Sergio Ramos has risen up to become a true leader at Real Madrid
Spanish soccer bids adios to 2014 with another global prize and a few fresh, raw bruises on its skin. Real Madrid finished the year when Spain's national team had lost their international supremacy - their defense of the World Cup lasting a mere three games in Brazil - by taking home the Club World Cup. It's a much less valuable prize, but it felt sweet when it came into the hands of Iker Casillas, Real and Spain's captain.
And 2014 has been a year of rare swagger for Spanish club soccer, for La Liga: Not one but two clubs from Madrid contested the UEFA Champions League final; this after neither of the league's behemoths - Real and Barcelona - had won the domestic title. Atletico Madrid's two medals, gold in the domestic title, silver in the European Cup ought to make them strong candidates as Team of the Year. They set new standards of rugged efficiency, and redefined a hierarchy with Spain that had threaten to become suffocating and stale.
But it would not be wise to suggest around Real Madrid that their neighbors deserve the accolades for making most progress. Real secured the Club World Cup in Morocco, 2-0 winners in the final against the Copa Libertadores holders, Argentina's San Lorenzo, in a period of form that nobody can match. The manner of Real's win also held up a lens to the way it, as a squad, has grown up in 2014, how comfortably their senior players wear their pre-eminence.
San Lorenzo set about the European champions with a clear strategy to rile them, to rough them up in Marrakech. The defender Sergio Ramos had told the media ahead of the final that his club, with its global following, "are the team of the world, and of God," as if to place them firmly on the side of the angels. When Ramos received a yellow card earlier in the match, after a series of percussive duels, we were reminded that his angelic qualities are not always obvious, though there is much to admire in his game.
Sergio Ramos finished up being awarded the Golden Ball for the Club World Cup, an appropriate tribute to his authority during Real's two matches in Morocco, for his courage - he relished the physical character of the final and played in it despite a serious, painful muscle injury - and for his decisive goal. By minute 37, San Lorenzo's pragmatic approach was beginning to look as if it might frustrate Real. Toni Kroos then arrowed in a corner, Sergio Ramos met it and Real was heading towards its 22nd successive win.
That goal played out in flashback the great triumphs of the year. As a set-piece target, Sergio Ramos has few peers. The goal that ushered Real towards the Club World Cup recalled the goals that set Real on the way to the walloping of Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-final: Sergio Ramos scored two of the four Real registered in Munich. It recalled the way in which Real salvaged the Champions League final. One-nil down to Atletico with full-time a matter of moments away, his headed goal took that contest to extra-time, where Real would score another three.
Real Madrid owe plenty to Sergio Ramos. This is a figure whose nine and half years at Madrid have straddled eras. He was the young, dynamic and somewhat impetuous team-mate of Zinedine Zidane, Brazil's Ronaldo and David Beckham when he joined, aged 20. He played everywhere then, central midfield, both full-back positions and the center-back role that best suits his assets of strength, a terrific leap, speed and distribution over long range.
His frailties? A temper, bouts of red mist. Against the vast collection of prizes he has now accumulated - a World Cup, two European championships with Spain; league titles, Copas del Rey, a Champions League, Spanish and European Super Cups and now a Club World Cup with Real - are set also the startling number of red cards: 19 in his career with Real.
There were four in 2013 alone. Indeed, there have been times during the major duel that has defined his club career, the battle with Barcelona for Spanish supremacy, where Sergio Ramos's mercury-reading, how heated he became, how volatile his judgments, became a sure-fire way of gauging Real frustrations.
That has changed. In the most successful Real Madrid of the last decade, a wiser Sergio Ramos emerges. Trusted by his head coach, Carlo Ancelotti, with whom he evidently has a far closer relationship that he had with Jose Mourinho, Ancelotti's predecessor, he has refined his qualities of leadership. His last red card was a while back now, in March - against Barcelona, who else? - and when the Real president, Florentino Perez, this weekend described him as "a man who epitomizes the club's values", it was a combative, unyielding athlete, not a hothead he was praising.
The players himself enjoyed his Ballon D'Or for his efforts in Morocco. He won't be getting the major Ballon D'Or award for 2014. His colleague Cristiano Ronaldo will almost certainly receive that at the FIFA World Player of the Year gala next month. What Sergio Ramos can anticipate with certainty in 2015 is challenges that will stimulate him, from a feisty Atletico, who Sunday showed their vigor is undimmed, coming back from 1-0 down at Athletic Bilbao to win 4-1, and from Barcelona, who closed their dispiriting year with a 5-0 win against Cordoba.
Real, Barca and Atleti finish the year 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but in reverse order from their final positions last season, and tight enough to one another to maintain suspense.
