Two down, two to go!

By: Jordan | April 20th, 2011

Barcelona_-_Real_Madrid_Final_Copa_del_Rey

Well it’s been a nervy first two games, only two more to go. Can my heart handle it? Probably not. Before it undoubtedly explodes, I will tell you all what I have taken away from the first two Clasicos.

1) Pepe deserves whatever contract he wants. Seriously, how huge has the Portuguese monster been the past two games? He seems to almost single handedly nullify the tiki taka that so many teams failed to counter. Even when he was booked early for what seemed to be a non-bookable offense, he maintained his cool for the rest of the Copa final (even over time!) and anchored the center of the midfield. He even got forward a few times in an attempt to inspire a counter. I feel as though his performance in the Copa alone deserves a big fat contract and hopefully Perez saw that as well.

2) The small chink we seemed to expose in the Liga clash now seems to be a gaping chasm the size of the sarlacc. Mourinho’s genius (yes, genius) had the perfect strategy for the Copa final and had Madrid not played out the entirety of the weekend clash down a man, we’d probably be hailing him for that performance as well. We know what it takes to beat the Barca beast, but unfortunately they know just how to get through us: dive and fake death every time Pepe tackles. It’s pretty simple, when Pepe goes in to challenge the ball, Barca will writhe on the ground and scream bloody murder for cards every chance they get. Hopefully, we get some no nonsense referees in the upcoming tie that will see through all the milarky.

3) Barcelona players get treated differently by referees. As I mentioned earlier, Pepe’s card seemed a bit light to me, the kind of thing that goes unpunished in Madrid yet would be vilified in Barcelona. I will say I have no idea how Dani Alves has gone two matches without so much as a scolding from a referee, let alone a yellow. If taking down Marcelo in the box and the seven tackles in the Copa (probably more, I stopped counting at seven) aren’t enough for some type of booking, I’m not sure anything is. Seriously, it’s an issue.

Barcelona_-_Real_Madrid_Final_Copa_del_Rey1

4) I believe the saying goes, “form is temporary, class is permanent.” And boy, did Ronaldo show us all how true that anecdote is. He went from goat to hero in about 1.75 seconds as the ball flew off his slicked hair and past the leaping ponytailed Pinto. Yea he looked like trash for some time and duffed a couple of good chances, but the boy is clearly the leader of our line and for the entirety of the second half was the only one receiving long balls in hopes of springing a counter.

5) Barcelona need to call in every expert in the land to ensure Carles Puyol’s health for the Champion’s League tie. The man without a shadow of a doubt turns a shaky defense into a somewhat decent one. Mascherano is a halfway decent replacement, but he doesn’t have the ability to lock down counters and shut down players like good ol Horse Face. Puyol also gives Barca a little bit more bite when the physical confrontations inevitably arise. Honsetly, who fears that goofy Pique gives people when he tries to argue, you can tell Sergio Ramos has none of it. Every team needs an enforcer, and as we saw in the Copa, Barca were bullied around a little too much for their liking.

6) Mourinho has an interesting time ahead of him. He claimed that his goals were to only win the Copa this season, but he still has a vital CL leg to play. Anyone that has anything to do with RM know how important the Decima is, even though the subject seems to be relatively hush hush right. If the season were to end right this instant with Barca at the top of the table and Real with the cup, Mou will lean back in his office chair and say, “mission accomplished, onto next year” and will tweak his squad accordingly and chase the Decima. However, we all know how managers are treated in Madrid. A CL against our arch-rivals has thrown quite the wrench in Mou’s methodical plan for his RM stint, as a knockout at the hands of our fierce rivals will not be met well. I believe that if we were knocked out by someone other than Barca the season would not be considered a loss, but now, I’m not so sure.

7) The Champion’s League tie will be massive and probably bloody. We all know that Barca will train their sights directly on the upcoming tie. The one advantage we have leading up to the first leg is that Barcelona actually have to care about their Liga matches still as the Liga is still theirs to lose. The last thing they need is to drop points at the weekend and then think about going into a white hot Bernabeu only to have to try to salvage the league the following weekend. Ideas like that can really foul up a player’s brain and I for one am thankful we have the master of psychological warfare at the helm.

