I went to bed with two competing chants ringing in my ear – one “Asi Asi gana el Madrid”,the other “Madrid, Madrid, Madrid.”
From a radical Barca perspective, FC Barcelona was robbed of victory at the Bernabeu by two failed referee decisions: a refusal to give a penalty when Villa was taken down early on in the match, and his willingness to give one when Marcelo dived.
From a radical Madridista perspective, the penalty scored by Ronaldo was not only justified (if unfairly lacking a red card) but just recompense after a series of lightening counter-attacks that failed to find the net through sheer bad luck.
Well I found it a pretty even match whatever the statistic might suggests. Barca had possession for a majority of the time but only rarely created threatening opportunities out of their passing in closed space. Real Madrid were a much better team than the one that played earlier on the season at the Nou Camp- tighter in defence, and more threatening on the counter-attack. They also gained value from Mourinho’s perfectly timed substitutions which underlined that he has rather more to choose from than Pep Guardiola.
Further observations: Once again Messi showed himself a more complete player than Ronaldo, but Barca remains in desperate need of strikers who can score; Pep’s decision to bring out Pujol smacked of a tactical human sacrifice- noble but suicidal ; Valdes and Casillas are great keepers who save their teams; Pique shouldn’t lose his cool so much now that he has Shakira; I would like to think that this result leaves things wide open for Wednesday’s match although part of me suspects that Mourinho now has the psychological edge, and whoever wins later this week will be on surer ground on the road to Wembley.
