On his way to a recent Real Madrid training, James Rodriguez reportedly led police on a 125 m.p.h. car chase, for whatever reason. This got us thinking about car chases, which, naturally, led to us thinking about The Fast and the Furious.
The we thought it would be fun to compare Real Madrid players to Fast and the Furious characters. So that's what we did.
Real Madrid's Furious XI
Cristiano Ronaldo
Paul Walker/Brian O'Conner
Duh.
Karim Benzema
Tyrese/Roman Pierce
The wild card, liable to do anything at any time, like completely whiff on landing a parachuting car on a mountainside, or help blackmail a national team teammate with a sex tape he made.
Gareth Bale
Lucas Black, or whatever the protagonist in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's name is, we don't remember.
This season has kind of been like Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, in that they tried to give the team/movie franchise to a shiny up-and-comer (Bale/Black) and move it away from the engine of the whole thing (Ronaldo/O'Conner). It didn't work in either case, so we got four more Paul Walker movies and Rafa Benitez lost his job.
James Rodriguez
Jordana Brewster
The one we can most easily picture in a romantic relationship with Ronaldo.
Toni Kroos
Ludacris
Kroos is reliable, and he bails the team out when it's in trouble. Just like Tej.
Luka Modric
Gisele
A fringe character who has long blonde hair. This one's a bit of a reach, but it just occurred to us we don't know much about Luka Modric.
Sergio Ramos
Vin Diesel/Dom Torretto
Raphael Varane
Letty
The title of Vin Diesel's partner goes to our metaorical Vin Diesel's partner. Sergio Ramos/Diesel wouldn't be Ramos/Diesel without Varane/Letty at his side.
Marcelo
Han
Marcelo looked like one of Madrid's shining stars this season, until he got hurt. Haven't heard much from him since. Han was the most likeable character in Tokyo Drift until Jason Statham killed him. RIP.
Dani Carvajal
Mr. Nobody
He goes mostly unnoticed until you really need him, then shows up an stops you from being machine-gunned by Jason Statham/counterattacked.
Keylor Navas
Luke Hobbs/The Rock
He shows up late in the series and saves everybody's butts a few times, despite being regarded as a bad guy during his first appearance. Sounds like Navas, who didn't win any popularity contests during the whole Davod de Gea thing, but redeemed himself by turning out to be one of the most effective keepers in Europe this season.
Rafa Benitez
Vince
We're talking Fast Five Vince here, not The Fast and the Furious Vince: not super likeable and dies really early in the movie. Sorry buddy.
Now, we just have to see if Real Madrid can make it through the rest of the season without crashing and burning.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus