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It was written that Morientes would play with Raúl.-- realmadrid.com
Raúl González Blanco
For decades Real Madrid have been the biggest, richest, swaggest, haughtiest, most elegant team in Spain, and at the turn of the millennium Raúl González was Real Madrid. The funny thing is that as a kid he started playing for their "working class" crosstown rivals, Atlético de Madrid, but when their youth academy shut down in the mid-90s he came over to Real, age 15, and never looked back. (The fact that this was clearly destiny can be seen in how the club nickname is los blancos, which is also, as you see, Raúl's second surname.) When he debuted for the senior team in October 1994 at age 17 and four months, he was the youngest player ever to do so. In his debut game, against Zaragoza, he got an assist; in his second (and home debut) -- against none other than, of course, Atlético -- he scored, the first of his 323 goals for Real Madrid.
That year they won the league. (Raúl was elected its breakthrough player.) The next, he was Real Madrid's top scorer -- an 18 year old, at the biggest club in Spain. That fall he was called up to the senior national team for the first time. The national team captain at the time was Real Madrid assistant captain Fernando Hierro. In 1999, after a match in which Hierro scored to come within 3 goals of becoming Spain's all-time top scorer and Raúl had just scored his 10th goal of the year for Spain (keep in mind there's only a handful of international matches per year), someone asked Hierro about his upcoming record. He said, "It will be a nice anecdote. Because there's a Ferrari coming up from behind that's going to pass us all."
But back to Real Madrid. The fact that a teenager was their top scorer in 95-96 was amazing for him and a wonderful sign for the future, but not so great as a reflection on the other players. So in summer 96 they bought two established strikers, Suker and Mijatovic, with a view to playing all three together as a flashy attacking trio. It seemed to work: they won the league again, with Suker duly topping the scoring table (and Raúl, still 19, just a couple goals behind). And so in the summer of 1997 Real Madrid looked to buy a reinforcement to fill in for Suker or Mijatovic now and again, and found
Fernando Morientes Sánchez
Here is how is how Fernando Morientes' biography on the official Real Madrid website begins: "It was written that Morientes would play with Raúl."
A military brat (or guardia civil brat to be exact), born where his father was stationed in the most rural province of Spain (Extremadura), "Mori" made his professional debut for Albacete at age 17 and met Raúl a year later playing for Spain's U-20 team. Fresh from two years at Zaragoza, where he'd scored in every other game, he was meant to be a substitute. Instead, "from the first moment," continues the official club website I'm not making this up, "Raúl and Morientes, Morientes and Raúl, were perfect 'dance partners'." Instead of playing back up, Mori quickly took over Suker's starting place and went on to become the team's top scorer that year. And most importantly, that was the year Real Madrid won their seventh European Cup.
In case you're not too familiar with football , the Champions' League -- formerly known as the European Cup, which is what Real Madrid still, stubbornly, call it -- is a yearly knockout competition between the best clubs in Europe and for Real Madrid, an obsession. Or rather, a definition -- they practically invented it; they won it five years in a row; they've won it ten times all together. But in 1998 they'd won it six, and the last time was 32 years before. FC Barcelona, who'd only won it once, liked to say that at least their European Cup was from the era of color television. So when Madrid won the seventh, "la Séptima", it was a huge fucking deal.
(Guess who was their top scorer in the Champions' League campaign as well?
But of course.)
And thus began the mythical golden age of 1998-2002, my favorite era of my favorite team and the very best of these two players' careers. Because that's the thing, they brought out the best in each other -- Morientes is remembered as a great striker, but nowadays people don't always remember how incredibly good he made Raúl. Playing together, Raúl was in contention for one of the best players in the world. He was not only Real Madrid's top scorer for three years in a row, but the top scorer in the entire league twice, top scorer in the entire Champions' League twice, best forward in the Champions' League three years in a row, best player in the league four years in a row, runner up for the Ballon D'Or aka best player in the WORLD... like, I could keep listing off award after award, or you could just look at this stupidly long list and notice how many of those date between 1998 and 2003. And of course Real Madrid won just about every trophy under the sun, including not one but two more European Cups: three in five years. Raúl and Mori were described as "telepathic", "magical", "the perfect strike partnership", "a perfect understanding," and as they loved to tell people they were best friends off the field, too.
"just on a super nerdy movie date during national call ups nbd"
They bought a hotel together...
