Winning. | burgundy's Blog

So your front office spends the whole summer trying to pry away the Best Player in the World du jour from one of the most storied franchises on the planet. The many repeated efforts, some of them juvenile, allows your team logo to get smeared with the stain of pettiness. The efforts are useless. Your team looks foolish. The front office fails in all respects.

Then right at the very end of the silly season, in late August, your most promising young star, an uncanny dazzler with the ball and a charming personality who is very popular with the fanbase, decides that he wants to leave, immediately. It is about the money. Perhaps it is about the coach. Nevertheless, at the worst possible moment you are losing, either to the bench, to a contract dispute, or to the nearly-closed transfer window, a superior talent.

In the midst of all of this, your team still needs to play well in order to start off the season. The Super Cup, the most minor of the trophies, is also a pretty good bellweather for the state of every team. Win, and you are off to a great start. Lose, and you have issues before the season gets under way. The first leg went about as expected against a rejuvenated Valencia team that is certainly going to improve upon their chaotic previous season. Your team, Real Madrid, is not impervious to great soccer moreso than any other team and although pundits routinely attribute their defensive lapses to greater problems the simple truth is that at this level you cannot stop teams from demonstrating that they too are great.

On the return leg the summer break shows the toll it takes on every player. The game cannot be simulated and touches are tedious, tackles are careless, and communication is strained. Valencia makes a great play and your are down 1-0, 4-2 on aggregate, at halftime. Your team is the one every non-Real fan loves to convert into some hideous, soccer-style Goliath. Yours is the team everyone else loves to see fail. You see this all the time, disaster is eminent. At this point, at the half, you are also playing minus a man. Summer signing, the one that actually worked and wanted to be here, Van Der Vaart - has been sent off, direct red card for a ill-advised tackle. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Then there is hope. Early in the second half Ruud van Nistlerooy, the old guy who everyone seems to think is on his last leg, gets a penalty. Although some other parts of his soccer dossier might be weak, there is no one you would rather see lining up at the penalty spot. The man scores. That is what he does for a living and he doesn't disappoint. The score is now tied, 1-1. On aggregate it is now 4-3. Four minutes later, Mr. Savior takes his first step towards Mr. Scapegoat and draws a yellow card. Twenty minutes later Mr. Savior seals the deal and gets yellow card number two. He is sent off. You are now playing with nine men versus 11 and on aggregate scoring you are not going to take home the trophy - as minor as some say it is - and you are going to lose it at home, in front of 100,000 of your fans. Your opponent is going to win on your turf and after doing so you are going to have to sit around and watch them dance on your field.

Your team keeps playing.

Your team keeps fighting.

The disgruntled Chelsea star-to-be is sitting so deep on your bench that he has to look around the water-bucket to see the game - not that he is interested. His replacement, the guy who is always hurt and was a dubious signing to begin with, Robben, is quietly putting on a clinic.

The old guy, the one everyone thinks should retire, the one that did not get called up to Europe, the one that most people, even some fans, want pushed into a head office job as of yesterday, is holding the line. He is struggling and fighting and creating with every chance he gets. Raul is the captain and there is a reason for this.

Then the Kid catches a break. Off of a corner kick - because don Bernd knows a thing or two about soccer and so your team still has some fight left in them - the Thug with no skills, Diarra, bounces one off the crossbar and the Kid who always pushes up too much from defense and who goes discoing, poorly, the night before big games drills the ball into the back of the net. Four minutes after playing 9 versus 11, Sergio Ramos pulls your team ahead 2-1. You are tied 4-4 on aggregate.

All of a sudden there is faith.

Santiago Bernabeu comes alive because this is what everyone wants to see. Everyone wants to see the impossible.

Then the guy who no one though twice about, a canterano of all people on a team that tends to reject canteranos, launches one from outside the box, less than ten minutes later, and it finds the net. Ruben de la Red, the guy that people overlook be he the canterano or the national team player that quietly goes about his business, has just made it 3-1 and taken away any doubt out of the aggregate score (5-4). The away goals rule is now pointless and this trophy - the minor one that no one cares about - is now within reach.

Three minutes later, the other kid, the one that no one thinks can score and some think should have never been brought into Real Madrid in the first place, pounces on a defensive error with his speed and with his vision. 4-1, ball game - send in the clowns. Gonzalo Higuain has now removed all doubt You are now ahead on aggregate 6-4 with two minutes left in regulation time.

People everywhere seem to have forgotten that you a playing with only 9 men versus 11, 8 in the field versus 10. Your coach, the one people continue to doubt, has turned an advantage into a disadvantage and your opponent - the upstart team that has returned from it's own ashes - has been out-foxed. Too little, too lte - the guy who used to be a Real Madrid man, Fernando Morientes, runs through your defense and scores with one minute left in the game - as if to remind the powers that be that he has that skill even though they routinely robbed it from him in the press.

The whistle sounds. The final score is 4-2. The trophy that no one cares about is yours.

This is winning.