the build up was grand, the fixture speaks for itself, possibly the two biggest teams in world football, going head to head, barcelona one point behind real madrid in la liga, madrid now with jose 'the special one' mourinho at the helm, the expectation sintilating, barca with messi versus madrid with ronaldo......
madrid having spent 300 million euro's on such stars as ronaldo, alonso, ozil, di maria, benzema, carvalho and add into that the already present higuian, casillas, ramos, and you have los galactico's as they have time and time been labelled, probably the biggest in-flux of stars since the likes of figo, van nistelrooy, and the magical zidane, result in the real camp is belief that they are now the biggest club side once again for all to fear, and on top of that they have now aquired the services of undoubtedly the best manager on the planet in mourinho.
surely the calculation for success and this season they have defended like any jose team does, but twinned with the attacking flair of the predisessors such of zidane etc.
they have swept aside almost everyone and went into this game on top of the league and in fine form on the back of the 4-0 drubbing of ajax in europes elite competition.
barcelona, with the quality we all know about in the form of messi, adde into the mix such players like xavi, iniesta, pedro, puyol, dani alves and the new edition david villa and everyone knew we had a real game on our hands.
real and jose were doing all the talking in the build up and rightly so as their form has been impecable, barca and pep guardiola keeping quiet and getting on with preparations.....and the resulting game was stunning.
i hope everyone on earth watched this because i cannot find enough praise for the men from the nou camp, the word dominance does not do them justice, i watched them destroy almeria a week ago 8-0 and the gulf there was evident, but here we are talking about real madrid, one of the worlds greatest clubs, once again rising back to past greatness, and the gulf was still as stark as the previous match.
barca got on the ball from the first minute and racked up a possession of 78% in the first half, and even that statistic doesnt show the ease at which they tore los blancos apart.
only six minutes in the sublime messi tried an audatious chip from an angle which bounced beck off of the post and cleared, but the nou camp faithful only had to wait another three mins as iniesta conjured up a telling splitting pass to xavi, he miss controlled but cooly finished past casillas to put barca one goal to the good.
the next ten minutes were truely irresistable from barca, real trying to get close but never within a sniff of the classy midfield three of xavi, iniesta and messi.
barcelona put together twenty plus passes together at ease with the crowd 'ole' at every completed transaction, this was football being played the right way and everybody should be a barcelona fan after watching this, at the end of the 20 plus passes, pedro was bundled off of the ball but the referee waved play on as xavi looked further that the five yard pass and hit a inch perfect fourty yard pearler out to david villa on the far flank, the new arrival took a touch and beat ramos before firing across the six yard box, to who? pedro of all people, who had just been pole-axed out on the touch line, no rolling around but he had gotten straight up and got on the end of the cross to put barca two up with quality to spare......a scary thought for anyone in the champions league draw for finishing second in their group, no-one will want to face this side i can assure you.
real threatened but very sparse, di maria forced a save from valdes but the home side emphatically bossed it still, where was ronaldo? the contrast between himself, the £80 million world record signing and messi, the fuck knows how many ££££'s worth of argentinian you'd get for your money was so distant as mush as the two teams themselves.
messi started the second half in the same vein, a magical run from the magician set up villa but casillas saved well from the spaniard, the signs were there and two goals in three minutes from villa added a more realistic touch to the scoreline, representing the dominance of the home side over their closest rivals.
both goals were brilliantly set up by messi unsurprisingly, both moves were simple but devistatingly effective as the score reached 4-0 and the amusing chants from the stands of 'you're gonna be on the dole mourinho' and 'come off the bench jose' as the 'not so special today one' sat glum faced in the dug out, painfully watching his team being dismantled by a far superior side.
barca now cruising took their foot off the gas but madrid rarely threatened, but when barca saw an opening they still had the quality to punish a poor madrid with a fith in the 90th minute with jeffren getting it after a cross from bojan as the two substitutes combined.
ramos summed up the entire game for madrid as he was sent off seconds from the end.
summing it up.....words cant describe it.........300million real madrid taken apart by a meagre 80million worth of barcelona signings in contrast in that time.
no less than eight of the barcelona team had come through the ranks at some level which only shows the depth of quality at the club and how they breed the type of players that football should be known for.....
out of the two sides i have always favoured barca personally from days of van basten etc and on this showing they would have converted even some real madrid fans to support the enemy.....
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