Copa Del Rey and Meireles wins award

April 23rd, 2011 | by: Paulo |

Pepe1-e1297247207423 A very gutsy performance saw Real Madrid finally take down their arch rivals Barcelona in the Copa Del Rey final. Congratulations to Real Madrid and especially Mourinho, Pepe, Carvalho, and Ronaldo. The goal came after the first 90’ ended in a 0-0 deadlock. A one two pass down the left flanks between Marcelo and Di Maria saw Di Maria’s cross meet a fabulous header by Cristiano Ronaldo past Pinto.

Pepe has been considered the man of the match by many RM supporters. His ability to interrupt Barca’s midfield was amazing to watch, as he pressured Xavi and Busquets into making some mistakes, then fueling the counter attack. He did a fabulous job going forward as well with one of his headers hitting the post. As of right now, Pepe would start in the midfield for me in the NT lineup.

Carvalho played sensational again, and doesn’t get enough credit. He was under pressure all night, and didn’t make a single mistake. I think he is still one of the best center backs in the world, and he proved it again.

I think Mourinho’s counter attacking tactics worked great in this game. Overall, Barca controlled possession, but they never really advanced the ball up around the box a whole lot. They had a few unlucky offsides that could have been goals. As many of you know, Ronaldo didn’t get it done with his feet at ALL, so his header bailed him out. He was one on one with the keeper on more than one occasion and couldn’t convert. However, he came through like he usually does, and it was a well deserved goal. I cannot wait for the CL games. They are going to be heated, and downright brutal. I think RM win 3-2 on aggregate.

Meireles-liverpool-cropped In other news, Raul Meireles was voted PFA’s Fan’s Player of the Year award in England. Meireles has been nothing short of brilliant over the last few months for Liverpool and he deserved the award. He has notched 5 goals along with 5 assists this season! Congratulations to Raul!

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Comments

By Ivan | April 25th, 2011 at 7:14 pm

Congrats for the award, Meireles. You played quite great some months ago, even though we haven’t heard from you since you last scored.

Also, under the hang of Mourinho RM is finally able to challenge Barça since the 2007/08 season, by winning the Copa Del Rey, before even Mourinho finished his 1st season under such a problematic club as that one. Amazing! Who cares that his team sometimes plays “boring” football, what’s the point of playing open football when you get slaughtered by Barcelona in the end? And what about those who attempted to play defensive football and failed miserably? José Mourinho is brilliant in that regard, he knows each player hand by hand and where they should play. He loses 5-0, but fights back and learns from his mistakes, answering to the irrational and baseless critics of Di Stéfano with a victory. The only downside of Mourinho is that he’s very biased with the judgment of the referees’ choices (like when he laughed at the clear penalty in the League game against Barcelona), but that’s it!

Also, check your spelling (I’m really sorry for not pointing you that out earlier!), like the bold text is showing in my comment.

Gosh, another TL;DR from me?

Posted from Portugal

By Paulo | April 25th, 2011 at 9:41 pm

Apologies, need to listen to spellcheck. Good point about Mourinho learning from his mistakes, he is brilliant in that regard.

Posted from United States

By João | April 28th, 2011 at 8:16 am

Real lost with red card for Pepe (I honestly thought it was a deserved but both Portuguese and Real fans disagree with me on that :p )

Ah well maybe tonight will provide better results for Portuguese football.

Posted from Netherlands

By Tiago | April 28th, 2011 at 11:05 am

The red card against Pepe was completely outrageous. He got the ball, and even so, a yellow card would do. Straight red is ridiculous. The red card for Mourinho was also ridiculous. Im not a huge Madrid fan( Porto is my team) but I beleive Barca was definitely favoured by the ref(s). If you watch the interviews of Ronaldo and Mourinho after the game , they talk about it. Mourinho” If i talked about what I know of the Organization and Barca, my career would end” and Ronaldo” We can clearly see it. In games of Barca vs Arsenal, Inter, Chelsea in the Champions league where Barca were clearly faourited. Its enough”

Posted from Canada