Josep Guardiola, known for his cool demeanor inside and outside of the technical area, channeled his feelings for all things Madrid when he refused to give Cristiano Ronaldo the ball for a throw-in on the half-hour mark.  Unlike his outspoken and demonstrative counterpart José Mourinho, Guardiola usually keeps to himself, shouting and dictating to his players on the pitch on rare occasions.  Monday night’s match was El Clásico, however, and normal circumstances and situations have little bearing.  The ball had gone out of play, and Ronaldo wanted to take a throw-in quickly to continue what little momentum Real Madrid had going forward.  The ball fortuitously came to Guardiola, and in one of his less sporting moments, he held the ball away from Ronaldo and then eventually rolled it away from him.  Ronaldo took exception to such behavior and shoved him in the chest, starting a little fracas as the Barça players came to defend Guardiola while the Real players took Ronaldo’s side.

Mentioning how normal circumstances fly out of the window during El Clásico, Víctor Valdés, Gerard Piqué, and Carles Puyol would be the ones who would immediately soar into the affray because of their combative personalities, and on cue, Valdés received a yellow card for coming out of his penalty area to confront Ronaldo.  Who was the first one, however, to challenge Ronaldo for his behavior?  The mild-mannered and unassuming Andrés Iniesta.  Iniesta was the nearest Barça player to the situation, but Dani Alves, Lionel Messi, and Sergio Busquets were also around, saw exactly what Ronaldo did to Guardiola, and did not immediately react as Iniesta did.

By the time the Guardiola – Ronaldo showdown occurred, it was already 2-0 in favor of the Catalans, and that situation was the only fight that Real Madrid could muster throughout the whole of the match.

Before the match, Mourinho had to make one forced change to his settled starting eleven, as Gonzalo Higuaín failed to pass a late fitness test due to a back muscle injury, and the much-maligned Karim Benzema deputized for Higuaín as the lone center-forward.  Benzema had become 75th – 80th minute replacement for Higuaín in most of the matches this season, and he had provided some decent performances in those short stints.  He needed to fill Higuaín’s boots from the start of the match against their toughest and most important opponent, however, and Benzema’s few starts for Real Madrid this season were nothing about which to write.

Guardiola sent out his optimum eleven, which meant that the slightly more defensive Éric Abidal started at left back over the Brazilian Maxwell.  With Ángel di María and Cristiano Ronaldo on the flanks and willing to switch at any moment, Guardiola wanted the defensive assurances of Abidal to cover the Barça left wing.

From the opening minutes, this version of El Clásico did not resemble the tight, cagey matches from the previous season where both teams found it hard to penetrate the opposition’s defensive lines.  At least for FC Barcelona.

Lionel Messi, who had never scored against a José Mourinho-trained club, provided the ominous, early salvo in the sixth minute.  From the right edge of the penalty area, Messi audaciously chipped a ball to the left far post over Iker Casillas and pinged off the post for a momentary let-off for Real Madrid.  Gerard Piqué was making a late run to that left back post, but Messi’s universal skills could only mean that he intentionally went for the shot over Casillas rather than crossing for Piqué that happened to beat Casillas and clang the post.

Four minutes later, Barcelona would breakthrough with the opening goal by a combination between the two best midfielders in football, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández.  After another twenty to thirty pass move, Iniesta cut in from the left and drove a pass through the Real defense, and Marcelo, desperately sliding to intercept the pass, could only deflect it to Xavi, who had made a relatively rare darting run into the box, and with his feathery touch, volleyed it over Casillas with the side of his right boot to open the floodgates.

Barcelona would score again eight minutes later when Xavi returned to his maestro role in the midfield and gave David Villa a perfectly flighted forty-yard diagonal ball to the left wing.  Villa was the only debutant in Barcelona’s starting eleven to El Clásico, and he showed no signs of nerves as he cut into the box against Sergio Ramos and got the best of both Ramos and Casillas as his squared ball across the six-yard box avoided Ramos’ lunging tackle and crept under Casillas’ gloves to an open Pedro “Don’t call me Pedrito anymore” Rodríguez, and with an empty net in front of him, Pedro knocked it in from two yards out to extend the lead to two goal before twenty minutes had ticked off the clock.

The only legitimate shout for a potential goal for Real Madrid came in the 39th minute when Ronaldo and Valdés came together in the penalty area, and referee Eduardo Iturralde González ruled that Valdés just got a finger on the ball before Ronaldo got to it and thus it was a fair challenge.  The replay proved inconclusive as it looked as though both arrived at the ball at the exact same time.

MARCA, of course, disputed Iturralde González’s decision, and for MARCA‘s more “detailed” analysis of Iturralde González’s performance, click here.  If you cannot read Spanish or do not have a website translator, MARCA did do a decent job of somewhat maintaining neutrality, but they did mark the penalty shout as a “clear penalty” as well as emphasizing Messi’s yellow card just before the break for simulation following Ricardo Carvalho’s supposedly accidental shoulder to Messi’s face.

José Mourinho did make a halftime change in the hope of turning the match around, but curiously, he took off an admittedly ineffective Mesut Özil for the midfield destroyer Lassana Diarra.  Real’s defense did not improve, and within the first fifteen minutes of the second half, Barcelona doubled their lead to an astonishing 4-0.

Lionel Messi took the role from Xavi as the midfield general as he provided two assists for David Villa that both Iniesta and Xavi would gush over.  Villa’s first goal, Barcelona’s third goal, came about through a “simple” through ball in between two Real defenders, but the foresight Messi needed to visualize the pass was impeccable, and although Villa looked to be a quarter of a body length offside, the linesman did not raise his flag, and the rout ensued.

Villa’s second goal, Barcelona’s fourth goal, was all about Messi, as he delivered the best pass of the 600/700 that Barcelona executed in the match.  Xavi started the move by causing the turnover on Lassana Diarra in midfield, and Diarra cynically pulled Xavi back to prevent the counter-attack, but Barça maintained possession, and Iturralde González correctly played the advantage when most referees would have blown the whistle.  Messi then dribbled for a few yards when he saw Villa make a run down the left wing.  He executed a pinpoint thirty to forty yard diagonal pass on the ground through four Real players for Villa in stride, and Villa took the shot first-time with his right foot, in between the legs of an onrushing Casillas, into the back of the net for an improbably 4-0 lead.

Jeffrén Suárez would add a fifth at the end of the match to complete the humiliation, but the action did not end there.

Sergio Ramos was ready to take no prisoners.

Sergio Ramos decided upon himself to avenge his fallen teammates by scything through Lionel Messi’s left leg, then pushing Carles Puyol down by his face once referee Eduardo Iturralde González had flashed the red card at him, then tweaking Xavi’s chin as he left the pitch and into the tunnel.  In a match sprinkled with bouts of unsportsmanlike conduct, Ramos took that conduct to the highest (or lowest, depending on perspective) level with his one-man Rambo-like rampage in an act of petulance that should land him at least a three-match ban if not more.

Despite this 5-0 romp and the added satisfaction of embarrassing their eternal rivals, this match only counts for three points, and in the cold light of statistics, Barcelona only has a two-point lead over Real Madrid and a seven-point lead over Villarreal.  Guardiola and his players all spoke about how this result did not mean anything if they end up losing the championship, and they somewhat quelled the euphoria of the win with their levelheaded statements in the post-match press conferences.

