Barcelona thrash ten-man Real Madrid as Spanish football rears its ugly head at Bernabéu
There was only one team, who tried to play football, boast Barcelona’s press after their two nil win over Real Madrid.
Xavi Hernandez hailed the fact that justice has been in done in the aftermath of Mourinho’s sending off along with Pepe’s red card following Real Madrid’s extra time win over Barcelona in the final of the Copa Del Ray.
The past three seasons have been magnificent for Spanish football to say the least. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Spain-c3011 won the European Championships in 2008 before marching onto become the World Champions by winning the World Cup in 2010.
In club football, Barcelona made it to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League in 2008 before winning the competition itself in 2009.
In 2010, Pep Guardiola’s team made it to the semi-finals again. Spanish football’s main strength in the fight for supremacy in European football has been its positivist nature. Embodied by Barcelona, the Catalonian giants have perfected the art of possession
play and passing their opponents to death.
However, a common misconception needs to be elaborated upon over here.
Football is not just keeping the ball at your feet for 90 or 120 minutes. It is essentially scoring more goals than your opponent. There has to be an end product as Kantian philosophy just doesn’t cut it in football. There are no points for having more possession
than your opponents if there are no goals to show for this dominance.
This concept was put into practice by Jose Mourinho last season as http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Inter-c39567 Milan defeated Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals. This season at Real Madrid, Jose has based his team around sound offensive play but when the need arises Real Madrid
can tough it out defensively as well.
Case in point was exhibited when they battled towards a one all draw in the second El Classico of the season at Santiago Bernabéu in La Liga.
However, this strategy was perfected in the Copa Del Ray semi-final by Madrid, as they ran out as eventual winners thanks to an extra time headed strike by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Cristiano-Ronaldo-c9629.
In the first leg of their UEFA Champions League semi-final, both the Spanish giants disgraced football in their own way. Mourinho’s team were winning the tactical battle against a much superior Barcelona outfit till the end of the first half. Los Blancos
were breaking up play with petty fouls and taking their punishments accordingly.
Nonetheless, there were some gross simulations and play acting across the field of play throughout the match, something that one associates with Spanish football off and on but not in the quantity that was put on show in Madrid.
The usual suspects i.e. Angel Di Maria, Daniel Alves, Pedro Rodriguez and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sergio-Busquets-c33048 all did their part to influence the referee. Wearing the respect badge on their sleeves had little effect on the players, who went Machiavellian on the night, in order
to maximize their gains.
Football, which has been associated with beauty and symmetry, also has a defensive side to it. But what it does not have is any place for play-acting, hounding the referee like vultures and hitting the deck at every given opportunity.
As everything has its merits and demerits so does Spanish football. Someone should tell Xavi that justice hasn’t been done. Football isn’t the winner on the night, the winner is Barcelona, a team that believes in playing attacking football but not beautiful
football, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It appears that Jose Mourinho had judged his former employers rightly when he stated in February of 2006 that, “Barcelona is a very cultural city. You know all about theatre. You have theatres of high quality. I was living there many years and I went to
theatres, I know what I am saying, Catalonia has the best theatres and actors, I'm telling you, I met some of them in Barcelona".
There might be some, who think that Barcelona were hard done last night, and this analysis is a bit partisan. A look at statistics does reveal, which team committed more fouls at Bernabéu. In comparison to 21 fouls by Real Madrid, Barcelona committed 25
fouls. The away side had two yellow cards whilst Madrid had three.
This debate can go on and on but what Barcelona have to realize is that they didn’t need to do what they did last night. They didn’t need to act the way they did. They didn’t need to drag football through the mud and then brag about it too. They just needed
to do what they do best, that is to play football and score some goals in the process.
The views expressed by the writer are his own and do not reflect the editorial policy of
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