Hit dirt, shake tree, Split sky, part sea…

Strip smile, lose cool, Bleed the day and break the rule

Live to win, dare to fail… Eat the dirt and bite the nail

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Then make me miss you, Then make me miss you

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So wash your face away with dirt, It don’t feel good until it hurts

So take this world and shake it

Come squeeze and suck the day… Come carpe diem baby

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Draw lead, piss wine… Sink teeth, all mine

Stoke fire, break neck… Suffer through this, cheat on death

Hug the curve, lose the time… Tear the map and shoot the sign

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Then make me miss you, Then make me miss you

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So wash your face away with dirt

It don’t feel good until it hurts

So take this world and shake it

Come squeeze and suck the day

Come carpe diem baby!

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Carpe Diem Baby (Music and Lyrics by Metallica)

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As I gathered my thoughts on what I feel are the key points to the game, a song from Metallica’s much-derided Load+Re-Load albums struck my head. And as I pulled out the lyrics to read them, I discovered that a band whom I consider to be one of my absolute Musical Heroes actually managed to write a song which came out on a 1997 album to capture very accurately my feelings as I looked forward to football match on 10 December 2011 – a full 14 years after. Amazing.

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Writing this has also been in a way, been inspired by and fired up by the comments section of RMFB: from the Real Madrid fans whose confidence is oozing out of their ears to the level of becoming borderline-arrogant, to RM fans who like me, look to the game with cautious optimism. And then there are the Barca fans – who comment at RMFB (for reasons I still have yet to comprehend): some of them to be fair, make level headed comments out of their sensible recognition that their team is not as invincible as they were a year ago, while many others have become testaments to the idiocy that boredom (or a lack of better things to do) brings to a person.

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In light of the madness that these pre-clasico days bring, I implore, invite and request all who consider themselves to be true Madridistas to set an example and set ourselves APART from the dumbass Trolls who pester us at RMFB like tiny nugget pieces of shit that refuse to go down even you flush your toilet 10 times. Let us NOT be like them: if you are a true Madridista, please DO NOT imitate these idiots by going to a rival Barca site to troll and start fires. And I wish to emphasize this second point even more clearly: regardless of the result, but most especially IF WE WIN, please do not go there to insult, mock or gloat. If we lose, it will be a time of reflection and analysis of what went wrong and what we can to win in the next encounter. If we win however, our celebration of victory should also be taken as an opportunity to show the trolls who come to our site what Winning with Grace and Class means.

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Personnel and Tactics

The thing that I wish to say about tactics re: this game is that in many ways, I think they won’t matter. The discussion of whether Real Madrid should play a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3 to me is not really relevant. The past recent matches, from the 4 clasicos at the end of last season to this season’s Super Copa ,told us that Real Madrid can play either formation and give them trouble.

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I exclude the 5-0 because that was in my opinion Mourinho’s Madrid at its ‘infancy’. Though talent-wise, the 2 teams might have been equal, Barca at the time was far more mature and developed squad. That would have been no different to a boxing match between an 18 year old and a 25 year old whose talents were equal – the latter would still knock the former out despite their parity in talent because the 7 years age difference gives the latter a 7 year advantage in terms of experience, training and tricks.

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For Barca, Pep’s played his 4-3-3 and his 3-4-3 against us and has won with both formations – so it doesn’t matter to me too. Mourinho and the world already know the weaknesses of each formation anyway.

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Personnel-wise, Real Madrid seem to have each key position filled up despite the niggles. On the wings, Ronaldo and Di Maria looks to be able to play despite their knocks while the absence of Kaka is made somewhat irrelevant by Ozil’s availability. Granted that the 2 are very different players and that a player with Kaka’s ‘jets’ would definitely come in handy against a team who will leave us space. One defense, the injury to Arbeloa has been somewhat compensated for via the steady presence of Lass while Carvalho’s extended injury layoff has been made irrelevant by the imperiousness of the Ramos-Pepe partnership. At the center of midfield, Sahin is back, Khedira has no nagging injuries and Xabi Alonso got himself yellow carded vs. Atleti without even trying – ensuring that he’ll get some much-needed rest prior to the game).

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Alonso’s yellow card is a particular talking point as a contrast to Gerard Pique’s pathetic attempt to imitate him. I am outraged that he wasn’t given an extra suspension for ‘forcing’ the yellow given the new rules against it – which were inspired by Alonso’s dancing routine last season that got our ‘14’ an additional suspension despite the fact that there was no rule specifically against it at the time. What can I say? The Spanish Federation lives up to their brand slogan “La Liga: Played by Geniuses, Run by Idiots”.

