EL CLASICO: FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid

gondov wrote:

Madvillain wrote:Piqué definitively out for tonight. BIG bummer, hopefully Song steps his game up.

Valdes, Pinto, Alves, Montoya, Song, Bartra, Mascherano, Alba, Adriano, Busquets, Xavi, Sergi Roberto, Iniesta, Cesc, Alexis, Pedro, Messi, Villa y Tello.

I think its fair to say, it'll be damage limitation in this match. I will gladly take a draw, hack even a 0-1 or 1-2 loss, just no manita please. If we get beat 0-5 at home, I swear I will be on antidepressants for the next 2 weeks.

Gladly take a draw.Damage limitation.Come on man.We are still favorites for this match.We just have to be intense throughout the match,instead of sleepwalking for the first 20 min,as we have been doing for the past few meetings.
That and no slipups from Valdes.

Weird!!!

Official line up:

Valdés; Alves, Mascherano, Adriano, Jordi Alba; Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta; Pedro, Messi y Cesc

Is Adriano going to play CB, or is it a defense of 3?

Kizz's 3-5-2?

Hmmm, i really hope for a draw, or at least don't get humiliated

adriano at cb... tito has seen a strange dreem last night

Dani Alves didn't look like he was ready for the match.

Barcelona have been very bad, should have conceded one or two already. That being said they don't have any of their preferred players at the back. I think a backline consisting of Alves-Piqué-Puyol-Abidal would have done much better.

You should really blame your sporting director for not signing a CB. This team definitely needs at least one world class CB and perhaps another one for backup.

Had to watch it on a stream because something seems to be wrong with our dish. God, I hate streams. Low quality crap.

Ontopic: Madrid not finishing most of their (huge) chances in the first half should have been punished by us. Montoya's ball should've been a goal. Man, what a shot. Messi played a nice game, unlike Ronaldo who was almost completely invisible except for the two goals.

BTW, that tackle from the back by Alonso on Messi, did he hit the ball? At that specific moment my stream got laggy as hell.

Good game, not unhappy with the draw. Fair result I guess.

I liked our formation, Iniesta wasnt stuck out wide and that was because Alba gets forward so well but his position wasnt exposed because Adriano himself is a leftback.

My complaints? Does Valdes save anything anymore? How many Cristiano goals are Valdes errors? Like 4 now?

Adriano mostly at fault for the second, doesnt know the offside trap...he aint a CB so it is what it is.

Messi has surpasses Cristiano as a FK taker, just in case you had any doubt now.

We could of easily lost and we could of easily won, so a draw seems fair.

Some good peformances and some not so good ones, I will elaborate more depending on what direction this thread takes or someone asks. Probably easier.

Draw is a fair result and i am happy with it. Actually, we played much better than i expected. TBH i thought we will get skinned, and we could if RM took their initial chances. But, by the end of the game, we were equal IMO. Even though RM played in Camp Nou i think our disadvantage of missing Pique, Puy and loosing Alves was larger than theirs. So I see this as positive outcome, we are still 8 points clear

Home and away dont matter in Classicos...they do better at our home and we do better than theirs most recently.

Its not an advantage to either side anymore, if it ever was.

That being said, we were a post away from walking away with the league today...

I hope Pique is ready for the next league game. This league is ours to lose!

Fantastic spectacle. Absolutely intense, not just because it is clásico, but because these two teams are both superb.

It was quite similar to recent clásicos in fact. Madrid are very fast and dangerous when they are fresh, can pressure when needed and get to opposition goal with only a few passes and perhaps should have bagged one other goal in the first half hour. But after half hour mark, Barça took control.

Both second goals were also very similar to previous clásicos. Özil - fantastic pass to Ronaldo (same as clásico last year in Camp Nou) by the man who was otherwise invisible in the match chasing shadows. And Messi's freekick was absolutely superb (supercopa second(?) leg) Man of the match for me, even though his pass to Pedro towards the end was poor and I expected him to put the Canary man one-to-one with Casillas.

Madrid were very aggressive in defence, perhaps lucky they didn't get many of their players booked and Barcelona players stayed on their feet every time they were challenged which was nice to see. Alonso and Arbeloa should have received two yellows in my opinion. I can't believe Arbeloa gets away with this every match.

