Chapter 105: A Gift for Everyone—So No One Gets to Laugh at Anyone Else
At halftime, Leon was in high spirits. His grin was so contagious that both his teammates and Mourinho found their own moods lifted just by looking at him.
Of course, they all assumed he was happy about racking up another assist. None of them realized there was more to it.
At this point, Real Madrid were leading Espanyol 3–1 at home.
The three goals they scored showcased their strength; the one they conceded, well… that was more about sportsmanship.
It was an open, attacking match. Everyone was just "doing their best," whether on offense or defense.
The fans were entertained. The players were enjoying themselves. And really, if you thought about it, there was no need for Real to go full throttle and smash Espanyol 5–0 or 6–0.
Before the second half began, Mourinho made a couple of substitutions.
Alonso, the midfield engine, was subbed off to rest. Essien came on to do a bit of patrolling. In his current usage cycle, forty-five minutes of sweeping the midfield was no problem at all.
With Alonso off, the responsibility for deep-lying distribution fell squarely on Leon's shoulders again.
Callejón, having picked up an assist, was also subbed off after completing his tactical assignment for the day. Kaká came on to play the No. 10 role, while Di María returned to his usual left side.
Cristiano Ronaldo was just one goal away from another hat-trick. Mourinho wasn't going to sub him out—not with a hat-trick on the line. He left him on specifically to chase that third goal.
With all these adjustments made, Real played with even more patience in the second half. The tempo slowed slightly, and the team focused more on creating chances for Ronaldo.
Di María, Kaká, Leon, Ramos—any time they saw Ronaldo free or making a run, they looked for him first.
And let's not pretend this kind of stat-padding is somehow shameful.
Just a few weeks earlier, when Messi scored two in the first half against Valencia, didn't all of Barça work together in the second half to feed him the third?
When your team's star has a shot at a hat-trick, helping him seal it is just common sense.
Mourinho, seeing the win was in the bag, didn't mind leaning the tactics toward giving his striker a boost.
Sure enough, in the 68th minute, Ronaldo scored his third goal—completing the hat-trick before the 70-minute mark.
And a good part of the credit went to Espanyol's bold playing style.
Their aggressive posture gave Leon a chance to drop a beautiful long pass behind the back line for Kaká.
Kaká, for the first time in a while, delivered a clinical cross that Ronaldo smashed home.
The passionate embrace between Kaká and Ronaldo after the goal set off screams from female fans across the stadium.
But when the camera panned to the midfield, showing Leon and "The Bison" Essien hugging in celebration too, those same female fans' smiles froze on their faces.
As it turns out, not every "ship" is fanservice material—at least not for everyone.
What male fans affectionately called the "Lion & Bison" power duo… well, to many of the CP-crazed female fans, it was a hard pass.
Leon, however, loved partnering with Essien.
Just like with Alonso, the sense of trust and chemistry was priceless.
If Khedira had come on instead? Leon wouldn't have been smiling nearly this much.
Ahem… yes, that might sound a bit harsh—but it was the truth.
In the end, Real Madrid wrapped up Matchday 26 of La Liga with a thrilling 5–2 win over Espanyol.
It was a highly entertaining match—plenty of goals, plenty of action. A game that fans of all stripes could enjoy.
Even Espanyol supporters felt they got their money's worth.
Scoring twice at the Bernabéu? What more could they ask for?
Total value achieved.
From coaches to players to fans—everyone on both sides went home satisfied.
And just after the league match wrapped up, the Champions League Round of 16 resumed for the second legs.
But this time, CSKA Moscow didn't have the frigid Russian winter acting as their protective wall.
Under the soft spring sun of Madrid, the Russian Premier League powerhouse was completely overwhelmed by a Real Madrid squad that was only half first-string.
From the opening whistle, the tempo was set by Los Blancos. They controlled the rhythm from start to finish.
Leon, along with the in-form Essien and Alonso, locked down CSKA's midfield for the second game in a row.
Dzagoev had clearly learned his lesson—no emotional flare-ups this time. He played calmly, with discipline.
But Real's dominance in midfield and up front left him and Keisuke Honda completely smothered.
There was no space to play, no rhythm to dictate, no way to shift the pace of the game.
