The ultimate shithouse.
Pepe, best known for his world class defending and unfathomable levels of shithousery, has returned to FC Porto.
Pepe 🔵⚪
Bem-vindo a casa / Welcome home / Bienvenido a casa
🗓 2021#FCPorto #BemvindoPepe pic.twitter.com/BuFPIyjlJw
— FC Porto (@FCPorto) January 8, 2019
The 35-year-old has spent the past 18 months playing for Besiktas in Turkey but spent the majority of his career at Real Madrid, where he won three LaLiga titles and three Champions League titles.
His partnership with fellow shithouse Sergio Ramos was infamous. Not only were they both fantastic defenders, with and without the ball, but they knew exactly how to win, and would do so by any means necessary.
Their most famous battles came against city rivals Atlético Madrid, back in the days of Diego Costa’s first spell at the club.
Costa, a nuisance himself at the best of times, would engage in battles that consisted more of kicking each other than kicking the ball. It was a mental battle; who could get away with the most shirt pulls, sneaky elbows, and outright disgraceful tackles.
Let’s relive the greatest battle that Pepe launched himself into, two-footed, studs up.
In the 2013/14 season, Pepe and Costa locked horns five times in one season: twice in the league, twice in the Copa del Rey, and once in the Champions League final.
In this Copa del Rey clash, the story of the game was not the football on show but the battle between the pair. In the early stages of the game, Pepe put Madrid in the lead with a deflected goal from outside the box. This angered Diego Costa.
With a one-goal cushion, Pepe was free to unleash a clear elbow on Costa, setting the tone early on. Knowing the referee would be reluctant to dish out any cards early on, it goes unpunished. 1-0 Pepe (in more ways than one). For the avoidance of doubt, he drops to the ground as well, making it look like a 50/50 encounter, simply an accidental clash.
Excellent work from the Portuguese defender. Truly excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbAHVecZHXY
The second encounter between these players saw Costa get Pepe in the book.
As Costa made an off the ball run on the outside of Pepe, who was defending high up the pitch, he initiated contact and dropped like a sack of potatoes. Pepe wasn’t innocent here, he appears to give Costa a little stamp as he stumbles out of his way, giving the referee no choice but to caution him. 1-1. (Still actually 1-0).
Costa was later cautioned, having committed several aggressive tackles on Fabio Coentrão, Álvaro Arbeloa, and Ángel Di Maria.
Of course, he didn’t appreciate being carded, unlike Pepe, who found it hilarious.
What followed was both parties barging each other as they walked past one another in the box. In this instance, it’s really not clear who is the guilty party, but Sergio Ramos couldn’t resist getting involved and having a go at Costa.
If Ramos had intended to rile Costa up even more and provoke a reaction from the striker, he succeeded. Costa had reached boiling point and gave Pepe a slap. A red card, surely? Ha. This was pre-VAR, and while Pepe is a shithouse, he has integrity. He wasn’t going to go crying to the referee as Cristiano Ronaldo did. He considered this another reason to seek revenge later in the game.
Arbeloa ensured that happened sooner rather than later, as he scraped his studs down Costa’s achilles amid a huddle of bodies, with the perfect alibi of the ref not being able to identify the perpetrator.
Real Madrid came out of this game 3-0 victors, and proceeded to the Copa del Rey final, which they won against Barcelona 2-1 at Mestalla in Valencia, thanks to that iconic goal from Gareth Bale.
But the biggest takeaway from this game was a lesson in shithousery from Pepe: how to win while destroying your opponent mentally and physically.
We won’t have much time left to enjoy Pepe, so make sure you tune into as many Primeira Liga games this season as you can. He is truly one of a kind.