...took badly-dressed vacations together...
...were present at the birth of each other's children...
...and, oh right, some time during all this they got matching ankle tattoos.
So in other words, you could say they were pretty close.
"I think that moment [in 1995] was one of the most beautiful in our careers because when you are with the younger national teams the pressure you face in club football doesn't exist... You live life and football in a totally different manner; we did so as teenagers who were just at the start, with a hunger to go on and achieve great things. Those memories of spending time together, the games and the training sessions, are great."
-- Fernando Morientes, 2009
Now, as previously mentioned, Raúl & Morientes first met playing for Spain's youth teams, specifically at the 1995 U-20 World Cup in Qatar.
(1995 U-20 World Cup and 1996 Olympics, respectively)
But now their experience with the national team was a little more... fraught. While it's almost impossible to imagine now, before 2008 Spain had A History of choking, flopping, and generally failing to live up to their potential. This generation and particularly, of course, Raúl were supposed to change all that. But in 1998 Spain went out of the World Cup in the first game of the knockout stage (Raúl scored one goal); in 2000 they went out of Euros in group (Raúl missed a penalty and manager Jose Antonio Camacho said his biggest mistake was not bringing Morientes). The closest they got to glory was the World Cup in 2002, where they went out in the quarterfinals on penalties, after having not one but two goals (one from Morientes) wrongly disallowed.
aaaand then
The World Cup is really what marks the end of the golden age. Because -- this is a long story. But being one of the biggest and most prestigious clubs in a country as football-mad as Spain means serious politics. President of the club is an elected position, and in some ways the maneuvering is just as internecine and vicious as in actual government. In 2000 Lorenzo Sanz, the president under whom Real Madrid had just won two European Cups, was ousted by Florentino Perez, who promised that not only would he put the club to rights financially but that he would also bring over Luis Figo, the star creative midfielder of FC Barcelona.
(This is a different story -- and one I love -- but suffice it to say that Figo's transfer was the equivalent of dousing Camp Nou in gasoline and lighting a match in the middle of the pitch. It was one of the most infamous moves in one of the most bitterly contested rivalries in the entire sport, and you haven't heard the last of it.)
Steve McManaman, an English player who was at Real Madrid for some of these years, wrote in his autobiography that you could immediately sense the change. Perez had a Vision, capitalized, for transforming Real Madrid into a "global" club -- or you might say, into a global brand. The players each received a beautifully put together dossier reminding them of appropriate behavior and image, to reflect positively on the club. The training grounds were razed in favor of a new cutting-edge facility. The logo was redesigned, the uniforms were redesigned, everything, it seemed, was redesigned to reflect FIFA(tm)-elected Club of the Century Real Madrid... and to sell lots and lots of merchandise, starting with millions of jerseys.
Because this was the central strategy of Perez's tenure: to buy all the best players in the world and build a team of "Galacticos". IF IT SOUNDS MEGALOMANIACAL, IT'S BECAUSE IT IS. And so obviously the first step was to look around the squad and slowly ease out the players who didn't fit.
There was no question about keeping Raúl, of course; he was the peak of his stardom. Morientes, on the other hand, was -- here's the thing about Mori. He was a really good-natured guy, popular with his teammates and beloved by the fanbase, but for all that he was recognized as a great forward he wasn't a Star -- he wasn't the kind of player who was the face of Pepsi or Niki or Adidas. He was a brilliant player, but not a Galactico. And in 1999-2000, the season just before Perez came in, he'd had some injury problems -- he scored the first goal in the title match that won them la Octava, the eighth European Cup, and you can see in his face just how important this is:
"If Fernando wasn't already a Madrid player, they would probably try to sign him. But as he's already at the club nobody rates him." -- Ginés Carvajal, 2004
First Perez bought Figo. Then he bought Zinedine Zidane, one of the best players of all time. Playing Figo and Zidane and Raúl and Morientes and important players like Steve McManaman and Claude Makelele was difficult enough. (The kicker is that despite that, in 01-02 Morientes was Madrid's top scorer again, despite having to fight for a place.) And then, in 2002, Perez decided he wanted to buy Ronaldo, the Brazilian striker widely considered the Best Player In The World. In other words, despite the fact that Morientes had practically won them a European Cup, despite the fact that he was not only one of their most productive strikers but that he also made their best player even better, he wasn't a Brand Name, so he had to go.