A humbled José Mourinho gave all the credit to Barcelona and stated that it would be easy to move on from this match because they were outplayed in all aspects of the match, and no outside influences (refereeing decisions, close calls, etc.) would have made the difference in this edition of El Clásico.  He also mentioned that because they were blown out, the loss was easier to swallow rather than a close loss.  Of course, Mourinho would try to add a positive spin to an otherwise dire performance, but the gulf in class on this particular night should alarm Mourinho.  Even if a one-goal loss would have been harder to take, at least they would know that a small adjustment here or there could have made the difference among a loss, draw, or even a win, but a five-goal blowout only indicates that Mourinho still has plenty of work to compete with FC Barcelona if they are to capture La Liga for the first time since the 2007-08 season, a barren spell for los blancos.

Josep Guardiola and FC Barcelona vividly showed how the game of football could be so simple yet equally spectacular at the same time.  While it only meant three more points in their coffer, the confidence they can take from this stellar performance can carry them into the dregs of midseason and the long, winter months.

Xavi, Jorge Valdano, and others felt that this match should not have been played on Monday because it would lose its soul, but it gave everyone in Spain as well as around the world the chance to focus solely on these two teams, and the only conclusion that the viewers of the match can make is that FC Barcelona is truly the best team in world football.

Under trainer Mauricio Pochettino, Espanyol has gone through one of these hot streaks in every season he has managed the club.  After the club fired José Manuel Esnal “Mané” in the middle of the 2008-09 season, they hired Mauricio Pochettino to get out of the relegation zone.  As late as Jornada 30 in that season, Espanyol propped everyone at the foot of the table, ominously looking at the Segunda División for the first time since 1994, but the Catalans won eight of their last ten matches to finish in a comfortable tenth.

Last season, Espanyol only lost two of their first eight matches and never felt the fight for relegation because of their decent start as they finished a mediocre eleventh place, eight points above the drop zone.

It would be easy to write off Espanyol as merely an early season surprise that will return to its place in mid to lower table as their campaign wears on into the winter months.  They have achieved a fourth-place position based on their stellar six-for-six home record with only Real Madrid able to keep up with such solidity at home, but away from the Cornellà-El Prat, los periquitos have been less than ordinary, racking up a paltry four points out of eighteen heading into the Vicente Calderón on Saturday night against Atlético Madrid.

For many teams that find themselves in the top four of a league, they have a defined identity that characterizes why they are playing well.  Taking the top four currently in La Liga, Barcelona’s identity is a possession team that continually prods the defense until they see a tiny opening, when their talented players exploit such weaknesses to the maximum.  Real Madrid’s identity directly comes from their trainer José Mourinho, who emphasizes defensive reliability, then lets his players flourish in the opponent’s final third.  Villarreal’s identity is based on their slick, short passing game and their ability to thrive through the middle of the pitch despite playing narrower than most teams.

What is Espanyol’s identity?

They are not particularly physical, like Osasuna and Athletic Bilbao.  They are not overtly defensive, like Deportivo La Coruña or Mallorca.  They do not play with a flair like Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Villarreal.  They are not schizophrenic or wildly inconsistent like Atlético Madrid, Málaga, or Sevilla.  They do not have an outspoken, demonstrative manager that inspires them like Manolo Preciado for Sporting Gijón or Unai Emery for Valencia.

What is Espanyol’s identity?

They are that anonymous team that no one really notices, but when people look at the results, they scratch their heads and ask from where did they come?

They are the master of the close matches, as five of their seven victories were won by a single goal, including four 1-0 victories.  When they lose, they tend to get blown out with three of their four losses coming at a three-goal margin or higher.

If they were located in another city in Spain, Espanyol would have more press about their impressive start, but they are situated in the city of Barcelona, where their city rivals FC Barcelona completely engulf El Mundo Deportivo and Sport, the two main sports daily newspapers in Barcelona, and quite frankly, Espanyol does not mind that they are in the shadows of their more famous neighbor.  They do not carry an inferior complex like their opponents on Saturday night, Atlético Madrid, have with their local rivals Real Madrid.

The 2-3 victory for Espanyol over Atlético Madrid on Saturday felt like that other matchup between the other two teams from their respective cities, and El Clásico on Monday night will find it hard to live up to this undercard at the Vicente Calderón.

Quique Sánchez Flores, for the first time all season, could name the same starting eleven as the previous round with Sergio Agüero and José Antonio Reyes continuing their good form while Diego Forlán has recently come out of the doldrums with three goals in his last two matches against Osasuna and Real Sociedad.

Mauricio Pochettino also had the luxury of naming consecutive starting elevens, and his cradle of young footballers have matured at a high rate and now lead a talented group that could see Espanyol compete for European places on a regular basis.  Cantera products Dídac Vilà, Jordi Amat, Javi Márquez, etc. now feature regularly in Pochettino’s lineup, and with Boca Juniors import Juan Forlín, they had the responsibility of containing Atlético’s rampant attack.

After a frantic opening five minutes, where turnovers in the midfield led to scoring opportunities for Forlán and Pablo Osvaldo, the match settled down to a muddle in the midfield until the 20th minute, when referee José Antonio Teixiera Vitienes whistled and pointed to the penalty spot in favor of Espanyol.  José Callejón’s free kick hit José Antonio Reyes in the wall that was inside the penalty area, but in trying to protect himself from receiving a beaning from the free kick, he lifted his arms to shield his face, and the ball hit his arms.  Teixiera Vitienes judged that he made himself bigger by raising his arms and thus the penalty had to be called.  Luís García blasted the penalty kick down the middle, hitting the underside of the crossbar, and scoring Espanyol’s second away goal of the season.

Comfortably holding that one-goal advantage despite Atlético slightly controlling both the possession and the flow of the match, Espanyol looked poised to go into halftime with the 0-1 lead, but in the final ten minutes of the first half, Atlético ramped up the pressure ten-fold, camping inside Carlos Kameni’s penalty area, and in the final action of the half, Atlético equalized despite the heroics of Kameni.

?Kameni did the best he could, first stopping Tiago’ header from Simão’s corner from six yards out and then blocking Diego Godín’s follow-up from point-blank range, but he could not stop Tiago’s second effort from just in front of the goal line as his defenders complained more about an offside call than trying to clear Kameni’s lines.

If a person went to Ladbrokes, Bwin, or any other betting place at halftime, the odds of Atlético Madrid winning the match would likely have been at even money or below.  In Espanyol’s lone away win against Mallorca, they took the lead with another Luís García penalty and never conceded the lead.  With such a devastating blow in the final seconds of the first half, few would have bet their savings on Espanyol to recover and win the match.

Espanyol struck again nine minutes into the second half due to a goalkeeping gaffe by the young starlet David de Gea, as a usually routine save on Pablo Osvaldo’s shot was bumbled away by de Gea to the right far post, where Joan Verdú ghosted in and cleaned up the mess.  Unlike after Espanyol’s first goal, where the lead seemed secure, the 1-2 scoreline looked like it would not hold up as Atlético pressed on to equalize again, and a classic Forlán – Agüero hookup in the 66th minute made the game all square for the second time.