Well those are the big ones I think, post down below what you took away from the first two of four matches against our rivals. I know I didn’t list anywhere near everything I took from the match, but frankly I’m too excited to. HALA MADRID!

Some Related Real Madrid Posts:

Category: Team News

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22fan

brilliant post, jordan. we can only wait and see what happens in CL but this cup win was AMAZING. asi gana el madrid! never-say-die spirt, playing their heart and soul out there. this team repaid madridismo's faith tenfold.
Zizou

The effort was incredible.
Jimmy

Sometimes what happens in life is that if you haven't had something for a long time and you want it real bad, the gods or the Universe will step in for the underdogs and give them the victory. I think thats what happened here. Real Madrid were clearly not the best team, but the forces conspired to give them the victory.
22fan

i think what happened here is that our team shut the loudmouths on farca up :)
Jordan

Sometimes, you train very hard and come together as a whole to accomplish a goal. You say universe be damned and take the victory and never look back. That's what happened here. Real were the better team on the whole and put a lot of haters in their place.
Mark A. Duckworth

Madrid looked far more dangerous than Barcelona yesterday, definitely not on Saturday, but in CDR they looked far better. Maybe for the first half of the second half Barcelona took control and took Madrid's counter out of the game, but besides that, the dangerous intent came from Madrid.
El blanco

My views on Post match repurcussions.

http://www.thehardtackle.com/i...
Bassam

Reminder, don't debate with trolls. As a wise man on twitter said: Trolls drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience.

Don't be victims of such a scam!
Zizou

Yes agree, ignore, ignore.
Kelvin Bader

You know Andres, you made a point that about playing style and multidimensional style of the team above.

My response to that is, it's a wonderful thing to have in a team, don't you think ? Which is why I think Mourinho is both the most overrated yet the most underrated coach in the world. Overrated because, you find some knee-jerk defenders who'll call anything he does genius even when the coach of Rubin Kazan comes up with the same plan or the fact that he seems incapable of impressing a style on his team that'd be widely lauded by everybody among his other flaws. See for instance Chelsea's gazzillion goals last season versus their goal return when he was coaching that team. Yet the players were almost the same.

Now for being underrated, I think this has to do with how multidimensional he makes his teams. There are always multiple solutions with him. With Inter, a shuffle of Zanetti (who probably started in midfield) to the left back position may happen in the 60th minute and then he might finally end up at right back. And this was as common as anything. Once we were down to 9 men against Sampdoria in a league game and he played some kind of 4-1-2-1 and we actually created more chances than Sampdoria. Also, he has made your team capable of playing multiple styles so that opponent aren't quite sure which approach will turn up on a given day. Devastating counter, possession sometimes, and you can see that there were differences in the first half approach on Saturday compared with today's first half.

I think that when barca says we'll always play our style, it's some show of conceit in my opinion. It's like saying even if we clearly see that our opponent cannot defend corners for their lives, we'll still play it short because that's our way. Am I wrong in seeing some sort of arrogance in that ?
WorstPosterOnRMFB

i was just watching the game , Barca fans can whine all they want about our players not getring booked , Busqiets got away with Murder and so did Alves many times
and that yellow Ade received for a " foul "on Mascherano was the most ridiculous i have ever seen , what a joke.
Ibrahim kattan

People will always argue against referring, which I conceder to be lame. Referring is part of the game, we have to learn to accept it. Yesterday's ref did a good job. Refs have their own characters, yesterday's didn't like to book much. Certain players deserved to be booked, like Alves, but overall it was a fair referring.

