Would You Pick Real Madrid Or Barcelona?

It is mouth-watering just to imag­ine a match fea­tur­ing the likes of Cris­tiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Xabi Alonso and Karim Ben­zema tak­ing on an oppos­ing team which includes Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Xavi Her­nan­dez and Zla­tan Ibrahi­movic to name just a few.

The dream of many foot­ball fanat­ics has come true fol­low­ing a spend­ing frenzy by Los Blan­cos which included the record sign­ing of Por­tuguese Ronaldo from Man­ches­ter United. The club obvi­ously made other big name sign­ings and also for­ti­fied its defense with the hope of chal­leng­ing the Cata­lan club for hon­ours both in Spain and Europe.

Barca did not hold back and retal­i­ated by cap­tur­ing Inter’s Ibrahi­movic though that came at a steep price. Inter received star striker Samuel Eto’o in return in addi­tion to a hefty pay­ment for the Ner­az­zurri. The proud Cata­lan club still has plenty of weapons upfront besides the famous names men­tioned above. Andres Ini­esta has become an inte­gral cog in the team’s free-flowing approach and often con­tributes with deci­sive balls from mid­field while young striker Bojan Krkic is begin­ning to emerge as a threat. Krkic’s play­ing time will still be lim­ited with the pres­ence of Henry and Ibrahi­movic yet he is sure to get reg­u­lar cameo appear­ances under Coach Josep Guardiola’s stewardship.

Barca’s strengths are not lim­ited to the fright­en­ing for­ward lineup or the midfield’s flair and solid­ity but also the defense’s com­pact­ness under the lead­er­ship of Car­les Puyol. While Xavi and Ini­esta sup­ply the attack­ers with the ammu­ni­tion to score goals, the ener­getic Yaya Toure sup­ports the defense and cov­ers the space left by the mid­field­ers roam­ing for­ward. Cap­tain Puyol mar­shals the defense and has found an able deputy in the form of Ger­ard Pique.

As for Los Galac­ti­cos, Kaka and Ronaldo pull the strings from mid­field and move for­ward to sup­port Cap­tain Raul and French striker Karim Ben­zema. Behind them for­mer Liv­er­pool star Alonso ensures the team ticks like a well-oiled machine while Mahamadou Diarra recov­ers plenty of balls, breaks up oppo­si­tion moves and offers cover for the defense. Iker Casil­las remains a trust­wor­thy goal­keeper between the posts and often per­forms incred­i­ble saves while Raul Albiol and Alvaro Arbe­loa were brought in to strengthen the defen­sive line.

Real Madrid was not able to lure French Inter­na­tional and Bay­ern Munich star Franck Ribery leav­ing club Pres­i­dent Flo­rentino Perez vis­i­bly dis­ap­pointed. While Barcelona appears to be more of a solid, free-flowing and united team, Los Blan­cos have yet to mesh together and are still reliant on indi­vid­ual tal­ents and flashes of bril­liance from stars such as Kaka.

So the ques­tion for La Liga and all foot­ball fans is prob­a­bly best summed up in this ques­tion: Would you pick a cohe­sive yet very tal­ented team like Barca or will you bet on Real Madrid win­ning titles through the con­tri­bu­tions of the indi­vid­ual super­stars? It is Barca’s impres­sive tal­ent work­ing for the col­lec­tive good in a face-off with Real’s awfully tal­ented super­stars who are still rely­ing on their skills to gel into a suc­cess­ful team.

Both Kaka and Ronaldo achieved suc­cess with their pre­vi­ous clubs but they have not played together prior to this sea­son and Los Blan­cos have not won in Europe for a long time. On the other hand, Barca have won a his­toric tre­ble last sea­son and prob­a­bly have the best player in the world at the moment in the shape of Leo Messi.

Tagged as: barca, Benzema, Guardiola, Henry, Ibrahimovic, Iniesta, Kaka, Los Blancos, Los Galacticos, Messi, Raúl, Xabi Alonso