Surely, Atlético would now deliver the final blow on an Espanyol club that fought well but would ultimately come up short on the road yet again.  After los rojiblancos blew three more scoring chances following their second equalizer, Pablo Osvaldo sealed the win for Espanyol with an outstanding volley that took all the technical skill he could muster.  Luís García’s cross from the right wing was slightly behind Osvaldo, and he knew that controlling the ball would have killed any chance of scoring, so he struck the ball sweetly with the laces of his boots to the upper right corner of the goal, and de Gea dove in vain as Espanyol showed for the first time this season the persistence and resiliency that comes with winning tough away matches.

Emotions and passions will run high in El Clásico on Monday night, but they will not likely spill over like the fracas that occurred at the end of the Atlético Madrid – Espanyol match, when Quique Sánchez Flores went ballistic on Luís García after Diego Godín clattered Javi López on the sideline.  Sánchez Flores claimed that García laughed at him and suggested to López to stay down to waste more time.  Sánchez Flores attempted to lift López off the ground, and the Espanyol players took exception, with Mauricio Pochettino coming into the scene to diffuse the situation and keep Sánchez Flores back from doing more harm than he had already done.

2-3 fulltime, and Quique Sánchez Flores continued his tirade at Luís García, and both his coaching staff and Espanyol goalkeeper Carlos Kameni had to restrain him from getting near García.

The little episode at the end of the match should not cloud the extraordinary performance of Espanyol, who dispelled some of the insinuations that they could not win away from home against the upper echelon clubs in Spain.  Will Espanyol finish in the top four and qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history?  Likely not, but unlike some of the talented Espanyol teams of the past decade that fell short of expectations, this team has a core of young stars that do not fear success.

While Raúl Tamudo will always be a club legend for Espanyol, the drama that surrounded him in the past two years, including his manager and former teammate Mauricio Pochettino phasing him out of the starting eleven as well as contract disputes with the board, needed to dissipate so that these young players could move on, and Pablo Osvaldo can now play with a freedom, knowing that Tamudo is not in his rear view mirror anymore.

With Pochettino’s young energy and the team’s young blood coming through the Espanyol academy into the first team, the future of Barcelona’s second club looks bright.  El derbi Barceloní between Espanyol and FC Barcelona will occur in Jornada 16, and while this match is usually played for pride rather than table positioning because Espanyol normally occupies the lower half of the table, the 153rd edition of the derby might be the most significant derby in decades.

Monday’s El Clásico can only hope to live up to this match between a Madrid and a Barcelona team.

Fueras de Juego

- The knives were out for Míchel González after Getafe went through another lifeless half against Sevilla, but somehow, with the help of a complacent Sevilla, Míchel’s team overturned the 1-0 deficit with three goals in the second half, including a Pedro Ríos shot that could have easily ripped through the back of the net because of it exhilarating velocity.  Sevilla has become the Atlético Madrid of this season, notching impressive wins over Valencia and Atlético Madrid while inexplicably losing to Hércules and Sporting Gijón by multiple-goal margins.

- While the neutrals will want a winner in El Clásico on Monday night, the one team that wants the match to end in a draw is Villarreal.  They took care of Real Zaragoza at La Romareda 0-3, and they currently stand four points behind Barcelona and five points behind Real Madrid.  The Yellow Submarine does not want either team to go too far beyond them, with the dying hope that they still have a chance to finish inside the top two.

- Whether Roberto Soldado meant to or not, his first goal in Valencia’s 2-1 win over Almería deserves the golazo of the week with an incredible bit of luck/skill to set up his shot at goal.  Bruno Saltor’s cross from the right wing came just a shade short for Soldado to head it toward another teammate, so Soldado backheaded it to himself to control the ball, then he juked a couple of Almería defenders and shot it past Diego Alves for the 1-0 lead.  If Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi performed such a skill, no one would question that they did it deliberately to control the ball, but gangly and awkward Roberto Soldado could not have possibly done that on purpose, or did he?

]]> 0 http://www.laligatalk.com/la-liga-preview-and-u-s-t-v-listings-for-el-clasico-nov-29-3885 http://www.laligatalk.com/la-liga-preview-and-u-s-t-v-listings-for-el-clasico-nov-29-3885#comments Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:14:02 +0000 Andy Pineda http://www.laligatalk.com/?p=3885

Eduardo Iturralde González (!) will officiate El Clásico on Monday night.

The José Mourinho – Pep Guardiola headline and the Lionel Messi – Cristiano Ronaldo headline have been covered and written many times over, so this preview of El Clásico will try to avoid these subjects and focus on the other, less talked about aspects of the biggest game in Spanish football this season.

The man in the middle of the fray will be Eduardo Iturralde González, the dentist from Bilbao, who will referee his third Clásico and his second at the Camp Nou.  Those who watch Spanish football on a regular basis know Iturralde’s penchant for handing out multiple cards not necessarily because they were warranted but because of his overt need to control the match.  For visual proof, watch Iturralde González give Nikola Zigic a yellow card here in one of the longest booking sessions in the history of football.

Normally, the referees that are given this match are the most highly rated in Spain, as indicated by the last the ten Clásicos being overseen by only three referees: Manuel Mejuto González, Alberto Undiano Mallenco, and Luís Medina Cantalejo.  Mejuto González retired in the summer and Medina Cantalejo the summer before, so while Undiano Mallenco will most likely take charge of the Clásico in the Santiago Bernabéu in April, someone else had to take charge of the other Clásico.

If there were any refereeing new blood to throw into the Clásico fire, it would have been Carlos Velasco Carballo, who refereed his first matches in the UEFA Champions League group stage this season and has been praised by UEFA and the RFEF for his refereeing competency, but Eduardo Iturralde González got the call because of his experience refereeing this match.

Madridistas have long cried that Iturralde González harbored pro-Barça sympathies, and while these claims have little to no substance, they show the still-fractious regionalism that continues to exist in this somewhat more unified Spain as well as the almost life-or-death meaning of El Clásico with both the Merengues and the Culés.

Now to the players.  While Barcelona will have to devise more than a couple of strategies to limit Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín’s contributions, Sergio Busquets and the central defensive pairing of Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué will deal with the two new additions to the attacking midfield, Ángel di María and Mesut Özil, and their abilities to create for Real’s scoring duo and to outpace the relatively slow defensive four, save for Dani Alves.  Kaká, Rafael van der Vaart, Marcelo and Guti roamed the same areas last season that di María and Özil currently occupy, and they could not force or guile their way through Barça’s underrated defensive shield.

While Ángel di María and Cristiano Ronaldo switch wings from time to time, di María usually bombs down the left wing, which means he will come against Dani Alves for most of the match.  This battle will be vital for their respective clubs because if di María can continually threaten Barcelona’s final third, that means that Alves has to be more of a stay-at-home fullback, and his important contributions to Barça’s attack will be limited.  If di María is ineffective, Alves will have the freedom to act as the right wingback that suits his abilities best, and he will create space for Messi, David Villa, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, etc. to retain possession and pry Spain’s best defense more often.

Mesut Özil has made the normally demanding Madridistas almost forget about the second most expensive transfer in football history, €65 million and currently injured Kaká.  Kaká was the central focus of the imperious attack at AC Milan, and when he brought his talents to the Santiago Bernabéu, little did he know that Florentino Pérez would sign Cristiano Ronaldo two days later to the largest transfer fee ever at €94 million.  Kaká never really fit in to Manuel Pellegrini’s system, and injuries hampered Kaká from ever fully integrating into the Real starting eleven.