From a Barca fan.
WorstPosterOnRMFB

And Di Maria should get more credit than he did , despite playing poorly offensively he ran all game plus extra time and he basically took Alves out of the game
Jesus-God Mode-Alvario

10 things i learned today'
1.Real has figured Barcelona out, the score could have easily been 3-0.
2.Ronaldo will always be a problem for Barca whether puyol plays or not because his athletic ability is unreal, his speed is second to none
3.Real madrid's players are not as close as Barca's players - Chemistry
4.Messi will always dominate even if its in a loosing effort
5.When real madrid really tries they are just as good as barcelona
6.Messi wanted this game, you could tell by the look on his face when the final whistle blew
7.Villa will cost Barcelona in CL
8.A key player from either team will be sent off when it matters most
9.This is Real madrid's year
10. Real will win CL
Lopezcristian22

Agreed but players like Villa appear when least expected. That could be a problem in CL. I do wish Madrid win the CL but Barcelona will be a tough opponent. You never know what will or could happen.

Today I learned that Mou is the world's greatest tactician.
michel

apart from being a great tactician, he makes players bleed for him
just read the statements by the players how he's the captain of the ship etc etc
thats his biggest quality imo
Mark A. Duckworth

Yes - Eto'o even said when he was at Inter, that you never want to be put into the role as a sub, but Mourinho makes you love the role.
Jesus-God Mode-Alvario

Xavi...Casillas....16.years.of.age.BFF!!!!
WorstPosterOnRMFB

O and Iker said " Pique knows what he said and my teammates heard him "

Which means that he lied and really did say that Barca will win the spaniards's kings cup , o well.................in your face Gerard :-)
galactico109

how can someone love a **** like that??
Lopezcristian22

Pique is becoming annoying. He is starting to become a bit like Alves.
galactico109

Guillem Balague, the sky sports analyst says "realmadrid should have had 3 or 4 players sent off and that realmadrid well not fully deserving of the win"..When oh,when are these guys going to give us a break?why can't u guys stop hatin' on us even after we beat your "best team in the history with the best player ever to play".He is a basuqe I guess that fucktard..
and btw, rafa benitez was present too and he was really full of praise for realmadrid and the way we showed our class and grit.
Why can't most people see that is out of my mind?
kthashi

I saw that too, with Benitez, and don't you know he'd rather pour acid in his own eyes than say something nice about Mourinho, but he praised the team and tactics and seemed to mean it. So if even he can see it & say it, why can't the others?
Plykab

The funniest thing is that they are broadcasting to an epl centric crowd. I bet most of their viewers laughed in his face, requesting 3-4 players being red carded for basically nothing.
WorstPosterOnRMFB

Gullem ( despite claiming to be an Espanyol fan ) and all those guys on revista are Barca cheerleaders dont let them get to you .
WorstPosterOnRMFB

Great write up Jordan i agree with everything you said
I am starting to get worried about Alonso though he hasnt played well against Barca in our lat 5 games and him being the guy everything goes through that isnt good , today he was awful , never thought i would have had to say that about him but there it is . Ill give him the benefit of the doubt though and see how he does at home next week .
Tonight's win was deserved , fantastic to see our boys celebrating after going two seasons without doing so ( it somehow feels like we have gone much longer than just two seasons without a trophy ) but with all the running our players did they must be exhausted they will need to get rested this week end for sure , La liga is lost already so lets play some bench warmers and Canteranos this is when we will know whether Mourinho really plans on giving the youths a chance or if his promises were just empty ones.

I wonder who will play in midfield at home since Carvalho is suspended and Albiol is not reliable , Pepe will most likley be moved back to defense which makes sense . A lass/sami/Xabi would be good .

And even though most of us hates to see our team sit back and defend ( i know i cant stand it ) gotta say that its pretty impressive that we go out week in and week out to play good football , move the ball well dominate possession yet we are able to give up on the ball and play a counter attacking brand of football when the situation demands it , shows how multi dimensional our team can be despite being a new one that hasnt fully gelled yet .
Lopezcristian22

How about Granero in the middle with Sami and Alonso. Granero's game is changing with Mou he seems to be more physical now. It would provide a bit more possession. We need to get at least 1 or 2 goals are home. Honestly if we can't keep a clean sheet at home and a 1 or 2 goal advantage it seems MISSION IMPOSSIBLE at Barcelona's home.
WorstPosterOnRMFB

yea Granero would be very good in there but i dont see Mou starting him thats why i didnt mention him
Ned Jibreen

Can someone explain how this wasn't a Red card? Look at how cristiano dribbled past messi....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
ahmad_h

Cristiano Ronaldo is the new Ferrari.
i wouldn't say it was a red card, Adriano was not the last defender .... but it can be argued otherwise.
galactico109

lol..messi was like..ughh!i'M FUCKED.. :D
Eitan

Amazing day. Somehow it's been a long time since we've seen this team lift a trophy.

