Saturday night was the 1st “clasico” of the Spanish league this season, the clashes between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid that have come to symbolize the centralist view of Spain vs the country of states espoused by many Catalans and that in the last year have frequently become overheated on the pitch and spilled over into some pretty unpleasant scenes.
With FC Barcelona trailing Real Madrid by 3 points in spite of having played a further match thanks to having to play a match early thanks to the Club World Cup in Japan in December and Real Madrid having a unbelievable string of wins in a row it was looking as though Bara’s recent stranglehold may not be so tight.
And having been widely criticised for his before and after match escapades, Madrid coach Jose Mourinho stayed silent on the subject of the forthcoming clash, having perhaps realized that his taunts and inflaming behaviour only appeared to make Barcelona’s resolution all the stronger.
Nonetheless in the first 25 seconds of the match something sudden happened and Real Madrid capitalised on a rare mistake by Victor Valdes allowing their foe to score. This looked to be the sort of nightmare start a few of the people were fearing, not believing that it might be feasible to beat Real Madrid once again in their home stadium.
This early shot across the bows from Madrid appeared to focus the minds of the Barcelona players are they soon got back onto winning form. The game tilted in Barcelona’s favor and they were clearly outmanoeuvring Madrid in spite of some strong and dangerous looking counterattacks.
Barcelona equalised after 30 minutes and looked like they were more than back in the game. And in the second half they were shortly in the lead directly to make winning seem like an increasingly likely option. When Barcelona’s third goal was scored it was clear that Madrid couldn't match the brilliancy of Barcelona and notwithstanding being in strong form this season, still not in the same class.
So , what now for Real Madrid? How can they regroup as this defeat by Barcelona will have severely dented their confidence. He's already attempted several different systems to beat Barcelona but in the last eight encounters has won just once. So how will Jose Mourinho prepare for the following clasico in April?
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