With successful surgery on his left knee this past summer, Real faced four to six months without him, so new trainer José Mourinho was instrumental in signing Mesut Özil from Werder Bremen for a bargain price of €15 million, and after a couple of matches to get himself situated to his new surroundings and responsibilities, Özil has been just as important as Ronaldo and Higuaín for Real’s offensive output.

Özil is tied for the league lead with five assists as well as chipping in with three goals, but the statistics do not really tell all that Özil does for Real Madrid.  In hockey, assists are awarded not only to the player that passed to the person that scored but also to the player that passed to the principal assist man.  If football kept such statistics, Özil would likely lead the league with a double-digit assist count because he provides the link from Xabi Alonso deep in the midfield to di María, Ronaldo, and Higuaín up front, and Kaká will find it difficult to supplant the German international when he is fully fit from his knee surgery.

Sergio Busquets will have the responsibility to break up and disrupt Özil in the middle of the pitch, especially during counter-attacks.  Limiting Özil and di María to the periphery of the action should become Barcelona’s number one priority because accomplishing this task will isolate Ronaldo and Higuaín, and when they get frustrated, they both try to carry the whole team on their backs and will take ill-advised and speculative shots from all over the final third, which would suit Barcelona perfectly.

Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Villa, and Pedro Rodríguez will do what they do in Real’s final third.  Ronaldo, Higuaín, and Xabi Alonso will do what they do in Barça’s final third.  The wild cards are the two new participants in Los Blanco’s attacking midfield, Mesut Özil and Ángel di María, and their performances on Monday night will tilt the scales in one team’s favor.  Perform well, and Real Madrid might just stop Barcelona’s four-match winning streak against Real.  Perform mediocre or poorly, and Real Madrid will suffer the ignominy of Barça’s first ever five-match winning streak against Real.

Note: The times listed below are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Nov. 29

Fuera de Juego: Especial El Clásico - 2:00 PM on ESPN Deportes

Gol TV Live Preview Show – 2:30 PM on Gol TV HD

FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid – 2:50 PM on Gol TV HD (Play-by-play Phil Schoen and Analyst Ray Hudson in English with Play-by-play Diego Pessolano and Analyst Eduardo Biscayart in Spanish)

ESPN Deportes (Play-by-play Fernando Palomo and Analyst Mario Kempes)

ESPN3 (Play-by-play Adrian Healey and Analyst Robbie Mustoe in English with Play-by-play Fernando Palomo and Analyst Mario Kempes in Spanish)

FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid Replays – 5:00 PM on Gol TV HD and 6:00 PM on ESPN Deportes

Sportscenter Especial El Clásico – 5:00 PM on ESPN Deportes

Gol TV News: El Clásico Special – 7:00 PM on Gol TV HD

La Liga 360: El Clásico – 7:30 PM on Gol TV HD

Lionel Messi is without doubt one of the best players in the world if not the most talented at the moment. Messi has been in scintillating form the last couple of years having scored 38 goals in 51 appearances in all competitions in the 2008/09 season. He also had 18 assists in those 51 matches while he managed 23 goals in 31 La Liga matches.

Messi did even better in 2009/10 season scoring 47 goals and assisting on 14 others in 53 matches in all competitions. The Argentina star had a remarkably tally of 34 goals in 35 La Liga matches. In the current campaign, Messi has already scored 13 goals in just 10 matches and his stunning tally is only inferior to Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo who scored 14 goals so far in the Spanish league. However, Ronaldo played in two more games in the league and his total number of goals in all contests is inferior to that of Messi. The Argentina forward scored 23 goals in just 18 games this season compared to Ronaldo’s 18 goals in 19 matches.

There is not doubt all eyes will be on the dangerous duo and some have gone as far as billing the clash as a ‘Messi versus Ronaldo’ contest but this is quite inaccurate as the two stars will not be facing each other on the field due to their attacking nature. This means Messi will not be responsible for marking Ronaldo and vice versa. Both teams have other key players who can influence the match such as Xavi in case of Barca and Gonzalo Higuain for Real Madrid.

Prior to this highly anticipated match against Los Blancos, Messi scored a hat-trick against Almeria last weekend and followed up his heroics with a goal in the Champions League in mid-week in Athens against Panathinaikos. There is no doubt Messi has been an absolute magician for Barcelona in the last few season and his club record backs up the fact he is perhaps the best club player on the planet. Messi scored a hat-trick against Real Madrid in El Clasico in the 2006-07 season to prove he can shine on the big occasion as well.

Some have questioned his form for Argentina but he managed to score in the 4-1 win over the World Cup champions Spain in September. However, he went one better by scoring a late winner against Brazil on November 18 in a friendly in Qatar. This is Messi’s first win over the Selecao and for him to secure the win with a sublime finish can only do wonders to his confidence. This winner for Argentina could be the goal Messi has been missing not just to take his international career to the next level but also to continue his stunning and torrid scoring record with Barca.

The main question will be whether Messi will be able to score against Los Blancos in El Clasico to add to his impressive resume. (Please check http://www.laligatalk.com/messi-versus-ronaldo/1881 for a previous piece written on Messi & Ronaldo)

Barcelona's second goal, scored by Lionel Messi, typified the creativity displayed throughout the match by both Barcelona and Villarreal.

A select few matches each season define the league in terms of pecking order and/or overall footballing ability.  Obviously, the two editions of El Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona usually determine the fate of La Liga’s crown.  More specifically, in the past five seasons, the team that won the most points in El Clásico has gone on to win the league.  There are thirty-six other matches, however, that both teams have to play that shape their seasons, and Barcelona hosting Villarreal on Saturday night was touted as that type of monumental match.

After Valencia has fallen by the way side from the top of the league after the October international break with one point out of a possible twelve, including an emotionally crushing 2-1 loss to Barcelona, the only team remaining that had any realistic chance of staying with the established duopoly was Villarreal.

The Yellow Submarine’s revival to their passing, flowing style under Juan Carlos Garrido coincided with positive results in the second half of last season and the third-place position they held coming into the Camp Nou on Saturday.  Giuseppe Rossi and Nilmar are developing a telepathic understanding with each other, Santi Cazorla has provided the creative influence in whatever position of the midfield he plays, and new addition Borja Valero allows Cazorla, Rossi, and Nilmar to roam if they want to with his steadying influence and ability to spray the ball around the park.

The knock with Villarreal falls on their mediocre away form.  While they have achieved a perfect eight-for-eight at home in all competitions, including a 5-0-0 record in La Liga, Villarreal has only won two matches out of eight in all competitions away from El Madrigal, including a pedestrian 2-2-1 record in La Liga, a draw at lowly Segunda División B (third tier) side Polideportivo Ejido in the Copa del Rey, and losses in the UEFA Europa League at Dinamo Zagreb and PAOK, hardly considered as European powers.

While an average away form alongside their stellar home record will likely equal a top-four place and a spot in next year’s UEFA Champions League, it simply will not equal a top-two position, much less a league championship.

A win at the Camp Nou would not only jump Villarreal above Barcelona and temporarily tied with Real Madrid on top of the table, but it would send a significant message to Real and Barça that Villarreal is not merely a nice team that they would dismiss as a little engine that could but a legitimate threat to their increasingly cozy existence standing on top of Spanish football.

If Villarreal needed more confirmation that they could at least pull out a draw in Barcelona, they ride a three-match unbeaten streak at the Camp Nou, and both of Barça’s non-wins in La Liga have occurred at home.