Agree on all points except #7

Not sure why some madridistas are still pretending like it's anything but done and dusted. We lost that hope when we lost to Sporting and Farca beat Villareal. Further reinforced by the draw last weekend.

A quick look at Farca and our league schedule should speak for itself. Barca play Osasuna at home this weekend, while we return to the Mestalla to face Valencia. Case in point. If we assume Barca will drop points to pressure them, it also means we'll have to keep pace by picking up all points away from home against Valencia, Sevilla, and Villareal. Not even something Farca have managed this season.

I say play a bunch of B-teamers this weekend and focus on next wednesday just like Farca is undoubtedly doing.
Zizou

Or we could play Kaka, Benzema, Higuain, Granero, Leon, Canales, Garay etc who are all still fresh...
And fuck you made me comment on something not celebratery:) ok no more.

HALA MADRID!!! AND FOR ONCE HALA DI MARIA YOU PUT IN ONE HELL FOR AN EFFORT TONIGHT EPIC.
Issalsa

CONGRATS MADRID... FINALLY...

Zizou, i think Mou has a couple more tricks up his sleeve for the CL... some of those would be using Kaka Benz and Higuain.....

Looking forward to it..
Zizou

Thats is a good point. I mean some players who have played in both classico's need to be rested, but I can see what you mean. Although as the likes of Higuain and Kaka haven't played in a full week, they'll be fine to play this weekend and next week if needed.
hehe101

Agh today was a fantastic day. I love how barca fans are saying they don't even care about the cup, yeah whatever cause those lonely fans and messi's face after the game beg to differ.

Whatever this is our night and we were super successful this season. What a season we're having. God I can't wait to see this team in 2 years.

I haven't even thought about CL but all I know is that we gotta rest against Valencia and kill it in the first leg ;) total respect for the team today. We showed a glimpse of our immense potential in the first half and even though the second half wasn't that great, the character we showed in extra time, especially after ronaldo's goal, was something to be proud of. Hala Madrid and celebrate till we gotta do it all over again next time ;)
Lopezcristian22

LMFAO!!!! Ramos dropped the cup and the bus ran over it. FACEPALM!!!!!!
galactico109

was that the barca team bus?? :D
Zizou

What a twat! you would think he wouldn't dangle it over the front edge of the bus -.-
SW.

LOL I was just telling my friend that no one should give Sergio the cup b/c he looked drunk enough to drop it. The very next second, he dropped it! It wouldn't be Sergio if he didn't do stuff like that *shakes head*.
Lopezcristian22

I was just looking around MARCA and AS and found the news. Its tooo funny lmao the cup may be broken but we have the bragging rights for now :).
Lank5744

I would add that Ozil had an impeccable first half. He was responsible for creating four goal scoring chances in a short amount of time. His intelligence, vision, creativity, and touch is unlike any other.

It seems that his fitness is the only thing holding him back, but I'm sure with time that will only improve. Ozil gives Real Madrid direction and flare while attacking; speed and determination in defense. In going forward, I'm convinced that he will steer the ship and continue to shine while making everyone around him better.
Lopezcristian22

The play where Ronaldo passed it back with his back then Ozil provided a perfect cross with his right foot was sexy. TOO BAD Pepe's header didn't go in. That play was a show of his class :)
madridista9

Great Win!! WE WON!!
Man my heart sank and I was about to close the window when pedro "scored." But our team came through in the end, thanks to each and every player out there who played their hearts out. Di Maria, Khedira, and Pepe worked soooo hard. Especially Di Maria in the closing 15 minutes-- attacking, defending he was actually everywhere.
On a funny note, while on the bus at Cibeles, Ramos dropped the cup which the bus then proceeded to run over:).
Rayne

HALA MADRID! IT WAS SO HARD TO WORK TODAY - THANK GOD THEY HAD THE GAME PLAYING IN THE BAR.

