Barca crash out of La Copa del Rey

Barca crashed out of their second leg clash of La Copa against Real Madrid last night at the Nou Camp by 3 goals to 1.

Barcelona were not allowed to get a foothold on a game that Real Madrid dominated from start to finish. The fans could not believe it.

Even Leo Messi couldn’t get a foothold on this game. The Real Madrid defense did their homework and took the Argentine completely out of the game. It was a Barca that we are not used to, a Barca that we haven’t seen for many years.

From the starting whistle, the whites got busy and started to cause problems. Cristiano Ronaldo was sublime and his constant changing of sides upset Barca because you never knew where he was going to pop up. Ozil too had a great game and Piqué struggled to keep him in check.

True to recent clasicos, it was Madrid who drew first blood and Ronaldo was brought down in the box on 13 minutes. He stepped up and sent Pinto the wrong way. It was one nil and and Barca looked like they were in trouble for the first time in ages. It was an away goal too and that counts as double in La Copa, just like the Champions League.

Barca battled hard but no goals were forthcoming and the first half stayed at 0-1 to Madrid.

The second half whistle got the game off to a good start and you would have thought that Jordi Roura would have enthused his players but it was much of the same with Leo Messi suffocated by three or four white shirts at a time. Barca had to stop the rot but Ronaldo scored again in the 57th minute. Barca now needed to find 3 goals from somewhere to be in with a chance and the clock was ticking down.

19 year old Varane came back to haunt Barca with a super header that left Pinto for dead in the 68th minute – it was starting to get embarrassing for the Catalan side.

With Barca’s away goal in the Santiago Bernabéu completely annulled by the “merengues” Roura tried his luck with Tello, Villa and Thiago – all coming on in the second half.

It was Real’s tactic that won the game in the end and they were far superior to Barca’s. Jordi Alba found the net on the 89th minute with Barca’s consolation goal but it was far too late to do any more about this tie. The chance of playing in the final of La Copa del Rey had slipped out of Barcelona’s hands to a very good Madrid side that seemed to grow with every action of the game.

Barcelona now have serious things to consider regarding their Champions League game against A.C Milan. The league is already won but Barcelona would be kicking themselves for not making their away goal count last night.