How Barcelona beat Real Madrid in their own “dirty” game (Part 3)
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Inter-c39567 Milan went down to ten men but Mourinho, playing ten men behind the ball, still denied Barcelona all sorts of goal scoring opportunities. The Catalans did score one goal but couldn’t score another to qualify for the final of the UEFA Champions League.
This season Josep Guardiola was able to beat Mourinho at Camp Nou in the La Liga tie. It was a humiliating defeat for Mourinho’s men, losing the game 5-0 at Camp Nou against their archrivals.
The Catalans were able to lead the Spanish La Liga table after that and never came close to Real Madrid, currently eight points clear of Real Madrid while still at the top of the table.
With Jose Mourinho hosting Barcelona at Santiago Bernabeu this season in La Liga, Josep Guardiola played the same tactics all over again. The Catalan coach played Lionel Messi as a play maker rather than a centre forward. The only changes that Guardiola
made was that this season’s signing, David Villa, played far on the left while Pedro Rodriguez played on the right wing.
Jose Mourinho changed his tactics as well, playing http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Pepe-c29670 in a holding midfield role. The Portuguese centre back marked Xavi Hernandez to deny Barcelona their free-flowing football in the middle of the park.
Despite having 76% possession of the ball, Barcelona found it hard to create chances throughout the game. Hence, the only goal scored by Barcelona came from a penalty kick by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Raul-c30652 Albiol
took him down in the 18 yard box and got himself a red card while awarding Barcelona a penalty kick.
The Argentinean maestro, Lionel Messi, stepped up to take the spot kick. Messi easily converted the opportunity and gave Barcelona the “well-deserved” lead.
Even though Barcelona had most of the possession of the ball, they were still unable to create many chances. Real Madrid, on the other hand, played their tactics perfectly.
The Los Blancos simply outclassed http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Barcelona-c38605’s defense on the counter attack. The Catalans found it hard to defend against quick strikers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Angel Di Maria.
Soon enough, Daniel Alves brought down Marcelo in the penalty area and Real Madrid got what they were looking for, a goal scoring opportunity in the shape of a penalty kick.
The Portuguese captain, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Cristiano-Ronaldo-c9629, stepped up and converted the penalty to equalize the score, 1-1.
Marcelo dived as Daniel Alves clearly got the ball during the incident. It was quite clear how Real Madrid adapted a different approach against Barcelona just to get their desired result. However, when Barcelona approached the game similarly in the UEFA
Champions League semifinal, the whole world deemed it as “cheating.”
Barcelona faced Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final in less than a week after the La Liga encounter. The Catalan Giants dominated the game and there were no red cards until the end of the game when Angel Di Maria brought down http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Lionel-Messi-c22296.
However, there were some questionable decisions by the referee. There were many occasions when Madrid could easily have gone a man down but no one noticed the “bad” refereeing decisions and saved their thoughts to speak against the referee in the UEFA Champions
League semifinal between the two teams.
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