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There’s also talk of Victor Valdes possibly getting an additional suspension too. I do NOT want Valdes to be suspended. I want him available for the Clasico. I want to see the look on his dickhead piece of shit face when we score on him. He can then choose to get sent off after that – that way, we can also get to see Pinto and the look on his equally dickhead piece of shit face when he gets his turn to be scored on. I digress with my fantasies…

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Seizing the Day

There are many fans, journalists and pundits who seem to sense the winds of change coming to La Liga’s shores. They have seen the signs on the wall, the omens in the sky and so forth. Here are some of them…

1.)  Barca choosing to spend their money on Cesc and Alexis Sanchez instead of looking for a backup for ageing Puyol and Abidal, not to mention Milito, which leads too…

2.)  … Stints at CB for players who are not natural CBs like Mascherano and Busquets

3.)  Another side effect of item #1 is the seemingly imbalanced look of their 3-4-3 which at times features 2 false 9s (Messi and Cesc)

4.)  Barca’s poor pre-season whose fatigue effects are starting to show, which leads to…

5.)  … The emergence of the recent phenomena of Messi-dependencia

6.)  … A slower, less-snappy, less-precise and much more stoppable tiki-taka

7.)  The world’s discovery of an anti-tiki-taka tactical serum. Regardless of the fact that Xavi will condemn it with his propaganda as an immorality and a scourge to football, it is actually legal and a legitimate way to play regardless of the size of the club that uses such tactics.

8.)  Real Madrid’s frightening level of form and fitness (e.g. Higuain and Benzema BOTH on fire)

9.)  Real Madrid’s deep squad

10.)   Real Madrid’s galvanized squad not just with regards to dressing room chemistry, but in terms of on-the-pitch cohesiveness (e.g. Ronaldo turning from a prancing ball-hog into a kill-you-with-my-scoring-AND-passing-player this season)

11.)   Real Madrid’s ability to be EQUALLY as dangerous as a possession-based team, and a counter-attacking team. In both scenarios however, the signature is the same: ruthless speed, verticality and direct force: whether you let us have the ball or not, no messing around, no dilly-dallying, pitter-pattering, it will always be: ‘Wham, Bam, thank You Ma’am, here’s the goal, and another, and another… good night’

12.) Mourinho’s realization on how to deal with Barca in the press: no more potshots, wars with other coaches about playing B-teams vs. Barca, wishing Villanova a speedy recovery, etc. i.e. somehow realizing that the best way to galvanize the team is not by being an agent provocateur towards Barca and other clubs but to actually be more stable and cool-headed.

13.) A six-point lead (ok, technically it’s only 3, but we’ll have a game on hand) – which means there is no element of ‘shit, if we lose to them, we’ll lose our lead’. Mourinho’s speech to his players will probably sound like ‘If you lose, we will still be league leaders, but if we win, we’ll be league leaders by NINE points.’ Barca know this too: they have everything to lose in this game no matter what who says: because in a league where 90 points isn’t enough to win it, a nine point deficit is practically a death sentence.

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The circumstances above are a product of the actions of Real Madrid’s Management (Perez and Mourinho) as well as that of the Footballing Fates. Through their actions and ability to read the circumstances surrounding the club and that of our rivals, we have managed to prepare a situation where all the ingredients necessary for glory are now available to us – to the players. Having these ingredients on the table however is not enough for us to win – which is the reason why I raise an eyebrow whenever I read sentiments from Madridistas that reek of ‘we’re gonna win for sure this time’. The existence of ‘winds of change’ however does not necessarily result in change, it only indicates that the probability for change is high.

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We must not speak about beating Barca or ending their hegemony as a pre-determined or pre-destined occurrence. Such a thing can only happen if Real Madrid plays to its absolute maximum level in that game… and such a thing happening is in my opinion, now solely down to mental fortitude. Each encounter with them since the 5-0 where we walked obliviously into a tiki-taka firestorm has shown a progressive improvement in the team’s mental disposition.

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In last season’s 5-0, the team seemed to realize perhaps at 2-0 or 3-0 how truly bewilderingly good Barca was and how far off we were from them. Then, in the last 4 clasicos of last season, the team approached the game thinking that winning was possible but with certain parameters (if we set up this way and that way tactically, etc.) and it proved to be so during the Copa Del Rey final – affirming the team’s suspicions though not fully validating it (due to our loss in the CL). Finally, in the Super Copa, though the trophy was not ours to take back, we walked away from that matchup knowing full well that we had the full capability to beat them with no qualifications (e.g. we can only win if we play defensively, etc.). The conclusion after that game was: “We CAN indeed beat them, no ifs, no buts, full stop.”

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What is key and interesting to note now is that this matchup’s winner will no longer be decided by talent or tactics – both teams are about even in that aspect. Putting the ‘luck aspect’ aside, this has now reached a point wherein the winner will be decided by the mental toughness of the players and coaching staff of each team: will we have the level of concentration required to score on the chances we create? Can we keep ourselves defensively-focused for 90+ minutes? These are all the little details that are derived from mental toughness, poise and focus. It is all now down to who is mentally tougher and ultimately, hungrier.

That is what it takes to win. The prize is there, and it’s within our reach but we must not make the mistake of thinking it is ours to take. All that is left now is for the team to reach forward, out with both hands and seize it.

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Carpe Diem Baby! Carpe Fucking Diem!

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p.s. just in case you might think I ripped off the ‘Carpe Diem’ theme from Tomas Roncero’s column today, I wrote this last Friday morning :)