The Special One Outdone

It was being labelled the game of the season by many a pundit....Buildup started a week back and everybody billed it as another day where Jose Mourinho would get the better of Barcelona.. How wrong they were as Barcelona put up a display that would've just mesmerized any football fan. It was like watching the Spanish national side against Real Madrid as 9 of the Barcelona starting 11 were from the national team. More than 600 completed passes..Astonishing while Real struggled to get to grips with the passing machine that was Barcelona. With a lineup boasting of Mesut Ozil, Angel di Maria, and Cristiano Ronaldo they were expected to pose a stiff challenge to the World Cup winning defence of Pique and Puyol. The only stiff challenge Madrid won was when Sergio Ramos lost his head and pushed his national team mate Puyol in the face. Add to that Cristiano Ronaldo's disgusting push on Pep Guardiola which should directly rule him out of contention for the Ballan 'd' Or. Despite Ronaldo's feeble attempts to win sympathy with the referree and some atrocious challenges by Ramos Barcelona stuck to their ancient philosophy of keeping the ball which always works. Xavi, the architect of so many of Barcelona's and Spain's goals got on the scoresheet and how much does he deserve it. Supplementing Xavi's laser guided passes were his alter ego Andres Iniesta and the Flea Lionel Messi. The experienced Madrid defence of Carvalho and Pepe were torn to shreds by just these 3 and made sure that Barcelona were on top everytime. Iker Cassillas was the only one that saved Real from losing by more that 5 goals. His awareness and positioning was what kept Real in the game atleast momentarily. Madrid got so many things wrong. Firstly starting Karim Benzema when there was a perfectly clicking combo of Ronaldo, Higuain and di Maria. Benzema did nothing to trouble Puyol and Pique except run into them. Mourinho's standard 'park the bus' policy totally backfired as Khedira and Alonso had no idea how the ball just zipped past them everytime. The game ended on a very ugly note as Sergio Ramos just showed young footballers how they shouldn't behave in a football match of this intensity. Kicking at David Villa and pushing Puyol. Disgusting. He needs a ban to just show him the magnitude of his actions. Barcelona's win against Madrid proved many things. First, they issued a statement of intent to the whole world just who the best club is, second they proved that Jose Mourinho's human too and his defence can be breached, third and lastly it showed the world how football has to be played. As a team.