Both teams predicate their games on ball possession and controlling how the match will play out.  No matter how much Villarreal wants to keep the ball away from Barcelona, Barcelona will have at least 62% of possession or higher, so a sharpened and biting counter-attack is necessary if they wanted to pierce Barcelona in its side.

In the first twenty minutes of the match, Villarreal executed this strategy well with two separate counter-attacks that severely threatened Víctor Valdés’ goal.  Barcelona’s defensive line played so high that they were near midfield when they had possession, so when Villarreal recuperated the ball, it did not take a brilliant pass to get behind the defense.  Combined with a general lack of pace from the Barcelona defensive four, Giuseppe Rossi flew down the left wing to latch onto through balls in open space.  To Barça’s credit, they recovered to quell the trouble both times, but Villarreal quickly identified how they were going to hurt Barcelona, and after David Villa scored the opening goal in the 22nd minute, Villarreal responded four minutes later with a Nilmar equalizer.

Nilmar’s ankle-breaking, sublime run through four or five Barça players and subsequent shot across the face of goal and past Valdés where it pinged off the right far post and into the net came as a result of Villarreal immediately attacking a forlorn Barça team after they were denied a second goal by the linesman’s offside flag.  Just as Rossi caught the back four off-guard with his two runs behind them in the early stages of the match, Nilmar took advantage of a team that still had its mind on the shockingly erroneous offside call by the linesman, and in a flash, a 2-0 game became 1-1.

As Carlos Delgado Ferreiro blew his whistle for halftime, Villarreal could go into the dressing room with a fairly satisfied disposition because they fashioned five scoring opportunities to Barça’s three despite only possessing the ball 36% of the time.  For the Barcelona players and the Culés in the stands, they beamed their frustrations straight at Delgado Ferreiro and his crew because of their poor performance in the opening forty-five minutes, denying a two-on-one situation with Lionel Messi and Pedro Rodríguez that resulted in a goal along with other questionable calls that had the Barça supporters waving their white handkerchiefs in disgust.

When both sets of teams came out for the second half, Pep Guardiola brilliantly channeled his players’ anger at the referee into a productive yet effulgent display of football in the second half to see away their worthy adversaries, similar to Barcelona’s second-half performance against Valencia to terminate another pretender to the throne.  Guardiola had his defense play a more conservative defensive line so that Villarreal could not run into open space like they did in the first half, and while Barcelona’s definition of “conservative” means holding their line at the edge of the center circle rather than at the halfway line, they effectively suppressed the Villarreal counter-attacking game with this tweak in defense.

This modification meant that Villarreal would have to create a build-up of passing football to penetrate the penalty area, a strategy with which Villarreal is highly capable, but Barcelona would not allow them to accomplish such a proposition because they kept the ball even better than they did in the first half.  Even though the statistics show that Barcelona “only” had 68% of the possession in the second half, that percentage went down after Barcelona scored their third goal and sent in substitutes Adriano Correia and Javier Mascherano to finish off the match.

The other changes with Barcelona in the second half had nothing to do with tactics and everything to do with the luminosity, the splendor, and every other positive adjective to describe Lionel Messi.  In perfect, synchronized amalgamation with Pedro, Barcelona’s second goal to regain the lead must go down as the goal of the season, and rather than wasting words on describing what happened, click on this to witness a universe-class event of understanding and trust between two players.

Messi would pounce on Joan Capdevila’s block of Pedro’s shot in the closing stages of the match to seal the victory for Barcelona at 3-1, showing the predatory, goal-poaching instincts in the penalty area that go understated with all of his other outstanding traits.

Villarreal played really well while the box score would say otherwise, and on many other days, including against Barcelona or Real Madrid, Villarreal would have at least garnered a point in the worst-case scenario.  Unfortunately, for El Amarillo Submarino, this night was not many other nights.

The critics and the cynics will jump on this match and proclaim that La Liga is morphing into a more glamorous version of the Scottish Premier League because second-place Barcelona now has a five-point gap over third-place Villarreal with leaders Real Madrid six points clear.  Villarreal, who was supposedly a danger to the Spanish royalty, could not compete with Barcelona in the second half as Barça deservedly won a 3-1 decision at home.

Maybe there is a kernel of truth behind that argument, but the same pundits who proclaim the Barclays Premier League as the most competitive league in the world because the “Big Four” could lose in any one matchday overlook the fact that only once in the past five years had a club other than Chelsea or Manchester United finished in the top two (Liverpool finished second in the 2008/09 season), the same amount of times it has happened in La Liga when Barcelona and Real Madrid did not end as the top two teams in La Liga (Villarreal finished second in the 2007/08 season).

That is a debate and discussion for another day.  The focus should sit squarely on Barcelona and its combination of individual and team performances that led to a two-goal victory over a Villarreal team that deserves it place as the third-best team in Spain at this moment.  If Barcelona can carry this form over to El Clásico two weeks from now on Monday night football (!?!?), this upcoming edition of the derby will be the most intriguing Clásico since… the last edition of El Clásico.

Fueras de Juego

- No one exerted less pressure on the opposition for an entire half that Real Zaragoza did in the first half against Sevilla on Sunday.  With Zaragoza playing at a snail’s pace with five in the back along with a holding midfielder, Sevilla could have stood still for the entire half and Zaragoza would not have scored.  Zaragoza trainer José Aurelio Gay made two changes and a formation shift to start the second half, and the whistles that deservedly rained down on Zaragoza turned into cheers and encouragement as Nico Bertolo got the equalizer and Sevilla left back Fernando Navarro was sent off halfway through the second period.  A late winner from Álvaro Negredo, of all people, broke los maños hearts, and Sevilla escaped with a 1-2 victory at La Romareda.

César Muñiz Fernández created another controversy when he clearly appeared to flash the yellow card at Alexis for dissent, which would have been his second, but the yellow was eventually credited to Frédéric Kanouté.  Muñiz Fernández is quickly becoming the second coming of Alfonso Pérez Burrull for his puzzling decisions and his general arrogance that only helps to rile up the players.

- Frightening scenes preceded the second half between Hércules and Real Sociedad as an Hércules youth player or employee lay motionless on the ground with the emergency workers quickly coming to his aid to diagnose the problem.  As of the time of this writing, there is no update on the situation, but with the recent passings of Antonio Puerta and Dani Jarque, the retirements of Real Madrid midfielder Rubén de la Red and Salamanca midfielder Miguel García, and the ongoing struggles of Sevilla defender Sergio Sánchez, all due to heart problems, one can only hope that this young man has not been struck down with such health problems.

- Manolo Preciado sent the verbal volleys all week at José Mourinho for the latter’s insinuation that Preciado sent in a scrub squad against Barcelona earlier in the season because Preciado knew they would lose, and the bite and venom translated not only through his words but through to his players, as Sporting Gijón showed little respect for Real Madrid with their hard tackling and general sniping with the Real players.  Mourinho’s team got the last laugh with Gonzalo Higuaín’s late winner to walk away from El Molinón with the three points, but if one team in Spain will die for their trainer, it is the Sporting Gijón players for their firebrand Manolo Preciado.

The Real Federación Española de Fútbol (the Spanish FA) released the full schedule for the 2010-11 La Liga season, and Jornada 1 will be held on the last weekend of August.  Both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona will commence their campaigns away from home as they visit Mallorca and Racing de Santander respectively.  Real Sociedad, the Basque football entity that spent the last two years in the Segunda División after establishing themselves in the Primera División for the previous forty seasons, will make their triumphant return to the top level of the Spanish pyramid against Villarreal.  The last match of the first round of fixtures will be held that Monday night as Atlético Madrid hosts Sporting de Gijón at the Estadio Vicente Calderón.

