El Clasico: El Clasico

I’m back. After posting at least one entry per day for two months, I took a little bit of break from blogging. This entry was supposed to come out last April 15 but I got too busy preparing for my Holy Week vacation and by Holy Week, I got too lazy.

sorry, but this post is 10 days late... Will just update it a bit. So here goes…

In football, I’ve heard of the term derby, where in the domestic leagues there are two teams that have a strong rivalry with each other (I guess in local school sports, it’s like an Ateneo vs La Salle game). Being not that interested in domestic leagues, the only teams I knew who had this was AC Milan and Inter Milan. So I only recently found out that in Spain, they have what they call the el clasico. The el clasico is any match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. It’s apparently one of the world's great sporting rivalries. The last el clasico was last November 2010 where Barca slaughtered Real Madrid with the final score of 5-0 (I wish I saw this match, click here and here for the match recap).

So to the madridistas who want to see the Los Blancos avenge their 5-0 defeat from Barca, they have four opportunities to do so within 18 days. These are:

April 16: La Liga

April 20: Copa Del Rey Final

April 27: Champions League Semifinals 1^st Leg

May 3: Champions League Semifinals 2^nd Leg

If you were like me who hoped to see the two Spanish giants face off in the Champions League, now you have an overdose of Barca vs Real Madrid matches.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have been worried for Barca in the upcoming matches against Real Madrid. Being strong offensively may be enough against some teams but facing a strong opponent like Real Madrid, they need to fix their defense. With the absence of Carles Puyol’s solid presence at the back and Eric Abidal still recovering from his surgery, Pep Guardiola has to figure out a way to make his back line impenetrable. Gerard Pique is there but, I dunno, I feel like he sometimes gets distracted and needs Puyol at his side to keep him focused. I hope Puyol will be fit in time for these matches, I originally thought his knee injury was a minor thing, but he’s been out for like two months already.

So here are the updates so far..

La Liga (April 16)

1-1

Barcelona vs Real Madrid

If you’re not familiar with the La Liga or the Spanish domestic league, they have, like, 20 teams that play against each other twice (home and away) and the team with the most points wins (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss). The 1^st match between the two was last November 2010 in Camp Nou and as I’ve mentioned Barca beat Real Madrid with a stunning 5-0 defeat. So this was their 2^nd face off in this season's La Liga in Real’s home turf, Santiago Bernabeu.

With a lot riding on this 1^st of 4 matches (as some are saying that whoever will win this will have some sort of psychological edge over the other team), a draw is better than a loss, I guess. I'm bummed that I didn’t get to see this match (there’s no coverage here in the Philippines).

The game ended in a draw with goals from Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Interesting as the two have some sort of rivalry with each other and both goals were from penalty kicks. Messi’s penalty kick was from Raul Albiols’ tackle on David Villa inside the box and Albiol was sent off with a red card. Barca actually dominated the game clearly with 76% possession and almost had it in the bag until 10 minutes before the match ended, Real Madrid earned themselves a penalty. I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter how long you held on to the ball, it’s the number of goals you score that counts.

Messi vs CRonaldo

CRonaldo vs Messi :P

Because I missed the match, I can’t really comment on the offense or defense of either team. But what I can report is that Carles Puyol was well enough to play. But, unfortunately, he was stretchered off during the game from a hamstring problem. I know he’s been missing action for, like, three months now, but maybe he played too soon? You shouldn't rush injuries coz you could end up with even more serious problems.

On an unrelated note: an interesting trivia on this game, more than 100 million people from around the world watched this match (sadly I was not one of them)

So here are the numbers:

Real Madrid		Barcelona
13(6)	Shots (on Goal)	11(6)
22	Fouls	14
8	Corner Kicks	0
1	Offsides	5
24%	Possession	76%
2	Yellow Cards	5
1	Red Cards	0
5	Saves	5

Goals:

53^rd minute – Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

82^nd minute – Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

Yellow Cards:

Adriano (Barcelona)

Gerard Pique (Barcelona)
Marcelo (Real Madrid)
Arbeloa (Real Madrid)
Dani Alves (Barcelona)
Victor Valdes (Barcelona)
Xavi (Barcelona)

Red Cards:

Raul Albiol (Real Madrid)

More great articles on the match here:

Real Madrid 1-1 Barcelona: Jose Mourinho's ten-man troops fight back for a deserved draw

Player ratings: Real Madrid 1-1 Barcelona

Real Madrid vs FC Barcelona Keys To The Match

Ronaldo rescues Real Madrid to shock Barcelona in El Clásico

El Clasico 1-1 draw

El Clasico seen through Diver & Aguilar’s eyes (great photos of the match)

TEAM NEWS: Carles Puyol starts for Barcelona as Pepe takes midfield berth from Mesut Ozil

Copa del Rey KO for Carles Puyol

Copa Del Rey (April 20)

0-1

Barcelona vs Real Madrid

To those who don’t know, Copa del Rey (or the King’s Cup) is an annual cup competition for Spanish football teams. Real Madrid has now won it 18 times while Barcelona won it 25 times.

Just like the 1^st el clasico game, I also missed this one (only the Champions League is shown here). But apparently, Barca had a slow start. They found theirgroove in the second half but Iker Casillas was there to prevent goals from hitting the back of the net. They even dominated the game in terms of ball possession but after the 90-minute game time ended, both teams were not able to score a goal so extra time was needed.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s header finally ended the deadlock when Marcelo sends a through ball to Angel Di Maria who then sent a cross to CRonaldo and converted it to the only goal of the match.

Puyol stretchered off during the 1st el clasico match
photo courtesy of espn.com

Puyol Update: he was included in the line up as an unused substitute. He should probably rest up, I mean, being stretchered off from a game says a lot about your fitness.

Although for me, one of the highlights of this tournament happened after the match when Sergio Ramos drops the trophy in front of a moving bus. Watch it all go down in this video below:

Ramos jokes on how the trophy jumped to meet he fans. But I love the comment on the video that said “even the trophy wanted to go to FC Barcelona”.

Second highlight for me is Shakira consoling Pique after the match. No question now that they're an item.

photo courtesy of Dirty Tackle. Read full article here.

So here are the numbers:

Barcelona		Real Madrid
8	Shots On Target	6
6	Shots Off Target	6
0	Counter Attacks	3
11	Corners	3
5	Offsides	6
69%	Ball Possession	31%
17	Throw Ins	21
10	Crosses	10
24	Fouls Commited	26
3	Yellow Cards	4
0	Red Cards	1