This wasn’t supposed to have happened, losing twice the merengues in the space of four days is a hard pill to swallow for any Barca fan. Barca just didn’t get into the game on Saturday and let Madrid run riot. The Catalans definitely need tightening up at the back as the back line is starting to look like a colander.
Once again, Mourinho seemed to have his tactics just right and and even fielded a half baked side while he rested the best for tomorrow’s clash against Manchester United at the Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford.It was only when he saw that madrid needed an extra kick that he brought on Ronaldo.
Morata and Benzema did the damage with just five minutes on the clock. Morata ran up the left wing and put in an inch perfect cross over to a waiting Benzema that cut the Barca defense in two.That meant that Barca has a run of 13 games receiving goals against them.
13 minutes later and it was messi who found the back of the net for the Catalans. A nice ball over from Alves to the Argentine and Messi fired the ball past Diego López at the near post. This was Messi’s sixteen game in a row where he’s found the net. There wasn’t too much celebration from Messi and it was back to business.
The game started to get a bit boring and at one stage Barca played their usual tiki taka style football which they took to the limit. With the fans now bored from a clasico game without too much purpose, the whistle for the first half was blown.
The second half got under way and Varane had to stop David Villa from getting a shot at Diego López.The young Frenchman is the talk of France at the moment and has earned the title of “Don Limpio” which means “Mr Clean” for his clean cut tackles.
After 10 minutes Mourinho changed tack and brought on some bigger artillery in the shape of Ronaldo and Sammi Khedira for Kaká and Benzema.This seemed to lift Madrid’s game and Barca was nowhere to be seen.
15 minutes later and Piqué was carded for a foul on Ronaldo which was exaggerated by the Portuguese star. Fouling Ronaldo is dangerous though and CR7 nearly made Barca pay the high price as his free-kick struck the crossbar.
Young Morata also found his way to the Barca penalty area and struck the ball at the keeper with his one on one with Valdés.It wasn’t happening for Roura’s men and little by little Madrid grew and became more courageous. A Modric corner which Ramos latched onto with a fine header in the 82nd minute put the game beyond Barca.
A possible penalty in the dying minutes of the game with Adriano being brought down carelessly by Ramos in the box was denied by the referee. In the ensuing moments and final whistle, keeper Victor Valdés was given a yellow card and subsequently a red one for arguing with the ref.
Jordi Roura needs a plan B now. This is not good enough and the fans expect more from a team that is used to this kind of clash. We will not send Roura to the lions den just yet but he needs to get his skates on and turn things around for the crunch match against A.C Milan on March 12th.
Barca meet Deportivo on Saturday and it’s the perfect opportunity to get some goals and some good feeling going amongst the Barca teammates!
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