Here are the full schedule of the opening round of the La Liga season on August 28-30:

Mallorca – Real Madrid

Hércules – Athletic Bilbao

Racing de Santander – FC Barcelona

Málaga – Valencia

Deportivo La Coruña – Real Zaragoza

Levante – Sevilla

Espanyol – Getafe

Real Sociedad – Villarreal

Osasuna – Almería

Atlético Madrid – Sporting Gijón

El Clásico matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona will be held on the November 27 weekend (Jornada 13) at the Camp Nou and the April 16 weekend (Jornada 32) at the Santiago Bernabéu, where José Mourinho will reacquaint himself with Pep Guardiola after Mourinho’s Inter Milan eliminated Barcelona in last season’s UEFA Champions League.

Other derbies of note include the Basque derby between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao in Rounds 14 and 33, the Valencian derby between Valencia and Villarreal in Rounds 12 and 31, el derbi Barceloní between Espanyol and Barcelona in Rounds 16 and 35, and el Derbi madrileño between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid in Rounds 10 and 29.

If the races for the title, Champions League places, Europa League places, and relegation come down to the final day, as it has for the past few seasons, here are the final round of fixtures:

Real Madrid – Almería

Osasuna – Villarreal

Real Sociedad – Getafe

Espanyol – Sevilla

Levante – Real Zaragoza

Deportivo La Coruña – Valencia

Málaga – Barcelona

Racing de Santander – Athletic Bilbao

Hércules – Sporting Gijón

Mallorca – Atlético Madrid

For the rest of the schedule, refer to the RFEF website here.  La Liga will continue with one Monday match every round, and a Friday fixture may be included by the start of the season.  While Real Madrid and Barcelona will likely lead the way as per usual, the revamped Valencia lineup, the continued solidity of Sevilla, and the always dangerous Villarreal will challenge the duopoly all season, and Hércules and Real Sociedad will surprise many as they return to La Liga.

Last Saturday’s telecast of El Clásico between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu was the highest-rated and most-watched program on Spanish-language cable television this year.

El Clásico was seen on ESPN Deportes by an average of 466,000 Hispanic homes and 783,000 Hispanic viewers.  As for the normal La Liga matches shown on ESPN Deportes every weekend, the live telecasts average 95,000 Hispanic households and 139,000 Hispanic viewers.

These figures are great news in the United States for ESPN Deportes and its Spanish-speaking population.  The Primera División de México, the Mexican football league, is by far the most watched football league for Hispanics in the United States, and for a foreign league to garner consistent support on a weekly basis can only help spread the popularity of La Liga and Spanish football throughout the United States.  Considering the fact that ESPN, DirecTV, and Gol TV cannot set their weekly schedules too far ahead because of the LFP’s policy of revealing kickoff times only seven to ten days before each round, ESPN Deportes has done well to attract this many viewers.

On hand, I do not have the ratings for Gol TV and its English language telecast of El Clásico, but with Gol TV as a bilingual channel, the number of viewers should be on par or even greater than those who watched Real Madrid -Barcelona on ESPN Deportes.

Throughout Barcelona’s two-year run of groundbreaking excellence, Josep Guardiola i Sala role as a tactician tended to be undervalued.  He reinstituted the “Total Football” concept that Johan Cruyff, Guardiola’s former manager at FC Barcelona, instilled when he was a player and a manager at the club, and he changed the culture inside the dressing room.

He sent bad influences Deco and Ronaldinho away, and he brought a sense of discipline and accountability that the club lacked at the end of the Frank Rijkaard era.  When it came to the X and O’s of a match, however, most defined the team in his reign as a beautiful machine that only possessed a “Plan A” of ball possession and incessant attack.

If anyone still doubted Pep Guardiola as a tactical grandmaster, the last two matches against Arsenal and Real Madrid should validate his place as one of the top managers in world football.

Debuted against Arsenal during the second half of the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinal, Guardiola insisted on the 4-4-2 formation to handle Real Madrid’s abundance of offensive talent.  Partly forced by injuries but mostly a tactical decision, the Barça starting eleven was a departure from the norm.  Guardiola brought Dani Alves forward as a right midfielder/winger and positioned Seydou Keita as a left midfielder.  Carles Puyol went to right back, and Gabriel Milito filled in alongside Gerard Piqué in central defense.

With Éric Abidal reinjuring his thigh against Arsenal, the question surrounding the left back position was if Maxwell would receive the nod against Real Madrid.  Maxwell is the natural replacement, but in some instances this season, the opposition caught him out of position when he would make his forward runs.  With Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo racing down the left flank, there would be a decent possibility of a defensive breakdown with Maxwell absent from the action.  Rather than putting Carles Puyol in a left back role that he rarely ever plays, Guardiola kept faith with Maxwell in their most important match of the La Liga season.

The first few minutes of the match suggested that this pivotal game would be more akin to the tightly contested edition in November than the open affair at the Bernabéu last May.  The suffocating Barça press swarmed even harder, and the Real Madrid tackling came with more regularity and venom.

Guardiola positioned his team to quell Real Madrid’s lightning counter-attack, and apart from a couple of instances when Cristiano Ronaldo’s pure talent and speed would defy any defense, Barcelona’s defensive organization and discipline kept firm.  A clean sheet through forty-five minutes and zero shots on goal allowed testified to the Blaugrana’s security in the midfield and in front of Víctor Valdés.

With a one-goal lead to start the second half, Guardiola readjusted his formation, bringing Dani Alves back to his usual right back role and moving Carles Puyol into central defense, creating a five-man back line to consolidate an already strong defense.  Guardiola knew that his counterpart Manuel Pellegrini would send wave after wave of attacks in the second half to score the equalizing goal, and he felt a reinforcement to stem this oncoming tide would be prudent.  Hardly characterizing this change as protectionist with Dani Alves and Maxwell still marauding both flanks, Real Madrid found Puyol, Piqué, and Milito to be uncompromising and intelligent in their tackling and positioning.

Two clean sheets against Real Madrid this season substantiated Barcelona’s claim as more than a club who only worries about scoring goals.

Manuel Pellegrini is no fledgling manager either, and with Real Madrid’s midfield and defensive organization at its season best, it would take more invention and guile than individual splendor to break down their white wall.  Who better than Xavi Hernández to solve the problem.

For a player that has and continues to receive numerous accolades throughout his illustrious career, Xavi does not get the full credit for his contributions to Futbol Club Barcelona.  He always had a transcendent talent on his team that would garner the headlines: first, it was Rivaldo; then it was Ronaldinho; and now it is Lionel Messi.  Others would scoff at their teammates for stealing the limelight, but Xavi would want nothing more than to provide assists for his fellow colleagues as well as deflecting praise to them and his manager.

For Xavi’s first masterpiece, he executed a cheeky lofted ball over the Madrid defense to perfection.  Constantly scanning the field for any potential passes to befuddle the opposition, he saw Messi make a run from the corner of his eye.  He had two options: an incisive through ball in between the defenders or a ball over the defense.  He chose the latter (the much more difficult option), and Raúl Albiol watched in horror as the ball floated over his head onto the chest of Messi, who chested it to his right to create space and smack it past Iker Casillas for the vital first goal.