I'M GOING TO SPEAK IN ALL CAPS. I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS - BUT I AM TOO EXCITED.

YOU GO RONALDO, BREAKING THE BARCA NO SCORING CURSE IN OPEN PLAY!

Okay, enough caps, lol. But...LOL at all the sour Barca fans. "We really don't care about the CDR" now, huh? Saying the ref was crap because Pepe 'should have been sent off'? Saying the better team didn't win, and that we played an ultra defensive, disgraceful game? Saying that they'd rather lose with pride than win and 'compromise their style'?

Hee! They're so hilarious, it's almost cute.
WorstPosterOnRMFB

i thought they didnt play well on Saturday because they were saving their energy for the Copa game? Now they dont care about that ? Haha if i were them i would stop that nonsense and recognize that Madrid ,despite being a brand new team, are not be underestimated , we are genuine challenge for anyome in fact we are better than everyonw except Barca but even they have an inferior squad to ours but as a team they are still better............not for long though
Ibrahim kattan

I disagree with you saying your team is better than anyone but Barca. In my honest opinion, both teams are equal yet not equal. Overall, they both are the best two clubs with no doubt. Barca is superior to Madrid in teamwork mainly, however, I believe Madrid are superior in certain aspects like body strength, squad depth, individual's skills, aggression, and enthusiasm. If you ask me, even before the 1-1 classico, I would have told you that Madrid are the favored team to win in these 4 classicos, mainly because Madrid are much more eager and more hungry to win than Barca. And regarding the 5-0 classico, unlike the 6-2 game the 5-0 score was a false score that doesn't tell the true story at all. It was a combination of Pep tactics, Mourinho's tactics, and an early goal that lead for the score to be what it was. Barcelona never underestimated Madrid, nor Barca fans did. Madrid will always be Madrid. Madrid have reached the level of Barca not this year, but last year. Both last years classicos were so close and could have gone both ways. sometimes in football you need luck to stand on your side, and thats what Madrid needed.
MADRIDISME

Mou has lots of luck in his life. Unbelievable!
You have all you need to say but experience, winning spirit & story will tell you the truth.
Never in my mind that REAL is in the same level with Barca. Madrid is just Madrid, a team with 9 UCL trophies, The King of The Universe. I don't even know how much do you have won. Any idea?
Bassam

9 CL titles, 31 Liga titles, 18 Copa Del Reys, 8 supercopa, 2 Eufa cups and 3 Eufa super cup!

In short, the best team in history :)
Zizou

http://www.straitstimes.com/Br...

WISH I was there!!!!!
Lopezcristian22

I think we were the underdogs in these 4 classicos and have exceeded expectations with the draw and CDR win. Being eliminated by the best team in world in CL wouldn't be as bad as if eliminated by Spurs or Lyon. I think this season can be labeled as a step towards success. If the Decima came this season by all means will I be happy but if not I can still be proud of this team. HALA MADRID!!!
Aj

get ready for ali-frazier part 4 promising to be a bloodier fight than the last.
Zizou

haha the stadium in the background Empty!! love it :)

The ref was bloody awesome tbh. Didn't let any of the players influence his decision. The only problem I had with him is that he should have booked them as both sets of players complained far to much.
Well tbh I don't think we should be saying anything about Pepe's yellow, as he did some bad challenge's like one on Messi i remember, so although maybe the yellow he got wasn't right, he definitely deserved one on the night.

And I could say more but i'm not getting into anymore tonight i'm just enjoying the win.

And Corey! this is the first time we've been able to celebrate the CDR on here, join in dude. :) hope you weren't busy and you got to see the game.
WorstPosterOnRMFB

Agreed about Pepe
Ibrahim kattan

Alves clearly deserved a yellow in the second half, he stopped a counter attack by tackling the player. The ref was great, but he seems like one of those who don't like giving yellows at all. Few other players also deserved yellows yesterday as well.