Like Pele, Rodrigo Goes grew up in Santos. After the legend's death, the Brazilian winger of Real Madrid wrote on Twitter, "We grew up hearing your story every day in the mouths of people in Santos."
Yesterday, the three-time World Cup winning legend was laid to rest, Real Madrid also went to the field of Casereno. Rodrigo paid his last respects to Pele by scoring in this match.
In this match of Copa del Rey, the champions of Europe did not win when they played against Casereno, the fourth level team in Spanish football. Carlo Ancelotti's team won with Rodrigo's goal in the 69th minute.
The Italian coach made nine changes to the playing XI against Real Valladolid in La Liga last Friday. Which can be called the second row team of Real. Karim Benzema rested Vinicius Jr. Real did not play well in the first half. After the break in the 69th minute Rodrigo showed magic like Pele when he got the ball on the left side.
One, two, three, four — four 'touches' like that to fool the defender in front. Another defender from Casereno moved to his right as he took the fifth touch. Rodrigo made a fool of him and scored with a cool shot at the far post. Then Pele was brought back to the celebration. Jumped three times, each time throwing a fisted right hand into the air—Pale's 'trademark' celebration. Then looking at the sky, what did Pele look for? Who knows!
After scoring a headed goal in the 1970 World Cup final, Pele celebrated by throwing his fisted right hand into space. The legend has celebrated goals like this many times for Santos.
Although the similarity with Pele in the celebration is the most important, Rodrigo's movement when scoring a goal was similar to Pele's. Pele has been seen attacking with the ball on his right foot many times.
Late in the match, Caserno was desperate to repay the goal. But with Ancelotti's team playing defensively, that was no longer possible. With this victory, Real reached the last sixteen of the Copa del Rey tournament.
After the victory, Real coach Ancelotti criticized Caserno's field, 'It is not possible to play football here. It didn't feel like we were able to play football, it felt like some other game. It is good to see this battle of small teams with big teams. But people also want to see good matches.'