- FC Barcelona wins the First Clasico of the season.
- Pedro, Messi and Xavi scored for Barca in a five goal thriller. .
FC Barcelona will be taking a narrow 3-2 lead into the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup El Clasico, which will be held at the Santiago Bernebeu. It should have been ideally a two goal cushion with a scoreline of 3-1 but a combination of Referee and a little bit of stupidity by Valdes resulted in us giving away teh second goal. That second away goal do put us in a rather precarious position. After a goal less first hal the match came into life with a five goal second half thriller. As expected Tito Vilanova chose the strongest possible line-up for his first Clasico in charge. Valdes was on the goal, Alves, Pique, Mascherano and Adriano made the defense. The midfield had the usual Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta. Pedro, Sanchez and Messi made the front three. Real Madrid lined up with Casillas, Arbeloa, Albiol, Ramos, Coentrao, Alonso, Khedira, Callejon, Ozil, Ronaldo and Benzema.
The match started with Barca trying to control the possesion in middle and Real Madrid closing down the midfield giving littl chance space Barca boys to operate. In the 8th minute we saw the first evidence of the speed on Real Madrid - with Ronaldo trying to put Benzema through, but Pique was at hand to intervene. In the 12th minute Iniesta played a cross across the face off goal which eluded Messi and Sanchez. In the 17th minute Pique tried a long range shot from about 25 metres out, which was well wide off the target. In the 19th minute Xavi floated a cross putting Allves on the right, who pulls it back for Messi inside the box but Messi's effort went wide. We were having complete control of possession with Real Madrid finding it difficult to cope up with the initial high speed pressing. In the 29th minute Messi slashed a shot wide in a position where he never used to miss at the edge of the box. In the 32nd minute Pedro forced the first save off Casillas when he struck at the goal from the edge of box. In the 40th minute Xavi fires a long range shot just above the bar. In the 43rd minute Albiol brought down Xavi on the edge of box and he was very very lucky not to get the yellow there. The half time break came with Barca on control but without a goal to show for the effort.
In the 50th minute finally Albiol got the well deserved yellow after taking down Busquets. In the 52nd minute Alexis was brought down by Arbeloa in the box, but the keeper judged that the player went down easily and didn't award the penalty. In the 55th minute Cristiano Ronaldo put Real madrid ahead with a header from corner against the run of a play. Barca struck immediately through Pedro who latched onto a long cross from Mascherano from deep and finished it past Casillas to equalise for Barca. In the 62nd minute Alves sent in a shot cum cross on goal, Messi got a small flick on it but Casillas made a brilliant save. The goals did spark Madrid into life and the match was becoming a bit open. In the 69th minute Iniesta was brought down in the box by Ramos and this time the referee to pointed to the spot. This time Messi converts from the spot to make it 2-1 to Barca. In the 72nd minute Tito took Alexis off and brought in Tello. In the 76th minute a long ball from back almost caught us out, but Pique did really well to recover and eliminate the danger. In the 78th minute Xavi made it 3-1 with Iniesta turning out to be the provider. Iniesta got past two players in one move and slipped the ball to xavi who was well on side. In the 83rd minute Xavi came off for Cesc Fabregas. In the 85th minute Iniesta slipped the ball into path of Messi whose shot was saved by Casillas. That miss proved costly.A counter attack was easily stoppedbut Valdes decided to do some nonsense with the ball, Maria closed down and kind of fouled him but the referee looked the other way when Di Maria made it 3-2. It definitely brings the controversy into the match as Valdes was definitely fouled.
It was so strange to see a comfortable 3-1 lead becoming 3-2 without the opposition not doing much. This match was definitely a match of two halves. We were in total control in the first half but struggled to create much goal scoring oppurtunity. In the second half, Madrid scored first from teh only way they could have in this match - corner, with Busquets being the guilty partner leaving Ronaldo free. But we struck immediately from there on it was a no match until the late mistake from both referee and Valdes. But that will make the second leg interesting as we cannot depend on the one goal lead as Madrid has a two away goal advantage. As for the best player on the pitch award it was between Mascherano, Pique and Iniesta. Iniesta had one off an OFF-ON night. He was brilliant with his movement in the first half but the final ball was always lacking. then in the begining of the second half he went missing till we scored the equaliser. Then he took on the game from then on. But for me Mascherano deserved to be adjudged the Man of the Match. His assist for brilliant for the Pedro goal and he was absolutely majestic with his defensive interventions.
FC Barcelona - 3 : Real Madrid : 2All About FC Barcelona
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