. Cristiano’s ‘calm down’ celebration

This was the celebration I was referring to earlier. This was the best goal celebration by a Real Madrid player in this season. If there was a celebration, which would haunt the Cules for years to come, after Raul’s ‘keep quiet’ celebration, it has to be this one.

“Calm down, Calm down.. I goth this”

This epic celebration came after Cristiano scored the winning goal against Barca at the Camp Nouand ‘gifted’ Pep his first ever league Clasico defeat as a manager. This goal also, virtually, made us win the league after 4 long years.

When people labeled Cristiano as a big-game flop, he shut those critics up by rounding Valdes and slotting home the winner and then asking the crowd to ‘calm down’ and probably also saying ‘I got this’. What a way to shut up the critics.

ALL HAIL CRISTIANO.

3. Clasico win

May 7, 2008. RealMadrid 4-1 Barcelona. Who at that time knew that that would be the last time we would win a league Clasico in the next 4 years? Probably, no one.

But that was how it turned to be as we Madridistas had to wait for almost 4 long and painful years to win a Clasico in the League.

As they say, nothing lasts forever and Barca’s unbeaten streak finally broke when Cristiano scored the winner, at the CampNou, on April 21, 2012. And that virtually won us the League.

The curse was broken.

The fact that we won at Barca’s own backyard in front of approximately 98000 Cules made the win even more sweet. As Casillas put it, ‘we have suffered a lot, now it is time for Barca to suffer’.

2. Winning the League at San Mames

Until this season, no team ever won the league, officially, at San Mames. But Real Madrid officially won the league at San Mames and annihilated that fact.

The Basques are our other rival. And winning the league at the backyard of one of your rivals is always a satisfying thing. It becomes even more satisfying when the best player of your team – Cristiano, in this case – responds to the taunts of the rival fans by showing the Liga BBVA crest on the shirt, indicating that ‘we have won the League’.

And it becomes epic when your best player shows the ‘shove it up your arse’ sign to one of the rival players – Javi Martinez, in this case – in response to the rival player telling ‘celebrate at your place, not here, you son of a bitch’.

Anyways, winning the league in itself makes it worthy of being 2^nd in the ‘best moment of the season’ list. You might be wondering what could actually be a better moment than winning the league. Well, here it is.

1. Lifting the La Liga trophy after the final League game of the season

Finally.

Finally, the La Liga trophy came where it belongs; it came back home, to the Bernabeu. You could feel the trophy singing, ‘I am coming home, I am coming home, tell the world that I am coming home’,

When Iker went to the podium and lifted the trophy, it was a wonderful sight. A sight more beautiful than seeing the sun set from the beach. A sight which made a lot of people cry of happiness, smile, laugh and jump around. A sight that spread joy. A sight gifted by God.

This was also the first time Iker lifted the League trophy as the captain as the last time we won the league, Raul was the captain.