Without a foothold in midfield, CSKA couldn't even muster a proper counterattack.
And since they refused to park the bus completely, they were punished.
Pinned back for nearly the entire first half, they conceded two goals with surgical precision.
One from Ronaldo. One from Ramos—both off set pieces.
The overall score now sat at 4–0.
CSKA's fighting spirit? Gone.
The only thing they managed the rest of the game was a lone consolation goal in the 76th minute—Dzagoev assisting Tosic.
Final score: 4–1. Aggregate: 6–1.
Real Madrid cruised into the Champions League quarterfinals.
That meant Leon was now just one round away—two matches—from fulfilling his preseason tongue-in-cheek declaration that the "minimum goal" for the team was the semifinals.
Cristiano Ronaldo, with his brace in this match, raised his Champions League goal tally to 10—sitting atop the scorer's chart.
Messi was in second with 7.
Even though Barça's second-leg match against Leverkusen hadn't been played yet, most fans believed Messi wouldn't be able to catch up before the quarterfinals.
And Ronaldo agreed.
Scoring a hat-trick in the Champions League knockout rounds is insanely difficult.
Four goals? Even more unlikely.
Ronaldo didn't believe for a second Messi could drop four in one game.
Feeling good and full of confidence, Ronaldo returned to La Liga with zero signs of fatigue.
On March 11th, in an away match against Real Betis, he once again bagged a brace, helping Madrid to a 4–2 win over the gritty mid-table side.
After that frustrating draw against Racing Santander, Madrid had bounced back with another winning streak—maintaining their stronghold over Barça in the league.
That said, the clean sheets were getting harder to come by.
Several reasons for this: Mourinho was still sparing Essien's usage, and Alonso's defensive form had dipped slightly in the second half of the season.
Xabi wasn't getting any younger.
He had to prioritize organizing the attack and preserving stamina—helping Leon on defense was a secondary task.
And when Khedira or Di María played in midfield, their defensive support simply didn't match what Essien could offer.
Take this league match, for example.
Di María played the first half in midfield and scored a goal.
Then Khedira came on in the second half and delivered an assist.
Everyone got something.
A goal here, an assist there.
A little gift for everyone—so nobody had the right to laugh at anyone else.
Both players performed decently in attack, but defensively…
Well, let's just say the effort was there, but the dirty work still all fell to Leon.
In these kinds of matches where Leon had to constantly cover for others and plug gaps everywhere, no matter how much he could run, it was simply impossible to be omnipresent from minute one to ninety.
Fortunately, even with reduced defensive intensity, Madrid only conceded occasionally—at worst, one or two goals.
And as long as the offense kept firing and Madrid could consistently score three or more goals against mid-table teams, the risk of a major upset remained extremely low.
Besides, this slight dip in form had to be seen in the context of the long La Liga season.
It was inevitable. Every top team experiences something similar.
In fact, Real Madrid's fluctuations were relatively minimal.
At worst, they were held to a draw by a relegation-threatened team, and their loss came against Levante—who were fourth in the table at the time. Hardly a shocking upset.
You could say Mourinho had made a calculated choice. He was conserving Essien, holding him back as a trump card for the final league push and the tough Champions League clashes ahead.
After Matchday 27 of La Liga, practically every fan's attention shifted back to the Champions League.
In the previous week's knockout fixtures, APOEL, Benfica, Real Madrid, and AC Milan had already booked their spots in the quarterfinals.
Now it was time for the remaining eight teams to battle it out for the last four places.
On March 13th, the highly anticipated clash between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich took center stage.
Bayern made short work of Basel, destroying them 7–0 in the second leg—a display of pure dominance.
Inter, on the other hand, had it rough. They conceded a crucial away goal to Marseille.
Even though they won 2–1 at home, they were eliminated due to the away goals rule, having lost the first leg 1–0 in France.
Marseille, with that slim margin—1–0 at home, 1–2 away—scraped into the quarterfinals.
On March 14th, it was Barcelona and Messi's turn under the global spotlight.
And Messi didn't score three or four goals.
No.
He scored five against Leverkusen.
They collapsed—utterly shattered.
Barça made their ambitions crystal clear with a bloody 7–1 slaughter that shook Europe.