And this is why I use the World Cup to mark the end of an era, because if Morientes, who was scoring in almost every match Spain played, hadn't had that goal disallowed, had gotten them into the semifinals (which would have been their best performance in decades) and maybe even further, that might have been enough for Perez to let him be. ("Might have"; tbh you never really know.) But at any rate, it didn't happen, so. They got back from the World Cup and here's where the politics go really crazy:
Real Madrid wanted Ronaldo from Inter Milan. Inter Milan needed a replacement player and/or the money to buy one. Real Madrid therefore needed a shitload of money to give Inter, and the way they decided to do that was to sell Morientes. Just one problem, Morientes very vehemently didn't want to leave Madrid at all. But that, apparently, didn't matter. It was already August, and Madrid and Inter had until the close of the transfer window at midnight August 31st to close a deal. Mori said later that for the last couple weeks of August, he woke up every morning expecting to hear he'd been sold. On August 27th, Real Madrid flew to Monaco to play for a European trophy called the Supercup; as of August 29th, the night before the game, Morientes was in the starting lineup to play the next day.
The next day, August 30th, the president of Barcelona -- Barcelona -- called Perez. They would love to buy Morientes! Problem solved: Mori + $$$ go to Inter, who immediately sell him on to Barca and with the two sums buy a new player, and Ronaldo goes to Madrid. This deal is reported as essentially done in the papers. Meanwhile, hours before this trophy final is supposed to start, Perez calls the manager and orders him to drop Mori from the lineup altogether. "[They] offered me a plane if I wanted to return to Madrid; I refused, of course. I had come with Madrid to Monaco and I would return with them as winner or loser, never alone." This is pretty much Mori's worst nightmare, but Raúl absolutely flips the fuck out. He goes out to play the final wearing Mori's jersey under his own. When they win, he and Hierro almost angrily urge Mori down from the stands (he couldn't even dress for the match) to take part in the team photo and the celebrations; he sticks to Mori like glue. Then "the two players, plus Fernando Hierro, argued openly and bitterly with Pérez and Valdano in the lobby of their Monte Carlo hotel late that night."
But what they say doesn't fucking matter. It's going to happen. Until... at 9 PM August 31st, Perez gets another phone call. It's Barcelona's president. Oh so sorry, they don't want Morientes after all. This is, no joke, his ELABORATE REVENGE SCHEME to get back at Perez for the Figo deal. With three hours to go it seemed like the deal was sunk, but uh-oh, Inter had already signed a replacement, spending money they didn't have. In a panic, Moratti (Inter's president) phoned up Perez, and they worked out a deal just in the nick of the time involving future trade promises that would still allow the sale of Ronaldo to go through. So Mori would stay... but he'd have to fight with one of the best players in the world, whom their president had a very vested interest in seeing on the field, for a chance to play. From an article written two and a half years later:
"Perhaps the decline in Real's heart and soul can be traced to that night and the cavalier way in which a talented, loyal servant was treated. Morientes hurts defences and works for the team, for his coach, for his partner - all the while scoring his own share. Perhaps that explains a remarkable scene in September 2002. Morientes was finished, as far as Pérez was concerned. So, while the striker warmed the bench against Espanyol, the entire Bernabéu continually chanted his name. The late goal Steve McManaman scored to seal a 2-0 win almost passed unremarked as wave after wave of "cariño" washed down from the Madrid faithful."
As indicated, he barely played at all the entire season. Things came to a head in February when he was told to go on as a substitute in the 87th minute of a Champions' League match, aka to play about 5 minutes in a competition that was his specialty, and the normally easy-going Morientes exploded, allegedly telling the manager "You go on, you son of a bitch," and outright refusing to do it. This is especially shocking because the coach was a really nice, calm, avuncular guy whom the players generally loved. (Too much of a nice, calm, avuncular guy, as a matter of fact, as he was the next to go under Perez in favor of a series of managers with flashier pedigrees. No Real Madrid manager since has matched his trophy success. His name is Vicente del Bosque, and for his next big job he won Spain the World Cup.)
It was clear, at any rate, that Morientes' time was up. When the summer transfer market opened up, Real Madrid bought their next Galactico, David Beckham, and Morientes went out on loan to AS Monaco, in the French league.
