30 campeones de las épocas

Yes, Championship # 30 is what Madrid played for on Sunday. Three games kicked off at the same time, at least the three that were important. Real Madrid hosting Real Mallorca at home, Barca at Gimnastic and Sevilla playing Villareal.

Well till half time all the three scores were relevant. All eyes were on Real Madrid's match as irrespective of Sevilla and Barca winning if Madrid won their game that would have been irrelevant and at half time Madrid trailing 1-0 at home to Real Mallorca who looked pretty comfortable. The big blow came when Ruud Van Nistelrooy was seen hobbling off the ground with an injury and the top scorer with 25 in the league and 33 in total forced off the game with Madrid needing goals to win is not a good sign.

Barca was making mince meat of Gimnastic with the score 3-0 at half time thanks to a goal from their skipper Puyol, Messi (this time with the leg) and a trade mark free kick from Ronaldinho. Sevilla was traling 1-0 to Villareal and eventually lost the match, and seeing how the first have played out at the Bernabaeu in weeks even i started doubting a better show in the second half. Capello was forced to replace the injured Van Nistelrooy with Higuain. At half time he took out Emerson and replaced him with the more attacking Guti.

Beckham for once was having a poor game, maybe the pressure of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes amongst the crowd and his third son wearing "Daddy 23" jersey would have got to him.
Also with Ruud out of the game there was not target man up front for Beckham to provide those crosses. Higuain and Raul are floating strikers and definitely struggle as target men. I have to commend Capello for one thing, he was aggressive in replacing Beckham with Reyes in the 66th minute. He responded with a goal with his first significant touch of the ball. Robinho after initially doing the thing on the left passed it to higuain who from the left corner inside the box passed it to Reyes who tapped it in a packed Mallorca box.

The goal was more of a relief than a shot in the arm. Madrid really started playing well, though they had over 68% possession almost all through the match they never utilized that well in the Mallorca quarter of the ground. Madrid finally went ahead when Diarra rose higher in between two Mallorca defenders to win the header from a Higuain cross, and it trickled in with a touch from Basinas. The next goal was the best of the lot, a one-two with Higuain and Robinho presented the ball inviting to be hit outside the box and the on loan star Reyes scored his second goal of the night. How important his loan can considered to be considering some of the important and few goals he scored.

Barca played off the game and finshed at 6-1 with two more goals from Messi and Zambrotta.

All in all it was great scenes in the Bernabeu to the packed 83,000 supporters. The first goal that Madrid scored almost blew off the roof, as it was a pressure cooker till then. It was amazing to see a great Champion himself like Rafael Nadal trying to hide his tears of joy. Tom Cruise jumping up and down kissing Katie in joy (God knows whether he was following what was happening)....

June 17th belonged to Real Madrid with their 30th League title and their first major trophy in 4 years. In a way it was Justice for two great players playing their last season in Madrid, Roberto Carlos and Beckham. How about a first season with 33 goals, 25 in the league-Ruud Van Nistelrooy has made a point to United and Ferguson.

Though Madrid struggled majority of the season, I have always believed that "Champions play till they get it right". Barcelona monopoly is over and happy to see statements from players like Puyol "we were over confident...."

I have spoken to numerous people who hate Madrid and for some reason they wanted Barcelona to win though they never like Barca. I have also had people watch some of the games with me who had no clue of the teams and how any team plays and they were rooting for Real Madrid the way they played their last 12 games, undoubtedly they were the better team. As Capello himself summarized " If winning is the mistake i did, i am ready to take the blame"