Barcelona Vs Real Madrid, a game for the history books, a game from the history books. Truly, no other tie in the world of football holds more value than the El Clasico and each player on the pitch gives his hundred and ten percent to make sure that his team wins. It is not just about the point or the, in this case, advancing to the next round, this tie is about pride for the crest, passion for the team and the will to protect the clubs’ history. Yes, this is truly the world’s greatest tie, and last night we were subjected to 120 minutes of pure entertainment.
Barca Vs Real has lost a bit of the former rivalry that they used to have and this is primarily due to the fact that the Catalans are going through a transitional phase and they cannot truly compete with the Los Blancos anymore. The Madridistas were the clear favorites going into the game however, Barca started the game quite well and Xavi Hernandez set his team up in a hyper attacking formation which kept the backline very high. This helped Barca in the attack however, it was also their downfall in the defensive aspect.
The Catalans kept being opened up in the defense and the centre-backs could only save the team so many times before one of the attempts found the back of the net. The Blaugranas were a bit slow on the ball whereas Madrid knew exactly what they wanted to do and their passing was much more fluid. Despite all that and despite the fact that Xavi started three players who just returned from injuries, Barca was able to make the game very interesting and came back from a goal down twice. They couldn’t do it a third time and Madrid won the game 3-2 after extra time. Now, however, let’s look at the three talking points from the exciting game.