And here's where the fortunes of Raúl and Morientes diverge, because while Morientes was about to thrive abroad, Raúl and Real Madrid were about to experience a miserable, awful slump. At the end of 2003, Raúl's friend and mentor -- not to mention team captain -- Fernando Hierro had also been forced out, leaving Raúl as the newly anointed captain of a club that with the signing of Beckham had just done everything humanly possible to grab the attention of the entire world. With (for now) the final piece of the Galactico puzzle in place, the most expensive team in the world were not just expected to win, they were expected to win everything. Pressure? You have no idea.
Meanwhile, at Monaco, Morientes had arrived just in time to take part in propelling them through a fairytale year, "the little club that could" who made an incredible run through Europe all the way to the final of the Champions' League. But start with the group stages, where Monaco played Deportivo la Coruña in the far northwestern corner of Spain:
A Coruña is 300 miles from Madrid. Raúl literally just flew up to watch this match with Mori, who was out with a minor injury. BECAUSE THAT'S NORMAL.
So Monaco get through the group stages, they get past their first round opponent, and now they're in the quarterfinals, where they draw...................... Real Madrid.
Here's a clip about Monaco's trip to Madrid from the documentary about that Monaco season, which I highly recommend because of how it was edited by someone whose heart is one with mine, aka lingering angsty shots of Mori looking up at the Bernabeu SET TO STING'S "SHAPE OF MY HEART" I'm not even joking. So the way the Champions' League knockout stages is set up is that, unlike the World Cup, each round is two matches, home and away, and if each team wins once then it's decided on goals, with away goals as the tiebreaker. You see where this is going? Little Monaco go to Madrid and it's an easy win for Madrid, 4-2, and Morientes gets a big ovation from the home fans when he scores Monaco's second goal in the last few minutes of the game because they still love him.
Then, for the return leg, Madrid come to Monaco. Raúl scores in the first half. Madrid, the favorites, are up 0-1, 5-2 on aggregate, and they can relax. Then, just before halftime, Monaco's captain Ludovic Giuly scores.
Then Fernando Morientes scores.
Then Giuly scores again.
Monaco win 3-1. Aggregate score: 5-5. Away goals: Monaco 2, Madrid 1. Madrid go out, Monaco are through.
This is Mori scoring the goal that put them ahead in Monaco:
Watch this from 00:56 if you want to see a really vicious, vindicated celebration. It's customary not to celebrate against the club that owns you if you're on loan or, say, an old club you have particular attachment to, but as he's said since, they were his club and his friends but he wanted to show them. And he did.
This is after the final whistle:
So only, you know. One of the greatest most emotional hugs in all of football.
The all-new Galactico-brand Real Madrid were unceremoniously dumped out of the Champions' League -- "their" competition -- by one of the players they'd sent away. They wouldn't even get as far as the quarterfinals for the next six years. They lost the league, they even lost the domestic cup, a competition they'd more or less considered themselves too good for. They had a roster of global names and absolutely nothing to show for it.
Fernando Morientes, on the other hand, came out of the season as AS Monaco's top scorer as well as top scorer in the entire Champions' League, in which he was awarded Forward of the Year. (Unfortunately they did end up losing the final to, like, the origin story of a comic book villain.) Not only was he naturally expected to return to Madrid, he was called back up to the national team for the first time in months, just in time for Euros. And let me tell you, no one was happier to have Mori back than Raúl, who spent the entire tournament cuddling and/or looking smitten.
JUST TAKING A CUDDLE BREAK DURING TRAINING AS YOU DO
...unfortunately Spain flopped pretty hard in that tournament. Again. But Mori was one of the only two Spaniards to score at all, so there's that.
(And of course, having just spent an intensive training camp and international football tournament together, with an overseas tour and full domestic season ahead, obviously that's not enough time together, so what do you do? Go on vacation together yet again!
Totally a reasonable amount of time to spend together.)
