Real win the Copa Clásico

Another Clásico, another classic. The game ebbed and flowed at times but Real ended up the victors.

     Despite notching 19 goals already in his début season in Spain, many were still calling Gareth Bale a flat track bully. They said he could only do it against the smaller teams Real Madrid battered. They said he couldn't perform on the big stage for los Blancos. Then again, they had said that about Cristiano Ronaldo before he won them the Copa del Rey with a physics-defying header in this very stadium, against this very opposition three years ago. Perhaps 'they' should think before they speak.
     History repeated itself last night in a way with Bale, like CR7 before him in 2011, scoring a sublime winner late on and picking up the man of the match plaudits, Marca hailing him as both 'the Prince of Wales' and 'Gareth Bolt'. Ronaldo was forced to watch from the stands due to injury and while Real will hope to have him back on the pitch sooner rather than later, manager Carlo Ancelotti and his energetic eyebrow will have been heartened by the way the team performed without him, especially Bale and the inspirational Ángel Di María.

An accommodating host

     The teams emerged into a cauldron of noise in the last final to be played at the Mestalla, Messi less than a foot taller than the mascot he appeared with. A strange atmosphere for a Clásico eventually emerged as both sides were whistled when in possession of the ball, one by the right half of the stadium, the other by the left.
The game started with Madrid more in control, their passing crisper and more positive than Barcelona's more ponderous style. The gameplan was immediately clear - get the ball to Di María and Bale in the danger areas - and it paid dividends early on. Bale received the ball and found Karim Benzema who had moved out towards the left wing. A beautifully-weighted first time pass from the Frenchman found Di María careering through the gaping holes in the Barcelona defence and into the area. The Argentine had Bale open to his right but elected to shoot, and although wannabe pirate Pinto got a hand to it, the ball skipped merrily into the far corner and nestled next to the post. 1-0 to Madrid and half the stadium went mental. I have to confess I did too, having put a bet on Di María to bag the first goal at 10-1. Result! Thank the gods he didn't pass to Bale. Anyway the Welshman's time would come soon enough.
     In the absence of CR7 and with Messi's continued slump showing no sign of ending, the Spanish press had changed from their usual tack and billed this as the battle of the EUR200m players; Bale vs Neymar. They may have cost nearly the same (taking into account the real cost of the Brazilian's transfer as well as the fines the club have had to pay for their dodgy dealings), but on this showing the pair are nearly incomparable. Neymar had a chance to level the game with pretty much the last kick, but smashed it into the face of the post. Before that, the closest he'd come to getting on the back pages was an attempted headbutt on Fabio Coentrão after being tackled in the area. Never backward in coming forward, the confusingly-coiffured Pepe stepped in and manhandled Neymar away. Referee Mateu Lahoz elected to book both Neymar and the central defender, much to the latter's consternation.

What did you call my mum?!

     By this point, the referee had already been forced to put up with quite a lot of rolling around and cajoling from the players as is now customary in Clásicos. Perhaps not as much as usual, but it would still irk the bejeezus out of me if I had to babysit those 22 players. It has to be said, Lahoz dealt with the histrionics extremely well, not falling for most of the dives and remonstrating with players who committed them. Twice in a minute he got right up in the grills of Barcelona players who he felt aggrieved by, first young Marc Bartra for fannying about on the floor as if he'd been shot by a double-barrelled shotgun rather than slightly and mistakenly brushed by Coentrão, and then Javier Mascherano for a criticism levelled at him. Or having bad breath. Mascherano definitely looks like he could have bad breath.
     Barcelona were racking up their usual numbers in the possession and passes columns to little avail. While at some points they had up to 75% possession, Real looked far the more likely to score, with Isco having a side-footed effort blocked by a delicious last-ditch tackle from a now fresh-breathed Mascherano on 35 minutes. At the other end, and after 472 sideways passes, Barcelona encroached on the Madrid box and caused a bit of a scramble which ended with Messi rifling his shot wide of the upright.
     Jordi Alba, who had earlier beaten Dani Carvajal to a header in the 'contest of the small wing-backs' only to head straight at Casillas, was replaced by Adriano at the break, a move surely brought on more by injury than anything else. The second half began in the same vein as the first, with the effervescent Bale at the centre of all quick Real attacks. The Welsh winger smacked a shot into the side netting a couple of minutes after the restart and remained threatening throughout. The footballer formerly known as Messi then floated a freekick innocuously over Casillas' bar before Mascherano crudely chopped Pepe down as he burst into the Barcelona half and correctly drew a yellow card from the ref. I'm not sure what Pepe thought he was doing, bombing into anyone's half as a centre back, but it looked reasonably impressive nonetheless. From the resulting freekick, three Barça players challenged each other for the ball under no pressure whatsoever and only succeeded in feeding the waiting Bale on the edge of the box. The Cardiff lad chested the ball to tee himself up and unleashed a volley which sailed fractionally over the crossbar.

