We took advantage of the (relatively) cheap tickets to get seats right on the edge of the pitch for this Copa del Rey match. There was no Ronaldo, Di María, Kaká, Casillas, etc but it was well worth it to see Benzema, Özil, Khedira, Callejón and some more of our home grown players tonight.

I have 2 words for you:

Callejón Selección!

Villa is injured and was not in good form anyway. Torres is in a massive slump. Ok, there is Soldado who is performing well, but minute for minute Callejón is on a hot streak. If he keeps playing and scoring goals I think he should replace one of Spain’s out of form forwards.

After sitting front and center I can’t see myself ever taking one of the top of the stadium seats ever again. I’ll stay home and save my pennies for good seats. It’s so much better down below. See for yourself with the photos!  It’s like you’re in the middle of the action, everything is happening in front and all around you. Grant it, up top, you see the whole field and follow the action better, but it’s not as exciting.

I honestly couldn’t tell you how well we played and I get this feeling whenever I go to a live match. Today I was too busy taking pictures in the first half and the second half was played more on the other side of the pitch where I could clearly see but you don’t follow as well when level with the playing pitch.

Aside from Callejón I noticed Altintop seemed to be all over the place, in attack and in defense. Although not brilliant, he seems to be a well rounded player. One thing I did see quite clearly was the goal scored against us and I wasn’t too happy about it. When watching the game up close you can see that Pepe is the master and commander of the backfield. He shuts down pretty much everything that comes his way. He looked especially imposing with the captain’s armband tonight. So I was quite surprised that he didn’t close down on the player that took that shot.

Regardless of it being a copa match against a small team, people came out tonight. The stadium was pretty full and there was a lot of support also from the visiting team. I saw a lot of bi-supporters who seemed to support their small club but were also Madridistas. All in all, well worth the price of the ticket.

As ‘AS’ pointed out, our youth team can get the job done as well. Well this was our youth/B team with 3 home grown goals (Callejón 2, Joselu 1) and Sahin finally got on the board as well as Varane. Now we can go into the Christmas break with the best position in all competitions and all left to play for. Hala Madrid!

See more match photos on our Facebook page.