Anyway, with Morientes' amazing form at Monaco (and Real Madrid's dismal season) it was pretty much a given he'd be back in Madrid. The newest manager (Camacho of Euro 2000 fame, see above), who was not surprisingly delighted at the prospect, called to reaffirm his "trust" in Mori and said many times that he planned to use Raúl, Morientes, and Ronaldo as regular starters. The club went on a preseason tour of Asia, which aside from this delightful incident in which Raúl and Morientes receive new nicknames. mostly consisted of Raúl making faces like this:
Aaaand then two weeks before the end of the transfer window Perez signed striker Michael Owen, at the time considered one of the best players in England, as Galactico #5. The expectation, as communicated to the manager, was that he would be start most games. All of this went directly against Camacho's wishes, who as the one nominally in charge of the team felt disrespected and powerless. By September 30th he'd quit, and Mori barely played from then on out. By the time the winter transfer opened in December, it was obvious he would be leaving -- they'd finally, finally pushed him to the point where he was the one that wanted out. In January he signed for Liverpool, and that was the last Real Madrid saw of one of their most generous, talented players for a very long time
Here's the thing about Mori though. On the surface he's a really friendly, smiley, nice guy; underneath, as you can tell from how he felt in Monaco, there's someone who can hold a grudge, someone who savors revenge. But under that -- he gave an interview to AS in 2009 where he talked a lot about almost being sold to Barcelona, loaned to Monaco, finally getting forced out for good. Then they ask him, "What do the words Real Madrid suggest to you?"
"That I'm a Madridista, that I was there from age 21 to 28, that I lived the best years of my professional life there, that my favorite trophy is la Septima. They suggest to me wonderful friends..."
After you finish clawing your face off, you can decide whether this is just the kind of effect Real Madrid has on people, or whether underneath it all Morientes is just incredibly, stupidly loyal. I personally feel the answer is both.
That was his last Real Madrid training session. Just saying.
Q: Do you think [David Silva] is already a 'galáctico'?
A: I've never liked that word.
-- Interview with Fernando Morientes, 2007
So Mori goes off to Liverpool -- we'll come back to that. Meanwhile, Raúl. When Fernando Hierro was more or less forced out of Real Madrid at the end of 2003, Raúl became captain -- just in time for his best friend to leave, David Beckham to complete possibly the highest-profile transfer in the history of the sport, the "Galactico" media frenzy to increase by a factor of roughly one thousand, Real Madrid to lose every competition they were in, and he himself to go through a playing slump. These were possibly some of the toughest conditions under which to begin a captaincy, no matter how much of a natural-born leader you are, and you can see how much he changed over the course of the season -- how serious and tired he became. But as far as his own performance was concerned, this was nothing compared to the next couple seasons. The year Morientes left, he slumped to 13 goals; the year after, seven. Seven, when he hadn't scored less than 20, and closer to 30, between 1998 and 2004. And this is where the tide of public opinion, even (or especially) among Real Madrid fans, started to change. Before, he had obviously been their golden boy: coming up from the academy, bursting onto the world stage, so clearly an Earnest Young Leader. (Here's another fact about Raúl: he's never, in his entire playing career, gotten a red card.) Now, not only was he slumping hard and long, his role in those insidious club politics began to come into question. There were major rumors in the press that he was dead set against Michael Owen and attempting to have him pushed out, that he tried to wield an abnormal influence off the field. Real Madrid fans began to divide into factions, pro- and anti-Raúl.
His role in the national team didn't help. After the 2002 World Cup Raúl had become team captain; in February 2003 he'd surpassed Hierro's record to become Spain's all-time top scorer. But then after their respectable and bittersweet World Cup in 2002, in 2004 Spain were a dismal failure. They scored exactly two goals, neither of which were from Raúl, their main striker. And now, where some had been willing to cut him slack for his failure to really make his mark on previous tournaments, there were rumblings that with the national side, he choked when it counted. Furthermore, there were deep divides within the national team based on club allegiances -- namely, Real Madrid vs Barcelona -- the rumor was that having the captain of Real Madrid as captain of the national team only made it worse, that he hurt the squad more than he helped them. Controversy began to brew over whether his seemingly unquestioned inclusion in the starting lineup was keeping out promising young strikers like Fernando Torres and David Villa.
Meanwhile, in England, Fernando Morientes couldn't adapt to the Premier League at all. Though he loved the club and the fans and they loved him, for whatever reason -- it's a bit of a mystery to this day -- it just never worked on the pitch. He only scored three times in his first six months, and nine times in his second season. Though this wasn't for lack of support, since guess who flew over to catch the occasional Liverpool match while wearing a Morientes Liverpool jersey??? AGAIN, A COMPLETELY NORMAL THING TO DO, CLEARLY. But England wasn't working out -- yet again, he lost his place in the national squad, well before the World Cup -- so in summer of 2006, he was sold back to Spain, to Valencia CF.