Fábregas had a very good game in my opinion. No idea why the coach subbed him out. Pedro had Marcelo in his pocket for most of the match. Montoya isn't experienced enough to play these matches yet but he had a pretty decent match. Mascherano played a great match in defence and had he not been responsible for the second goal he would have been MotM for me. Alba's cut-outs were fantastic. Xavi and Iniesta were on form. Dí Maria and Khedira worked absolutely hard.

to think what would of happend had our defense been 100%. Great performance by everyone

Surprised Villa never came and Cex got subbed

Cant wait for us to get back to Alves-Pique-Puyol-Abidal defence because im fed up with this.

windkick wrote:to think what would of happend had our defense been 100%. Great performance by everyone

Surprised Villa never came and Cex got subbed

Cesc was terrible. Only made runs. Crosses were bad, passing was average, didn't give an option. He was suppose to cover Messi's space but didn't do that well which he usually does....

Iniesta or Messi were my MOTM. They were brilliant today. Iniesta's close ball control was really Gave Madrid's mid and defense alot of trouble. Messi had a very good game. Skipped past almost every player trying to tackle him. His freekick was . Valdes should have done better with the first. Thought he had his right post covered though thought wrong. Montoya was decent when he came on... Alba was good both defensively and attacking wise. Wasn't impressed by Fabregas. He was suppose to fill in Messi's space but didn't do it well. Made some good runs however his crosses did not present any danger. Always looks uncomposed on the ball. Masch and Adriano did very well at the back. Thought Masch had a brilliant game. Him, Alves, Montoya and even Busquests kept on tackling Ronaldo time after time. Brilliant game! Busquests close ball control was great. Passing improved throughout the game.
Happy with the result considering the crap defense we presented today!
Visca el Barca!

Only have a couple things to say:

Happy with a draw. With the defense we played, if I heard a 2-2 draw was going to happen before the game, I'd take it anyday. Winning the game would be fantastic but you take what you can get and this is a positive result for us imo, at least we didn't lose any points to Madrid.

Busquets is a boss of the highest magnitudes and one of the best midfielders in the world (we all knew that anyway) and, when on the top of his game, is just amazing. On the ball and off of it. Had a couple misplaced passes, but other than that, near perfect.

Oh, and I miss Abidal so much. Especially right now, he could have been such a help. King Abidal

I thought the sub of Cesc for Sanchez, moving Iniesta out of the wing and into the midfield therefore giving us more possession was spot on and it payed off. We created quite an amount of good chances after that.

Masche also had a flawless game in a day where Alves, Adriano and Valdes all had individual mistakes.

Busquets man of the match.

Madvillain wrote:BTW, that tackle from the back by Alonso on Messi, did he hit the ball? At that specific moment my stream got laggy as hell.

I didn't see contact with the ball and in any event it would still be a yellow card offense. Alonso should've been sent out.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

Madvillain wrote:BTW, that tackle from the back by Alonso on Messi, did he hit the ball? At that specific moment my stream got laggy as hell.

I didn't see contact with the ball and in any event it would still be a yellow card offense. Alonso should've been sent out.

Alonso really should have gotten a second yellow on 2 different occasions, but it is what it is, ref too afraid to "ruin" a Clasico with a red card.

Surprised Tello wasnt on the bench and Villa wasnt used

Just arrived from the stadium. I've got mixed feelings. I know the result is fair, but we could have won it and it would have been just too beautiful.

I'm angry at Cesc. Screw him. I wish he had stayed at Arsenal. It's a shit that he has to play every big game and to make space for him we have to shift to stupid tactics (343 last season) or play Iniesta on the wings were he is worse than Alexis. When Iniesta moved to the center, we were much better than Madrid. I'm sure that with our magic diamond we would have won this game, even with this defence!

Tito risked it with Adriano and it went well except the second goal, which was equally the referee and Mascherano fault.

Alves sucks, he was terrible the 15 minutes he was on the pitch. I warned you some weeks ago, he is in a very bad form right now. Maybe this injury will help him come back more focused.

Refereeing was consistent though the referee should have taken more action. 2 penalties should have been given whilst Madrid should have got one as well. Arbeloa, Alonso and Ozil all should have taken a second yellow...

Yeah, ref should have awarded us with two penalties on Pedro and Iniesta IMO.