The Spanish matador
For one, there’s the arrogant swagger. This is the man, after all, who teammates describe as the “ladies’ man” – and not always with the kind of macho admiration you might expect. In an international squad that actually tends to be humble despite the assumed Barcelona-based hubris, Ramos is the one who acts like Mr Big Time.
Then, there’s the apparent apathy this brings. Most notoriously, it was he who let the massive Copa Del Rey trophy drop under Real Madrid’s bus as the club paraded it last year.
Similarly, there’s the insolence. After Real Madrid lost to Barcelona in that competition in January and Jose Mourinho blamed Ramos for failing to mark Carlos Puyol at a corner, it was the right-back who had the audacity to actually question a manager who has won two Champions Leagues.
“Depending on situation in the game,” Ramos supposedly whined, “sometimes you have to change the marking. Because you’ve never been a player, you don’t know that that sometimes happens.”
Marca’s front cover, meanwhile, showed Mourinho and Ramos squaring up, face to face. And the last of the Portuguese’s players to apparently challenge his authority so abrasively? John Terry.
It would perhaps be a little much to describe Ramos as Spain’s version of the Chelsea captain. But there are certain parallels.
When the Barca-Real Madrid rivalry reached its most rancorous point around the Champions League semi-finals last year, the Catalan players were apparently most upset with Iker Casillas and Xabi Alonso. “They expect different from them,” one Camp Nou insider said, “but they didn’t expect any different from Ramos.”
That’s not unlike Craig Bellamy’s infamous assessment of Terry back in February 2010.
And that raises a point about the most obvious way that Ramos stands out: he can be a trouble-maker... but he is set to be one of the few key Real outfield players in a Barca-heavy Spanish squad. To his left are Puyol and Gerard Pique. In front of him are Xavi and Iniesta.
As those Camp Nou insiders inferred, though, this abrasiveness might be less to do with the rivalry and more to do with Ramos’s personality. When Iniesta got involved in a beef that kicked off a brawl in a recent friendly against Chile, for example, it was Ramos who was one of the first in.
And — just like Terry — while aspects of Ramos’s personality might turn people off, you can’t deny his playing qualities. He was superb on Saturday night.
Ramos is essentially Spain’s version of Dani Alves, offering athleticism, pace, an extra angle and — most tellingly — width.
Granted, he doesn’t quite have the discipline, stamina or strike rate of the Brazilian — Alves offers a goal or assist at least every three games; for Ramos it’s every four.
But it would be foolish to discount his importance. In the 2010 World Cup, in particular, Ramos’s overlaps offered one of the only outlets in a Spanish team whose passing was often shuffled inside by very withdrawn defences. And, in La Liga, no native player does that anywhere near as good as Ramos.
Pointedly, it was also a Ramos goal that effectively signalled the start of Spain’s current span of dominance. After an opening to their Euro 2008 qualifying group which had seen the Spaniards lose away to Northern Ireland and Sweden, they travelled to Copenhagen in October 2007 simply needing a result.
But they didn’t just defeat Denmark. They destroyed them — and, most symbolically, through an exquisite 27-pass move that ended with the rampaging Ramos put through on goal and dinking the ball over Thomas Sorenson. By that point, a new Spain had finally arrived.
But, while Ramos will be a danger to Ireland — and particularly Stephen Ward — it’s those runs on the right that also might present Ireland with opportunity.
As we saw between Barcelona and Chelsea last week, an attacking right-backs runs can leave space in behind. Indeed, it was exactly through this route that USA ended Spain’s long unbeaten run in the summer of 2009.
The only problem is you’ve got to be clever and quick to exploit it. Ramos himself might not always be the former. But he is definitely the latter.
