If the last days of the Roman Empire were with us once again, the people would have no need of prized gladiators-they would have Real Madrid and FC Barcelona players instead.
Increasingly the encounters between the two teams have both a tension and brilliance about them that easily surpasses any other encounter on La Liga, and reaches levels of collective and individual skill hard to find in any other league, or indeed sport.
The excitement was there from the opening minutes as Ronaldo led a series of devastating charges down the left wing. The game then developed into a fascinating engagement between two styles and philosophies of football, with individuals or groups of players performing as worthy exemplars of each.
Rafa Varane was the heart and soul of Mourinho’s generally brilliant defensive tactics, neutralising Messi’s final assault on goal, and clinching the equaliser. Varana, not Messi or Ronaldo, emerged as the popular choice for man of the match, with a revelatory performance that mixed extraordinary courage as well as technique.
While Real Madrid’s distinguished itself in the speed of its rapier-like counter-attacks, Barca’s high points were at their best holding and passing the ball, often in tight spaces, with instances of magical choreography involving Busquets,Iniesta, Alba, Xavi, and Cesc- all beneficiaries of the club’s youth training scheme, like Messi.
Varana is of course French, another superstar in the making at a club that under its President Florentino Perez has tended to promote individual foreign galacticos in preference to home-grown talent, and in the process risked the loss of a discernible cultural identity. For all the excitement generated by this nineteen year old former Lens captain, Barca has a generation of home grown young players of similar potential to choose from like Thiago, Cuenca, Deulofeu, Dongou, Montoya, Tello, Sergi Samper, Marc Bartra and Alex Grimaldo.
But last night’s match reminded us in other ways of the extent to which these great sporting rivals inhabit different planets. Despite the absence, through injury and suspension, of Mourinho’s main bruisers, respectively Pepe and Sergio Ramos, Real Madrid was not short of shock troops, as provocative as their manager- fellow Portuguese Carvalho, and the Spaniards Callejon, and Arbeloa.
Finally this was a match in which even replacements excelled. Diego Lopez –my own, disputed, nomination for man of the match-on his return to Real Madrid showed himself a worthy contender for the first team spot for so long monopolised by Iker Casillas. But credit should also go to Jordi Roura, Barca’s assistant manager who is helping guide the team through an emotionally and physically testing season with his intelligence and dignified presence, on and off the bench.
Once again Roura’s discreet touchline antics and open engagement with the media contrasted with Mourinho’s Bernabeu theatrics and post-match stuntish grump after a week in which the alleged disunity in the Real Madrid dressing room took a new twist with Casillas’s TV star girlfriend Sara Carbonero claiming that the players can’t wait to rid themselves of the Special One.
Displaced for up to twelve weeks because of an injury and with Lopez on top form, Casillas must be considering his future, with or without Mourinho who will surely go to back to Chelsea next season. I reckon it would take only the encouragement of Casillas’s friend Xavi , backed by other La Roja colleagues like Iniesta, Pujol, and Cesc to entice him to Barca. I personally would love to see Casillas take over, once Valdes departs, in the steps of the legendary Zamora who put football before politics, and served his time brilliantly both in Real Madrid and Barca, to the joy of many fans, north and south. In times of political turmoil, Casillas like Del Bosque could show the nobility of spirit that Spanish politicians lack- true gladiators.
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