Alvaro Rodriguez

Few players can draw parallels to Lionel Messi. Alvaro Rodriguez just did, and that should have Madrid feeling good, even after drawing vs. Atleti.

The legendary striker said a couple of days ago: "I was watching Alvaro play for our Juvenil B team and he scored a goal in a way I've not seen from anyone for absolutely ages." And here's the sauce in the story: He's really been at Madrid for only two and a half years. Now, even in light of a painful Derbi result, if you look closely at the age profile of the players Madrid sign or develop, it's pretty startling. In that short amount of time, he has produced two brilliant assists (even if only one counted) and a goal. [Osasuna](/soccer/team?id=97), Madrid were holding on to a 1-0 lead and the kid made a beautifully timed run from his own half, kept diamond-sharp concentration on not letting the moment get to him, passed expertly to Vinicius Junior and suddenly it was 2-0. I'm not using the powerful adjective about him being potentially phenomenal solely on the basis of brief, explosive minutes in LaLiga plus half an hour in the Copa del Rey. About 70 seconds after the restart, Alvaro hunted down Osasuna defender Unai Garcia, who was dallying in possession, robbed him, looked up and served the perfect pass for Marco Asensio to make it 2-0. When Messi was a kid and about to score his first of 672 goals for Barcelona, he was brought on against Albacete in May 2005. Chutzpah incorporated, and the announcement of an arriving superstar. (More on the mighty Raul in a moment.) Thirty seconds after being robbed of a debut goal, Messi was waiting in the same left-sided position, Ronaldinho won the ball and produced the identical scooped and lofted pass to the little prodigy. There will now be an absolute deluge of those heated, polemic, not necessarily sensible opinions bandied about (until the next Clasico, on Thursday, takes over) with the main theme being that Los Blancos categorically "tossed the league away" by dropping points to Diego Simeone's increasingly robust team.