Uhn-tiss uhn-tiss uhn-tiss... Enya

     Fàbregas was apparently playing in the 'false 9' position popularised over the past couple of years, but to me he looked like he was playing as a 'false 4', so far back was he operating. An advert currently doing the rounds on the tellybox sees Cesc putting on his headphones to drown out the hoards of Madrid fans and outside influences while on his way to a game, and perhaps the only explanation for his tepid display in Valencia is that he'd been chilling out to some Enya or whalesong before the game. Bloody hippy. The
former Arsenal man was hooked off on the hour mark and Pedro entered the fray, presumably to add some attacking inclination. A few minutes later, Bartra wondered up from the back and, apparently growing tired of his team's lacklustre sideways passing shenanigans, unleashed a shot on goal from range. Casillas in the Madrid goal had prepped himself before the game to be playing Barcelona and so appeared highly surprised at this most un-Barça-like attempt. The 'keeper unconvincingly punched the ball wide for a corner and seemed grateful it hadn't ended up in the back of the net.
     Madrid then doubled their lead on 66 mins, that man Bale getting the goal his performance so richly deserved. Unfortunately for the men in white Pinto had scurried so far from his line, presumably in search of treasure or wenches, that when Bale headed the ball into the unguarded net there was only one defender betwixt he and the goal line. A good spot by the ref/linesman and as every schoolboy knows, the offside law dictates that there must be at least two opposition players between the goalscorer and the line for a strike to count.

Bartra looks as surprised as anyone

     Nonetheless, a goal from a corner was scored within a minute, and this time it counted. The Catalans hauled themselves level when Bartra, still playing in a most un-Barça fashion, lost Pepe and helped himself to a free header. Surely this shooting-from-range, winning-headers-in-the-box kind of malarkey will be coached out of the youngster before he gets any other funny ideas. It's just not the Barça way. The Real half of the Mestalla was stunned, the Barcelona half ecstatic. The 15,000 or so officials and dignitaries were
probably nonplussed. Then again none of them had paid up to EUR2,600 for a ticket.
     After the goal, the game was turned on its head. Whereas before Real had been attacking quickly, dangerously and with purpose, now they appeared fearful of their opponents and kept misplacing the easiest of passes, possibly recalling other similar incidences where they went on to lose the game. Barcelona, by comparison, were now full of attacking intent, players in every position constantly harrying for the ball. For the remainder of the match they looked like the Barça of a few years ago, or even like present-day Bayern Munich. After Modrić hit the post for Madrid only a great tackle from Pepe at the other end stopped Barcelona taking the lead

     However, cometh the hour, cometh the Welshman. Receiving a pass just inside his own half just six minutes from extra-time, Bale knocked it past Marc Bartra. The two were involved in a short tussle by the byline but the Barcelona youngster's pressure wasn't enough to put chronic diver Bale to the ground. The Real #11 ended up some three yards outside the touchline following a nudge from the defender but simply applied the afterburners. He absolutely stormed round his marker and re-entered the pitch clocked at

'Gareth Bolt' applies the finish to his wonder-goal

73mph, and entered the area with beautiful control, surely a near impossible feat at that speed. Pinto saw him coming and cast aside his eye-patch all the better to see when the Welshman tucked the ball between his peg-legs with the cutest of finishes. Half the stadium erupted once more - the other side. Bale didn't make any friends by sprinting to the byline to celebrate in front of the Barça end. This wasn't done in a malicious manner though - if you've just scored such an amazing goal you're unlikely to have any capacity left for rational thought. The Culés in the section behind him didn't seem to appreciate the savage beauty of the goal, somehow..
     Bale's momentous goal absolutely took the wind out of the Barcelona sails but there was always likely to be one more twist in the tale. It is the way of such things. A fantastic ball from Xavi split the Real defence, which had seen Varane added to its ranks in place of the hard-working Benzema as the clocked ticked over 90, and ended up with Neymar. Had the uprights not been screwed in properly, the Brazilian's shot would have blown the entire damnable goal right into the massed ranks of fans behind, but as it was the strike cannoned off the post and straight back into the grateful arms of Casillas. The last action of the game saw Bale fouled and left flat on his back. It was an appropriate way to end things. The only way any opposition could have stopped the Cardiff lad would have been to put him in the hospital. He was simply unplayable at times.

Copas are like buses...

     While the Real players celebrated in the time-honoured tradition of massing with thousands of fans by the Cibeles fountain in the capital (Ramos didn't drop their shiny new trophy under the bus this time, but he did pretend to), their Barcelona counterparts carried out what is becoming their own new post-match routine of being heckled and abused by their own supporters upon reaching Camp Nou. Yet again they trudged, heads bowed, to their cars as curses rained down. Yet again Messi was singled out for personal treatment, with fans shouting tongue-in-cheek for him to 'run less'. The
usually twinkle-toed playmaker has been worryingly quiet and downcast these past few weeks, and the newspapers in Argentina are nervously hoping that he's saving himself for a big performance for his country in the upcoming World Cup.
     Various papers in Spain are postulating that this signifies the end of the triumphant Barcelona cycle, but this is all surely a bit premature. Yes they've had an awful week, losing out in two competitions and falling further behind in the other, but after their long period of domination they were always bound to suffer some sort of lapse of form.
     On the other hand, their hated rivals are on a different level entirely. Time and again in post-match interviews the phrase that kept being repeated was that the players hope to add to their haul of silverware this season and return to Cibeles once more. Or even twice. There is no fear ahead of the next round of the Champions League now, a marked turnaround following the abject performance to creep through against Dortmund. Cristiano Ronaldo reckons he might be fit for the first leg of the semi-final and should make the second, but the question is; do Real need him??