A Clasico to Remember - March 23, 2014

 A Clasico to Remember - March 23, 2014

Last night I happened to witnessed the Clasico between League Leaders Real Madrid & the Champions Barcelona at the Bernabue. It was an electric atmosphere with both the teams aiming for a win. A Real Madrid win or a even a draw will almost seal the title for Madrid while it was a must win situation for Barcelona for whom a loss would mean the end of the title race.

For Real Madrid Ancelotti had picked the perfect team with Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale and Di Maria forming a formidable attack. Pepe, Ramos, Carvajal, Xabi Alonso and Marcelo were the mighty five chosen to crush Messi and Neymar whenever they moved up.

To start with Tata Martino completely got his tactics wrong for FC Barcelona. He changed the winning combination to Messi, Alexis & Pedro to fit in a weak Neymar (who is coming back from a injury) and a misfiring & slow Fabregas. He should have ideally let these two players be a part of the bench instead of the starting 11. He could have brought them in, in the 2nd half as substitutes. But he decided to play them from the start. Both were not very effective. While Fabregas is explicably wrong footed most of the times, Neymar was easily dispossesed and pretty ordinary in front of the goal despite getting some fantastic passes. To mark Benzema he chose someone like Mascherano instead of Pique which was quite a funny choice. But Martino decided to keep the Barcelona Core together - Xavi, Iniesta and Messi - which was his only redeeming factor when it came to tactics.

The game started off at such breathtaking pace that the ball went from one end to another in a matter of seconds. Attacks started flowing from one end to another as both teams were bent on scoring the first goal. Di Maria was all over the place giving a torrid time to the Barca defence with his precise passes to Benzema from the word go. The towering Frenchman was guilty of wasting many good chances. In the meantime Barca were also putting up fantastic counter attacks thanks to the fiesty Iniesta and the wily Messi. Then the first goal happened for Barcelona in 7 minutes time. It was vintage Barcelona, but the other way round. Messi was the provider and Iniesta the finisher. The problem is that it is very dificult to predict someone like Messi. The guy may pass it back or go for the goal himself or give the most impeccable pass to a lurking teammate. Messi was able to find Iniesta with space in the Madrid half and gave him a lovely pass. Iniesta planted it in the Madrid net with a thundering left footer which left everyone at the Bernabue stunned.

But Real Madrid did not let it affect them. The energetic Di Maria simply outran the Barca Wingers and gave a perfect pass to Benzema and all he had to do was to shoot it in, which he did this time without any hesitation. Valdez could have prevented it had he been a little more agile. The score was 1-1. Within minutes came the same move involving the same players - Di Maria and Benzema- and Barca's defenders were found wanting as Benzema shot in another goal to take Madrid up. The score was 2-1 in favor of the home side. The noise was deafening and the Bernabue was charged up. It could have been even worse for Barcelona as the unstoppable Benzema's shot was saved on the line by Pique.

With half time closing in, Neymar and Messi missed easy chances to score. Finally Messi gave a fantastic ball to Neymar who simply couldn't find the back of the net. Luckily for Messi the ball bounced back to him from a Real Defender and the little magician just finished it off in style to level the score at 2-2. As Messi ran out celebrating his goal, Pepe got involved in an unnecessary altercation with Fabregas. It should have been a Red Card for Pepe for provoking and butting Fabregas. But the Referee ended up giving both a Yellow Card. Thus it ended in stalemate at half time, with a more promising 2nd half to come.

The second half started off with Madrid taking off from where they left while Barca continued to move forward. Ronaldo came sprinting ominously with the ball. It was looking dangerous when Dani Alves tackled him just outside the box. Real Madrid were awarded a Penalty and Ronaldo shot home to give Real the lead. It was 3-2 in favor of Madrid. There were some close calls as Dani Alves's shot hit the crossbar while Bale forced a save from Valdes after a fantastic 1-2 from Ronaldo and Benzema.

The Pressing game from Barcelona started to put pressure on the Real Defenders. Once again Messi found Neymar with the space and time and gave him a lovely through ball. Neymar raced forward towards the Real Goal and was clipped in the ankle by Ramos in the Penalty box and the referee awarded a penalty to Barcelona. But the red card to Ramos seemed too harsh. It was Ramos's 19th red card which is a dubious Record in Madrid's history. Real were reduced to 10 men and the game changed from there-on. Meanwhile Messi stepped up and calmly scored his 2nd of the eve from the penalty. It was 3-3.

Ancelotti was forced to sacrifice Benzema for Varane to strengthen the 10 men Real Madrid defence. Soon Barcelona made the changes as Pedro & Alexis came in as substitutes for Neymar and Fabregas. The changes injected additional pace to the Barcelona attack. Iniesta started probing further up and during one of his runs into the Penalty box was brought down by Xabi Alonso and Carvajal resulting in a penalty for Barca and an yellow card for Alonso. It was Messi time again as he coolly shot the ball in, to complete his hat-trick and become the highest goal scorer in the history of the Clásico games with 21 goals. There were few more attempts as it started turning more aggressive and violent resulting in numerous Yellow cards. Finally as the Referee blew the final whistle it was Barcelona who came away with 3 points.

The ifs and buts will always remain and there are going to be accusations and counter claims from both sides. Overall it was a classic Clasico which had its moments of brilliance, controversies, goals galore, and the usual Ramos sending off....

Image Credits - Google Images