Real Madrid v Levante – From 10sion to ex10sion!

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The full-time whistle blows at Pamplona. The score reads 3-2, but there is something wrong with. Very wrong: it wasn’t Barca whose name was near the ‘3’, it was Osasuna’s. The unthinkable happened: the team who got thumped 8-0 by Barca back in September just beat Barca 3-2 at Pamplona.

Shock.

However, when Cules where in the land of desola10ess (sorry, but this is going to be the trend of this review), Madridistas were in absolute joy – so much that many of them starting making #A10 puns/jokes on Twitter even though Real were yet to play and ex10d the lead to 10.

The Real Madrid match kicked off. 4 minutes into the match. Free-kick for Levante. And we did what we do best: concede from another set-piece and concede before we score. And then Benzema’s goal was wrongly ruled out offside. It seemed to me like the #A10 jokes before the game have jinxed us; Real were going to lose 3 points.

But that, fortunately for us, didn’t happen.

Just before half-time, Iborra, who was on a yellow, was shown a second yellow when he handled the ball inside the penalty area. Cristiano stepped up to take the penalty and, as usual, scored. I hope that Messi doesn’t pay a10tion when Cristiano takes penalties – that way, Messi will keep missing penalties

Anyways, Cristiano then gave us the lead after an excellent cross from Higuain which was easily headed in by Cristiano. Only Higuain knows how he executed that cross from such an awkward position

Cristiano then doubled the lead and completed his hat-trick by scoring an orgasmic goal from around 27 yards out. The dip the ball got while hitting the net was just a definition of awesomeness.

Then Levante pulled one back in the 63rd minute from a Kone goal. But Real again doubled the lead when Benzema scored his first and Real’s 4th goal of the game.

Tactics

We started with a fluid 4-2-3-1 with Benzema playing in the hole behind Higuain, Oezil on the right and Cristiano on the left. Oezil – who now looks really comfortable playing on the right – and Benzema constantly swapped position in attempt to drag out the Levante defenders out of their position, but Levante’s zonal marking before they got reduced to 10 was quite good.

Numerous times in the match, the right flank was completely free of Real players apart from Arbeloa. This was probably done for Arbeloa to produce width as Oezil went in the middle playing as a ‘free agent’.

Levante started with a 4-4-2/4-2-2-2 with 2 holding midfielders, 2 wide midfielders and Kone leading the line with Valdo just behind him as the support striker. Levante’s intentions were pretty clear: they didn’t come to Madrid for attacking – at least that was what they showed after scoring from the set-piece.

Levante almost always had 8 outfield players (2 lines containing 4 players each) behind the ball. Valdo was the only one pressing high-up the pitch and Kone was the only one who did little or no defensive duties – perhaps that’s how the Levante coach wanted it to be.

When Levante got the ball, Kone almost always drifted out to the left to stretch Ramos out of his position and succeeded in it a few times, too. Kone was the only Levante player who was threa10ing our defense from open play. His trickery caused our defenders a lot of problem. And he also scored giving Levante hope, but it just wasn’t enough as Levante were down to 10 men.

Real really benefited from Nabil el Zhar’s substitution at half-time. Nabil, who was playing as a right midfielder, did well in the first half with his defending. His defensive work on the right hand side of the pitch was important for Levante and I was a bit surprised to see him getting subbed off.

Since Zhar was subbed off, Cristiano became lethal. Pedro Lopez – right back who can play as a winger – came in for Zhar. But he really couldn’t keep up with the pace of Cristiano and was run ragged by him.

All in all, it was a great match. It started off with a Levante goal, which gave us Madridistas a lot of 10sion, and finished off with us winning 4-2, which ex10ded our lead from 7 to 10 points.

Now all we Madridistas should hope is for Real to be consis10t. I am sure that if we keep up our consis10cy and Barca keep up their inconsis10cy away from home, we may as well receive a pasilo from them in the next league Clasico.

Hala Madrid! #A10