Xavi’s second offering early in the second half sealed the match.  Again, he spotted a run of his teammate in his peripheral vision.  Pedro made a diagonal run, and Xavi obliged his effort by slotting a perfect through ball that hit the moving target as well as directing it into a position where Álvaro Arbeloa could not come around Pedro to tackle the ball away.  Pedro curled his shot past Casillas, and the 0-2 lead proved insurmountable.

Besides his inventive and sagacious ball distribution, his ability off the ball remains underrated.  Sergio Busquets and Touré Yaya are known to be the pivots of the Barça midfield as well as the protectors of the back four, but Xavi is the epitome of a box-to-box midfielder.  His harassment of any Madrid player on the ball forced them to rush their movements, causing a few turnovers in compromising areas of the pitch.  On several occasions, he fully committed to decisive tackles that broke up feasible goal-scoring opportunities for Real Madrid.

It is no coincidence that Xavi Hernández and Josep Guardiola would mastermind a crucial victory in Barcelona’s attempt to repeat as Spanish champions.  When Barcelona won their first European Cup in 1992, Guardiola led the midfield as that deep-lying playmaker that controlled the game without having to score.  As Guardiola started to age, Xavi became the natural successor to Guardiola in his position, and Xavi’s teams have won two UEFA Champions League titles, the second with his former teammate Guardiola as manager.

Lionel Messi and Pedro Rodríguez scored yet again in an important match, and the plaudits showered on these two for their brilliant individual moments are richly deserved.  Behind all great forwards, however, are the midfielders that provide them with the potent ball to pierce the defense.  While Messi creates opportunities for himself due to his amazing ability, he would be the first to say that without Xavi governing the midfield as a maestro and conductor and Pep Guardiola continually instructing in training and in the heat of a match, he would not have matured into the historic figure he has already become.

Fueras de Juego

- Cristiano Ronaldo played his part, consistently flying down both flanks in search of any opening that Barcelona allowed, but his anxiety to prove he is better than Lionel Messi and worth the €94 million transfer fee left his teammates out of the loop as he single-handedly tried to beat Barça on his own.  Gonzalo Higuaín supplied the most disappointing performance for Real Madrid, as he could not carve out a decent chance against Puyol and the gang.  Although it was not entirely his fault, the papers will again spout out how he flatters to deceive in the grandest occasions despite scoring a tremendous amount of goals.

In case of El Clásico blinkers, there were other matches in La Liga this weekend.

- Sevilla defeated Málaga 1-2 in an Andalusian derby, but both Andrés Palop and Gustavo Munúa provided classic moments for those blooper highlight reels.  For Palop, he failed to secure a routine shot from Duda, and the ensuing spill gave Felipe Caicedo a simple tap-in for Málaga to take the lead.

Sevilla’s equalizer from Juan Cala came about from an embarrassing error by Munúa.  Ivica Dragutinovic’s free kick floated straight into Munúa’s chest, but he somehow fumbled and mishandled it as if he caught a burning rock, and Cala could not believe his luck as he tapped in his goal.

Málaga was disgraceful with their constant play-acting and time-wasting tactics, and cosmic justice reigned supreme as Lolo headed the winning goal late in the contest.

- Athletic Bilbao notched the most comprehensive victory of the weekend with their 4-1 drubbing of Almería at the San Mamés, and the score flattered Almería.  Javi Martínez exhibited why Rafa Benítez and Liverpool are following his every move closely.  Two goals and industry in the midfield further cemented him as one of Liverpool’s summer transfer targets as the Reds try to find the replacement for Xabi Alonso that Alberto Aquilani has failed to achieve to this point.

Bilbao pelted Almería goalkeeper Diego Alves with twenty-six total shots, thirteen on target, but the most impressive stat of the match for Athletic Club was that they committed only nine fouls for the whole ninety minutes.  Nine fouls in ninety minutes for Athletic Bilbao would be analogous to Barcelona only having 50% of the possession.  It hardly ever happens.

- Valencia’s Manuel Fernandes might want to hide under a rock tonight after a torrid game against Mallorca.  Admittedly a midfielder forced into central defense due to a host of injuries, Fernandes committed elementary errors in defense, including getting continually beat over the top and stranding his own keeper César Sánchez a couple of times with short back passes.

The coup de grâce came when he netted into his own goal from a Gonzalo Castro cross to hinder any chance for Valencia to salvage a point.  To cap off a miserable performance, Fernandes was sent off late in the match for a clumsy tackle on Aritz Aduriz.

Pablo Hernández scored late for Los Che to intensify the last few minutes, but Mallorca dominated Valencia despite the 3-2 final scoreline, and Valencia’s miserable week ended with a thud at the ONO Estadi.

The Almería – Barcelona match had not concluded when Real Madrid took to the pitch, but a few minutes into their match with Sevilla, they knew that Barça slipped at the Estadio de los Juegos Mediterráneos and dropped two points with a 2-2 draw against Almería.  Expectations were that Real Madrid would not have the chance to grab at least a share of the lead away from the Blaugrana until the second Clásico meeting on April 11, but this unforeseen gift, wrapped in a bow by their archrivals to the northeast, laid at the doorstep of the Bernabéu for the Madridistas to open gleefully.

Unfortunately, Xabi Alonso put it into his own net in the 10th minute, and Ivica Dragutinovic scored an unlikely free kick that was meant to be crossed into a flood of players.  Iker Casillas and Xabi Alonso looked at each other with contempt as both expected one another to handle the harmless ball.  Xabi Alonso let the ball sail over his head, assuming that Casillas would catch it on the bounce.  Casillas anticipated Xabi Alonso to head the ball away to safety and therefore did not cover the left post.  The ball furtively sneaked into the bottom left corner of the net, and Sevilla held a 0-2 lead at the Santiago Bernabéu with 38+ minutes remaining.

A loss for Real Madrid against Sevilla, even in the capital city, would not have been a shocking revelation, and a defeat to the Andalusians would still have Los Blancos a mere three points behind Barcelona with thirteen matches left to overturn the deficit. Real Madrid manager Manuel Pellegrini entertained zero options of settling, as he removed Álvaro Arbeloa and Lassana Diarra from the action in the 55th minute and sent in two creative midfielders, Rafael van der Vaart and Guti, to revitalize the incessant but stagnant attack.

Observing that Sevilla had only one shot on target in fifty-five minutes, the unlikely Dragutinovic goal, Pellegrini concluded that there was little need for a second defensive midfielder and a stay-at-home left back.  Real Madrid played intricate football in the middle of the pitch, used both flanks effectively, and dabbled in a more direct, long-ball approach up to that point, but Sevilla goalkeeper Andrés Palop and his defensive line held firm without a breach of goal.  Los Nervionenses cared little that their two goals came courtesy of a Xabi Alonso own goal and miscommunication between Iker Casillas and Xabi Alonso on a Dragutinovic free kick.

Rafael van der Vaart and Guti certainly have the fecundity to create and exploit any gaps within the Sevilla defense, and each had differing problems with Pellegrini this season.  Van der Vaart was supposed to be gone in the previous summer transfer window.  He was not in Pellegrini’s blueprints to the point where Esteban Granero was given van der Vaart’s number 23 in the preseason.  Wesley Sneijder, exiled by Real Madrid and eventually sold to Inter Milan, more than suggested to van der Vaart that he should leave to join a club that wanted him.

