Saturday night was the first “clasico” of the Spanish league this season, the clashes between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid that have come to designate the centralist view of Spain vs the nation of nations espoused by many Catalans and that in the year have frequently become overheated on the pitch and spilled over into some pretty unpleasant scenes.
With FC Barcelona trailing Real Madrid by 3 points in spite of having played an extra match thanks to having to play a match early thanks to the Club World Cup in Japan in December and Real Madrid having a unbelievable string of wins in a row it was looking as though Bara’s recent stranglehold won't be so tight.
And having been widely criticised for his before and after match escapades, Madrid coach Jose Mourinho stayed silent on the subject of the upcoming clash, having perhaps realized that his taunts and inflammatory behaviour only seemed to make Barcelona’s resolution all of the stronger.
However , in the 1st 25 seconds of the match something unexpected occurred and Real Madrid capitalised on a rare mistake by Victor Valdes permitting their foe to score. This looked to be the type of nightmare start a few of the people were fearing, not believing that it would be possible to beat Real Madrid once again in their home stadium.
This early shot across the bows from Madrid appeared to focus the minds of the Barcelona players are they shortly got back onto winning form. The game angled in Barcelona’s favor and they were obviously outmanoeuvring Madrid despite some robust and perilous looking counterattacks.
Barcelona equalised after 30 minutes and seemed like they were more than back in the game. And in the second half they were shortly in the lead directly to make winning seem like an increasing in likelihood option. When Barcelona’s 3rd goal was scored it was clear that Madrid could not match the brilliancy of Barcelona and in spite of being in strong form this season, still not in the same class.
Hence what now for Real Madrid? How do they regroup as this defeat by Barcelona will have seriously dented their confidence. He's already attempted one or two different strategies to beat Barcelona but in the last 8 encounters has won just once. So how will Jose Mourinho prepare for the following clasico in April?
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