Toronto 1–5 Real Madrid: Los Blancos Dominate In Canada

Editor’s note: EPL Talk blog­ger Rob­bie Kotovi­ets put on his jour­nal­ist hat recently and went to the Toronto ver­sus Real Madrid in friendly to cover the game for La Liga Talk. Below you’ll find his obser­va­tions regard­ing the press con­fer­ence and game, as well as a slideshow of pho­tographs taken from BMO Field. Enjoy.

Real Madrid Press Conference

The pregame fes­tiv­i­ties didn’t feel at all as if it were just a reg­u­lar train­ing ses­sion. More like a cup tie. Sit­ting in the press con­fer­ence room and being sur­rounded by jour­nal­ists from all over the world gave it a great sense of impor­tance. Span­ish media out­lets and those from Eng­lish speak­ing coun­tries dom­i­nated the atmos­phere. Per­son­ally I felt like a kid at his first day at Toys R’ Us. The hard part was wait­ing anx­iously for man­ager Pel­li­grini, Guti and Iker Casil­las to walk into the room. See­ing them in per­son and on tele­vi­sion is com­pletely different.

When the ques­tion ses­sion started most of the Span­ish media were ready to pounce. For them cov­er­ing their beloved Real Madrid was a cake walk. More of the media here were a bit taken back I should say but nonethe­less were very involved. Through­out the con­fer­ence Pel­li­grini was asked about what he knew about Toronto FC and what his goals were for the future in terms of Real Madrid and their pur­suit to win trophies.

Pel­li­grini knew lit­tle of Toronto FC but was aware of their CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons league aspi­ra­tion after being knocked out by Puerto Rico. Also, that this was a great way for get­ting all the new sign­ings to “gel” together and see how their in game-form would pan out.

Now we all know the lifes­pan of a Real Madrid man­ager and hav­ing been suc­cess­ful with Vil­lar­real, Pel­li­grini knows the pres­sure is on. “The first chal­lenge is to win with Real Madrid and to sat­isfy the team and the sup­port­ers,” said Pel­li­grini. So he knows the pres­sure is on and has to deliver on all cam­paigns. That’s eas­ier said then done. Just remem­ber Vin­cente Del Bosque.

Guti is quit pleased with the return of Flo­ren­tine Peres and is happy with the big money sign­ings that he hopes will bring suc­cess. As for the new sign­ings of Arbe­loa and Xavi Alonso, Pel­li­grini is happy and looks for­ward to incor­po­rat­ing them into the exist­ing base.

After the q&a ses­sion ended, the team shirts were exchanged which I thought was a nice ges­ture on the part of both squads. Very classy.

Real Madrid Train­ing Session

Now, to the train­ing ses­sion. I have never seen any­thing like that. BMO felt like a cup final which was a sign of things to come for the match still to play. Raul, Guti, Ben­zema (larger in stature then I thought), Higauin, Robben, Snei­jder, Casil­las and the rest of the squad were all at hand. Get­ting to field level I was awed by the impromptu five a side which saw a Ronaldo dive take place which got the whole crowds atten­tion includ­ing a few jeers as well. For me the hard­est work­ing player in train­ing was Dren­the. He really looks like a man on a mis­sion and I think we’ll see him grow through­out the La Liga campaign.

Speak­ing to fans out­side after the train­ing ses­sion the con­sen­sus was that it was a dream come true to see one of the biggest clubs in the world and that it’s some­thing they will talk about for years to come.

Toronto FC v Real Madrid

All I can say “it was incred­i­ble.” Enter­ing BMO was a chal­lenge, a sea of peo­ple all over. The smell of food stalls and team chants from both TFC and Real Madrid fans were ram­pant every­where. A real foot­ball atmos­phere. You could tell it was dif­fer­ent from an MLS match sim­ply by the inten­sity in the air and the amount of media that were cov­er­ing it, includ­ing La Liga Talk.

Head­ing up to the media press box was defi­antly an expe­ri­ence. See­ing every­one from the top Cana­dian, U.S. and Inter­na­tional out­lets was amaz­ing. Every­one from the world was there. Includ­ing James Shar­man from The Score Net­work. After reach­ing the top I couldn’t believe the view. Fans were fill­ing the sta­dium and await­ing the entrance of both squads.

When the two teams entered BMO was shak­ing you couldn’t tell if it was the fans or an actual earth­quake. With the Toronto sky­line as a back­drop, the match was ready to go.

First Real Madrid entered with all the names being read it was no sur­prise that Ronaldo was who every­one came to see, and later, he wouldn’t dis­ap­point. Then TFC entered and we were all ready to go. When both the national anthems of Spain and Canada were sung all the fans sang, but the Cana­dian one under­stand­ably more so. Stream­ers and even the smoke can­is­ter were on hand to get the crowed going.

After the whis­tle was blown to start the match, the match was on and from that point no one was in doubt that Real Madrid would con­trol the match. With Raul open­ing the scor­ing, Cris­tiano Ronaldo (CR9) didn’t dis­ap­point the BMO faith­ful after putting the ball near side past the keeper from Benzema.

Raul would then put in his sec­ond from Met­zelder and Albiol fin­ish­ing it of with a header. A sub­lime piece work I must say.

Ben­zema would make it 4–0 until TFC with a mas­sive yell of relief from the crowd made it a 4–1 with a goal from Gabe Gala which left Casil­las stranded.

Arjen Robben rapped things up to make it 5–1 to the Madradis­tas. For tonight’s match, there were no losers. The city of Toronto (the most mul­ti­cul­tural city in the world), TFC and its fans were treated to a spec­ta­cle of Span­ish wiz­ardry. For TFC, they got a chance to play against the world’s best and hope­fully this expe­ri­ence will help them in their drive for a play­off spot when they host D.C. United on August 15th for a cru­cial match.

For me this was an expe­ri­ence of a life­time but more so as a fan. We watch the teams that we sup­port week in and week out. We talk about them, have opin­ions on them and write about them. To see them in per­son is not only an honor but a priv­i­lege. I am glad I could share my expe­ri­ences with you and I hope you will go see your favorite teams bat­tle it out wher­ever it may be. This is some­thing I will talk about for a long time.

View exclu­sive images from the Toronto v Real Madrid friendly via the fol­low­ing slideshow.