Van der Vaart stubbornly stayed with Madrid, feeling as though he was good enough for the team and wanted to prove his Madrid doubters wrong.  While he has fought injuries throughout the season, van der Vaart showed himself to be the third attacking midfielder with Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká.

As for José María Gutiérrez Hernández, that man known as Guti, Guti is and will always be Guti.  Perpetually and chronically incorrigible, he has gotten under the skin of every Real Madrid manager since he first made it to the senior squad.  If anyone tugs on his gossamer robe, he lashes out and leaves no one in his wake.

For a character like that, he should have been booted out years ago, but he still roams the pitch at the Santiago Bernabéu because of his truly world-class vision and passing distribution.  The term “world-class” is bandied around quite frequently, but for Guti, the label fits.  If he did not possess this type of talent, there is no way manager after manager would have kept this turbulent truculent on their squads.

Manuel Pellegrini could have easily phased out both van der Vaart and Guti if he let his ego get the best of him, but when the bell rung, he employed the players best suited for the situation rather than use others just because they did not vex him.  What Madrid needed in the final half-hour against Sevilla were players that forced Sevilla’s defensive and midfield lines to lose their shape.

Sergio Ramos getting R-rated after heading in the equalizer.

Whereas the field tilted toward Andrés Palop’s goal in the first half, this Madrid torrent in the second half completely inundated everyone with a red tinge.  A 60th minute Cristiano Ronaldo strike that benefited from a wicked Marius Stankevicius deflection and a 64th minute Sergio Ramos header from a van der Vaart corner turned the match completely around in the ten minutes since the substitutes entered the match.  Guti struck the crossbar, and Gonzalo Higuaín hit the post and the crossbar on two separate shots in the ensuing ten minutes after the Ramos equalizer, but Pellegrini was not done with his tinkering.

In the 75th minute, he made the bold move of withdrawing the €65 million Kaká in favor of Real Madrid’s all-time leading scorer Raúl, who has made very few appearances since losing his starting spot early in the season.  Kaká had a decent game, but van der Vaart and Guti accomplished more in twenty minutes than Kaká did in seventy-five.  Pellegrini, soft-spoken but strong in his convictions, knew the gravity of the situation and wanted no less than three points.

An ultra-offensive 4-1-3-2 formation proved to be too much for Sevilla, as Rafael van der Vaart outmuscled Stankevicius for a rebound from three yards out and converted his scoring chance after Palop understandably gave up a rebound from Higuaín’s header in the second minute of stoppage time.

The euphoria felt and created by the players sent the Madridistas into a higher state of consciousness as they witnessed the most electric thirty minutes of the La Liga season.  Pellegrini, always the levelheaded statesman, put this match into its proper perspective when he spoke with Spanish sports daily Marca:

“There are still 39 points to play for.  These are three important points.  We will only be happy when our final objectives are obtained.  Now we depend on ourselves.”

With all the emotion spent on conquering this two-goal deficit against Sevilla, Real Madrid will have little time to recover because they host Lyon on Wednesday in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League tie down a single goal.  Whether they maintain this surging momentum into that match remains to be seen, and for all the plaudits and accolades they received on Saturday, a deluge of harsh criticism will be levied upon them if they fail to defeat Lyon and advance to the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

That discussion, however, is for another day.  Real Madrid and Barcelona are tied at the top of La Liga with thirteen matches remaining.  Barcelona has the edge because they defeated Real 1-0 in November, and as the famous Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once quipped:

If you are first, you are first.  If you are second, you are nothing.

Real Madrid would not want it any other way.

Fueras de Juego

- Athletic Bilbao’s resurgence this season is due to many factors, including a stellar home record and Fernando Llorente leading the line, but some credit has to go to Gaizka Toquero, the perfect wingman to Llorente’s hold-up play.  Once a lower division vagabond with such illustrious clubs as SD Lemona, Sestao River Club, and SD Eibar, he caught the eye of Bilbao, although he was not in manager Joaquín Caparrós’ plans when Toquero first arrived in Bilbao.  He scored both of Athletic’s goals in their routine 2-0 win over Real Valladolid on Sunday, including a clinical finish off the short-hop to give his team an insurmountable two-goal advantage.

- Felicitaciones to Xerez as they won their first match away from home in the top flight after defeating an in-form Málaga 2-4 in a match that featured two red cards, nine yellow cards and a penalty miss and a penalty make by Xerez winger Momo.  Xerez manager Néstor Gorosito had an impossible task of keeping Xerez afloat after he replaced José Ángel Ziganda in January, and while Xerez is still ten points adrift of safety, Gorosito has instilled confidence in a team that had none before he arrived.

- The weekly drama that is Atlético Madrid came up with another plot twist, as Ibrahima Baldé scored in stoppage time to give Los Colchoneros an undeserved 1-1 draw.  A poor match in terms of quality, Diego Forlán was livid when he was substituted with thirty minutes left, and Atleti seemed to release the guillotine on itself after José Antonio Reyes received a straight red card for flailing his arm at Eliseu Pereira, although what little contact Reyes made on Eliseu sent him into “unfathomable” pain.  Clearly frustrated by Zaragoza’s bounty on him, he decided to take the law into his own hands in a half-hearted attempt to send a message.  If Atlético manager Quique Sánchez Flores has not already been prescribed Thorazine, Zyprexa, or any other antipsychotic drug because he has to deal with this club on a daily basis, he needs them now.

Barcelona’s star Lionel Messi has capped his great week with two goals to lead the Catalan side to a 3-1 victory over Deportivo La Coruna. Several days ago he was named the Ballon d’Or winner after a stunning year during which he led Barca to three titles- Champions League, la Liga and Copa del Rey.

Some skeptics and other unreasonable critics were beginning to argue Messi is underperforming and not living up to his remarkable displays from last season. What many seem to overlook is the fact Messi has already found the back of the net nine times in 13 league matches besides providing his fellow Barca players with five assists. In total Messi has 13 goals while assisting on six others in 20 appearances. A week ago the club hosted Real Madrid in the El Clasico clash and ended up 1-0 winners courtesy of substitute Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s second-half strike. Messi took part in the game after missing out on the crucial 2-0 triumph over Inter in the Champions League.

In the space of two weeks, the Catalan side emerged victorious against Los Galacticos in la Liga and the Nerazzurri in European competition. The side remains on course to compete in all the major competitions despite the fact it is still too early to judge whether Barca can go all the way and repeat as treble winners.

Messi was not used against Inter (in Europe) due to injury but has featured in the other important games against Real and Depor helping Barca to open a five point lead over their bitter rivals Real. While Barca’s players remain undefeated in the league, the capital club’s players have yet to hit top form and the side has already been dumped out of the cup competition. The fans and critics alike must understand Messi will not score in every game and will certainly have a number of sub-par performances.

It is unfair to expect from him to score in almost every game or to perform at his best over the course of a long and demanding season. What matters the most now is his side is still in the running to repeat as champs in all three competitions won last season. The club will have the opportunity to win the FIFA World Club Cup as well which will be held in Abu Dahbi before the end of this year. All eyes will be on Messi to see whether he can finish off a great year with another trophy.

The next several months will decide whether Barca can repeat and if Messi will indeed remain the world’s best player. South Africa 2010 will have a big say in determining whether he repeats as Ballon d’Or winner but his achievements with his club should not be underestimated.