There, he rediscovered how to score overnight, if never quite reaching his previous heights. He and David Villa, Raúl's heir apparent, formed a great playing partnership, and got along well off the field too. In fact Mori was so good he got called back up to the national team... just as Raúl was dropped. Because after Spain went out of the 2006 World Cup in just two rounds, the dispute over Raúl reached a crescendo. He was dropped from the national squad after September, and -- once the new young squad went on to win Spain's first title in 58 years -- never called back up again. Who took his number? David Villa.
Q: Is Raúl your best friend?
A: One of the best for sure. Friends friends, I mean.
This is how things continued more or less unchanged for the next three years. Whenever Madrid played Valencia this is what happened:
(As you can see from their relative degrees of happiness, Valencia just lost.)
Or they'd have some sponsorship event and Raúl would do that thing with his face he does:
Morientes played regularly at Valencia, reliable and content, but not the star he once was. Raúl continued on as captain, getting just that much more somber and worn down every year. While he did recover his old scoring magic for a couple seasons -- enough that the "Raúl for Spain?" question flared to life again before Euro 2008, until a Raúl-less Spain won and put the question to rest forever -- it was overshadowed by an ever burgeoning reputation as the "sporting director in the shadows". Here's a sample of the type of things people were saying. My personal opinion is that he got involved in club politics out of necessity rather than desire, and that whatever he did do, he was convinced was for the best of the club -- even if it turned out not to be. He may have made mistakes, but I don't believe for a minute that he tried to force players out because they threatened his own personal glory. He took on a role he thought he had to and doggedly kept it up even when it hurt. Or at least, that's my take on it.
Q: With all the new signings, do you think your friend Raúl will win a starting place in the new Real Madrid?
A: Raúl doesn't need to win a place because he's shown with the years that he's always there and has always given the utmost. I believe that Raúl , today, should be given a monument for what he's given to football and what he continues to give, and that the people owe him the greatest respect. They're always talking about him, and he's always there, silent, working and adding more, which is the most important. We'll certainly miss him once he's not on the pitch.
-- Interview with Fernando Morientes, 2009
Q: What's your first thought on the subject of Raúl yes/Raúl no?
A: This topic bores me. For me, always Raúl .
-- Interview with Fernando Morientes, 2009
At the end of the 2009 season, Mori announced he'd be leaving Valencia. He was nearing the end of his career at this point -- his last season in Valencia was noticeably quieter than the first two. So he went off to Marseille to reunite with his manager from Monaco. And then Marseille drew Real Madrid in the Champions' League, leading to this COMPLETE DELIGHT (as gifed here). Yeah that definitely looks like two opponents warming up to play each other in the biggest competition in Europe!
Unfortunately, though Mori had a two-year contract at Marseille, after a year it was clear his time was up. In August 2010, he officially retired. But even more importantly, after months of speculation, in July Raúl announced not that he was leaving Real Madrid. But he wasn't retiring, he was moving to Schalke -- Raúl, who hadn't played anywhere else since he was 15.
He'd said many times that he wanted to finish his career at Real Madrid, and everyone thought he would. But when the time came when he would have to stay on the bench more and more, he decided that wasn't enough. In addition, Perez was back -- after resigning in 2006, he'd returned in 2009 for a second stab at the Galactico project, and it was no secret that Raúl and Perez didn't get along at all. Which is probably what's to blame for the bittersweet and kind of shameful way he was seen off. It's customary for someone with the kind of legendary status and connection to a single club that Raúl has to have a farewell match or a tribute match when he leaves. Instead Madrid announced the night before that there would be a press conference the next day, and that was that. A few hundred fans showed up on the last minute notice they were given, but if they'd done it properly they probably could have filled the Bernabeu, which is no less than he deserved just saying. He's played the most, won the most, and scored the most of any Real Madrid player in history.
This is his farewell video, which manages to be both completely ridiculous and drown me in a pool of my own tears. YMMV.
Here's one last story: remember what I said about Raúl's debut? In 1994, against Zaragoza, in La Romareda. Raúl got an assist. Real Madrid lost. In April of 2010, Madrid was playing Zaragoza again, in the same stadium. In the 48th minute, Raúl signalled that he was injured and couldn't continue. A substitute began to prepare to come in, but before a substitution could be made, Real Madrid were on the counterattack -- and Raúl scored. He came off right after, and was subsequently ruled out for the rest of his last season. His final touch of the ball for Real Madrid was a goal, in the stadium where he'd debuted. They won the game.