Barça and Messi's fans exploded into another wave of euphoric celebration.
It was as if that one Champions League performance had suddenly erased all their recent domestic pressure and doubts.
Messi's five-goal haul pushed his Champions League tally to 12, overtaking Ronaldo, and once again shifting the entire football world's attention onto himself.
Leon wasn't surprised. He had mentally prepared for this.
Unlike other fans or players who were stunned by the performance, Leon's reaction was calm.
As for the scattered online chatter mocking Messi for stat-padding, his view was the same as when people said the same about Ronaldo.
Unnecessary.
Scoring five goals in a Champions League knockout match isn't "padding." What, do people think Leverkusen were an amateur team that just let him walk through?
If they couldn't handle it, that was on them. Weakness is the original sin. Fans can mock Leverkusen all they want for being bad—that's fair game.
But to say they deliberately let Messi score? That's an insult to the professionalism of Leverkusen's players.
So what if Ronaldo was overtaken on the scoring chart?
The quarterfinal draw hadn't even taken place yet. What's the rush?
Let Ronaldo unleash another scoring spree and take the lead again—that's all.
That was Leon's mindset, and it's exactly what he told Ronaldo during training on March 15th.
Ronaldo had been in a gloomy mood, but seeing Leon's confidence in him immediately lifted his spirits.
And no—it wasn't just empty comfort.
Leon genuinely believed Ronaldo could come back strong in the next knockout rounds.
No football fan in the future would ever forget what Ronaldo did in the 2016–17 Champions League knockout stages, right?
Just search it up: "2016–17 UCL, Ronaldo reverse sweep, your phone screen isn't long enough to fit the top scorer table."
Leon had watched that madness unfold—this wasn't even close to that level yet.
No worries. Take it one match at a time. When the tough games come, Ronaldo would switch into cheat mode.
He'd go supernova.
Bayern, Marseille, Barcelona, and Chelsea—who pulled off a dramatic comeback against Napoli—joined the previous four teams to complete the Champions League quarterfinals.
On March 16th, the draw for the 2011–2012 Champions League quarterfinals took place in Nyon, Switzerland.
This draw would not only determine the quarterfinal pairings, but also divide the bracket into top and bottom halves.
One draw to map out the entire path to the final? That's enough to make anyone's pulse race.
It wasn't just fans glued to their screens—players from all clubs made sure to be at their training bases in time to watch the draw live.
Among them, the players from Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Bayern were the most confident.
Madrid and Barça both hoped to be drawn into the same half.
Madrid wanted revenge for last season's heartbreak.
Barça wanted to beat Madrid head-on once again to solidify their dominance in both Spain and Europe.
Bayern? They didn't care.
After the heartbreak of the 2010 final, the team had regrouped and rebuilt confidence over the past season and a half.
They were ready to challenge for the title again—and if that meant facing Real or Barça, so be it.
It didn't matter whether they met early or late. Bayern's players believed they'd win regardless.
But just as the three powerhouse teams were eagerly hoping to clash…
UEFA's upper brass pulled the plug.
To protect TV ratings, there was no way UEFA would allow the top three favorites to eliminate each other in the quarterfinals.
After a totally "random" draw, the Big Three were conveniently separated.
Real Madrid and Bayern went to the top half—set to face Marseille and APOEL, respectively.
Barça and Chelsea landed in the bottom half—up against Benfica and AC Milan.
Well, there it was. The two most marketable teams—Madrid and Barça—were safely in separate brackets.
And all three favorites—Madrid, Barça, and Bayern—just happened to draw "gift opponents."
What a coincidence. Such a massive coincidence!
After the draw, only Chelsea vs. Milan looked remotely balanced.
The other three matchups? Complete powerhouses versus underdogs.
It was such a perfect alignment that fans everywhere couldn't help but mock it.
But for once, those tired old arguments—"lucky draw," "UEFA darlings"—didn't really catch fire.
The football world actually felt… quiet.
And Leon, after watching the draw ceremony, laughed and joked to his teammates:
"This time, none of the big clubs' fans can talk trash."
"Everyone got a gift bag—what's there to argue about?"
"No one gets to laugh at anyone. Let's all march into the semifinals and then start the real fight."
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