I find it hard to believe that the award-winning, best-selling sports daily in Spain, Marca, would resort to such childish behaviour in order to belittle their great rivals in Barcelona, but they have. All weekend we were shown images that appeared to show Pedro in an offside position when he received the killer pass from Andres Iniesta. What most didn't notice at the time was that Marca had used photoshop to get rid of the lines on the pitch, that clearly show Pedro to be onside.
They really need to accept that football is all about cycles, and right now it's Barcelona who are clearly in the ascendency. Real Madrid enjoyed their last golden period around the start of 2000 and they will no doubt reappear soon to take over at the top of the La Liga and dominate Europe once more. Maybe it hurts Marca that their flagship team spent an obscene amount last summer, only to see them lag five points behind at the halfway stage, but that's the way it is. It will take time for the newly-assembled team of galacticos to gather pace, and for me they've done superbly well to be only 5 points behind having missed Pepe, CR9 and Kaká for lengthy periods of time. And all this after a particularly nasty smear campaign aimed at Lionel Messi in an attempt to divert attention away from Ronaldos misplaced swing at Mtiligas nose. It's hard enough to accept that we have severe media manipulation in most walks of life, but in sport it certainly has no place. Shame on you Marca.