-- right so there are some Raúl feelings here. There's a happy afterword to this though, because the great thing is that in Germany Raúl rediscovered, like, his joy in the game/IN LIFE, and in the process not only won over the Schalke fanbase for life but also showed an amazing determination and longevity that put a lot of his haters in the shade. He became top Champions' League scorer of all time as Schalke made an incredible run to the semifinals. He was there for two years, and they loved him so much that they retired his number for a while after he left. After those two years, he still wasn't done playing, so he signed for Al-Sadd in Qatar, which is where he is right now.
MEANWHILE, Fernando Morientes was flitting around enjoying retirement, jetsetting to various ex-football luminary events around the world, trying out commentating. And then of course they kept doing shit like, oh, Valencia's playing Schalke in Germany, I'll just come to Dusseldorf and have a friendly breakfast in your hotel, because that's also definitely normal.
But! After all of a year away from football, Mori got bored. He started working toward his coaching certification with a small team in Valencia, and then summer 2012, literally out of nowhere, I woke up and the Real Madrid website was like, ANNOUNCING OUR NEW YOUTH COACH, FERNANDO MORIENTES. Home after eight years! EIGHT YEARS.
He turned out to be not so bad at it, either, as Juvenil B has won their league both years he's been in charge so far. Oh, and they went to Qatar for a tournament, so obviously --
And sometimes Raúl comes to Madrid to idek have dinner apparently:
More to the point, in any given Morientes interview two topics will inevitably surface: 1) who was his favorite person at Real Madrid and 2) how totally great would it be if Raúl came back to Real Madrid and coached too, to which the answers are "Raúl" and "really totally great", giving me the kind of false hopes that are destined to end in pain. BECAUSE RAÚL JUST WON'T RETIRE. Though there's a good side to that, too, because last summer Al-Sadd were invited to Madrid for the a preseason friendly invitational called the "Trofeo Bernabeu", and finally, finally Raúl got his tribute match. He played one half for each team and scored for Real Madrid. I cried, but probably not as much as he did.
Literally the only drop of regret in this cup of feelings was that on this day Juvenil B and their coach Fernando Morientes were playing a youth tournament in Mexico. On a different continent. Because of course they were.
And here we are in more or less the present. Mori's happily ensconced where he should have been all along ahem, Raúl's rumored to be moving to a second-tier US side this summer; while his dogged drive and hunger and steadfast refusal to give up are classic Raúl, I also want to know when he's just going to take the hint and COME HOME FOR GOOD. Mori won't wait forever, you kn--oh wait, the evidence suggests actually he probably would. Well. (Update: one week after I wrote this, he left the Real Madrid coaching establishment. No word on what comes next. Of course. Of. Course.)
I leave you with my very favorite football fanvid ever, which is incredibly cheesy and over the top and completely 90s fandom, and I love everything about it. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
Futher reading
Articles:
That time real published journalist Simon Kuper wrote an OOC boarding school AU
Phil Ball on Fernando Morientes, 2002
John Carlin on the Ronaldo transfer
Sid Lowe on Raúl at Schalke
Books:
Steve McManaman, El Macca: Four Years with Real Madrid, an account of (among other things) the transformation of Real Madrid between 1999 and 2003
John Carlin, White Angels, a highly biased but nonetheless interesting look at Real Madrid's cursed 03-04 season
Sid Lowe, Fear and Loathing in La Liga, just a really good book
Video:
Le periple rouge, the full documentary of AS Monaco's miracle season
Documentaries/matches/celebrations pertaining to Real Madrid's seventh, eighth, and ninth European Cups
Credits
on twitter: @ambitiouspants, Raúl's most devoted fan, and the original guinea pig team of @sketchingbirds, @silmerin, and @shiiruba
on tumblr: lasgatitas, fernando morientes' unofficial archivist
on livejournal: nahco3, ashirbaad, labelledcaustic, and worldcoup, longtime shippers; mimsicality, subject to a dry run of this concept almost 3 years ago; and vcf-fangirls, for all the Valencia-era Mori
the guardian, foremost media shippers
A TRIBUTE TO RAÚL and Gol de Raúl, last of the old-school fansites
your patience