An ode to impotence

On Saturday night at the Santiago Bernabeu, Barcelona took not one, but four steps towards another La Liga title by convincingly beating Real Madrid on their own turf. Their 2-0 win gives the azulgranas a three-point lead plus the advantage in the head-to-head tiebreaker, so Real Madrid would need to gain four more points than Barcelona in the remaining seven La Liga matches to clinch the title. Looking at the recent history, it appears beyond them.


With this victory, Barcelona broke two spells: they had never beaten the merengues twice in a row at the Bernabeu, neither had they managed to defeat Real Madrid on four consecutive occasions. But what happened in La Castellana goes beyond broken records or titles within reach. In a tournament that of late has sadly become a fight between only two clubs, Barcelona proved that fight is actually a feud, and that they can triumph almost effortlessly over their arch rivals, no matter how much they spend in marquee signings. Real Madrid have contested the azulgrana's dominance until the final few matches of the past two seasons, however that's actually a misleading fact. Their resilience seems born out of the enormous difference in budget between them and the remaining Primera Division clubs, and also based on the fact that their only competitive focus was La Liga, after they exited both the Champions League and the Copa del Rey early in the last two terms. However, not many were predicting another easy Barcelona win before the match started. To make things more interesting, Guardiola surprised everyone, including his own players, with a starting line-up that was straight out of Johann Cruyff's book. The managerial version of the Dutchman, usually daring and blunt, used to change his tactical scheme every time his team played at the Bernabeu, becoming suddenly conservative for reasons never fully understood. These line-up modifications were known by Cruyffadas by media and fans, and never quite paid off for the Dutchman. During his eight years at the Barcelona helm, he only won once at the Bernabeu, another instance in which the pupil Guardiola has already surpassed the master. All the pre-match talk focused on Guardiola's decision to change Barcelona's expected 4-3-3 line-up and use full-back Daniel Alves as a midfielder, probably to help Puyol out with CR9, and adding Maxwell to the team while leaving Andres Iniesta on the bench. The atmosphere at the Bernabeu was as exciting as it has been in a long time. In a usual La Liga match, the stadium only reaches its full capacity five to ten minutes before kick-off. For this match, the Bernabeu was packed half an hour before the match started, the crowd a lot louder than customary. I even spotted Atletico Madrid's largest shareholder, Miguel Angel Gil, in the VIP zone. "He probably came to take notes on how to beat Real Madrid," claimed my neighbour Pepe. Our radio informed us that most spectators in the other three Primera Division fixtures that day had left the stadiums 15 minutes before time to watch the derby at home. The Match of the Century was about to start, and no one wanted to miss it. Those high expectations were not met initially. Barcelona seemed distinctly uncomfortable in their improvised disposition, despite enjoying more possession than Real Madrid. Pep acted like one of those guys who gives directions to the pilots while they're parking an airplane, arms and hands moving tirelessly at the sideline, while Alves did not understand what he was supposed to do in midfield. Real Madrid's discipline impressed at the beginning. Their lines were close to one another and offered continuous help to contain Lionel Messi and keep Xavi in check, although even at these early stages one could feel that the Xabi Alonso - Gago partnership wouldn't be a successful one. Cristiano Ronaldo, he of the jinxed purple boots, had a couple of inviting runs that got the Real Madrid faithful off their seats, but then the flow of the game entered into a more contained phase, both teams more concerned with keeping a tight defence than with going forward. "Looks like a chess match," said my seat neighbour Juan. Then Messi and Xavi made chess become a dance. After suffering a hard foul from Sergio Ramos in midfield, Messi got up like nothing had happened, rushed Maxwell to put the ball into play, sprinted towards Real Madrid's goal catching the merengue's defence cold, and built a delightful one-two with Xavi - an amazing final pass from the Catalan - that was finished with a mis-hit right-footed strike that went lazily into Casillas' net. I looked around. My neighbours in the Fondo Sur were busy taking pictures of Messi and did not bother booing a goal from an arch rival, a powerful indication from a fan base that only needed one strike to give up. Real Madrid tried to react before half-time, a botched counter-attack by Marcelo giving another sign of their impotence. This attack illustrated one of the main differences between CR9 and Messi. The Argentinean ran 70 yards back to help out in defence, and was rewarded by a warm pat on his back by Gerard Pique. When Real lost the ball, Cristiano waved his arms, complained to the fans and left his team-mates to it. Two different paths to leadership, I guess. "Pellegrini needs to use the bench. We're okay at the back, but Gago can't play right midfield and the strikers are not getting any service," stated a worried Juan. According to my home-made statistics, Real Madrid had not had one shot on goal, Higuain had touched the ball once in the entire first half, and Ronaldo had just one nutmeg to his name in 45 minutes, subdued by the well synchronised duo of Carles Puyol and Pique. However, there were no changes at half-time. The only modification was dictated by Guardiola, who sent Daniel Alves back to right full back, switched Puyol to left back and pushed Mawxell forward as a left winger. Barcelona still did not look totally comfortable on the pitch, but the lead had given them a calmness, and their passing game started to appear. Ten minutes into the second half, the stadium grew more and more impatient, Real Madrid looked painfully limited in their attacks. Then Pellegrini called Guti to join the match. "When your first option off the bench is a washed-up midfielder who only plays when he feels like it and has not had three decent days of training in a row all season, you're in trouble," said a bitter Juan.


But before Guti had a chance to enter the pitch, Xavi decided to appear again. A bit too comfortable in a central midfield position, he took three seconds to look around and put a gorgeous through-ball behind Alvaro Arbeola's back and into the path of Pedrito, who calmly slotted it home with his left foot (which looks as good as his right one). While Arbeloa was left alone against Pedrito, his theoretical back-up Ezequiel Garay watched how the play unfolded from the middle of the park, jogging towards his own goal. Guti and Real Madrid had a huge mountain to climb at 2-0 down. Guardiola introduced Iniesta five minutes later, resortnig to his expected line-up, and it is hard to deny that they looked their best at this point. Their ball possession, accurate passing and excellent flow from one side to the other were back. The frustration in the merengue stands grew with every passing minute. Tellingly, Pep was not parking planes anymore. The irritation in the Bernabeu was only broken by a fantastic pass by Guti, who may be out of shape and thinking of next season in the United Arab Emirates, but still can spot unmarked players better than any other colleague in this Real Madrid squad. Rafael van der Vaart squandered the chance, shooting against Victor Valdes' body, and then was summarily replaced by Pellegrini. Who would be the next one in? The Artist Formerly Known as Raul. "When your second option off the bench is a washed-up star with over 15 seasons of top-level football behind him, you're in big, big trouble," stated a borderline suicidal Juan. Leaving his half-jokes aside for a second, the fact that, after spending €250 million, Real Madrid's first two substitutions in the biggest match of the season were Guti and Raul, can only be catalogued under 'management failure'. Our puzzled faces trying to understand the logic behind the replacements were partially relieved by the radio, which informed us that Karim Benzema had not been training up to Pellegrini's own high standards. As Juan and I were discussing whether we prefer a useless but extremely professional forward (Raul), or a gifted but lazy one (Benzema), Guti showed more glimpses of his class with two great passes, exactly what Real Madrid had been lacking for the entire match. Too late for the madridistas, anyway. Barcelona maintained their routine passing game until the end of the match. Messi wasted two more glorious chances in front of Casillas, after two pinpoint passes from Xavi, who at this point had already become a Bernabeu favourite. The Catalan is an excellent explanation for Messi's superior performances with Barcelona when compared to Argentina. The match ended with a meaningless cameo from Benzema, who replaced a depressing Higuain. After the final whistle from a soon-to-be-retired referee (Mejuto, who by what we saw will do well leaving soon), Sergio Busquets asked Raul for his shirt, probably his last derby jersey, and the Barcelona players celebrated a first win of 2010 in the Bernabeu. They could very well be doing this again in just over a month, in possibly their second Champions League final in a row, whereas Real Madrid have delivered exactly on my gloomy September forecast. They're an expensive version of last season's Atletico, destroying smaller opposition and defeated by the bigger clubs. Let the carrousel of signings and firings begin! After Saturday's helpless performance and given the context of the last couple of seasons, it will take more than a new gaffer and some expensive names to dethrone Pep Guardiola, king Messi and the best Barcelona side ever.