Real Madrid 3 – 1 Barcelona
Barcelona and Real Mardrid faced for the first time this season in an encounter of La Liga. And once again I lived up to my forecasting ability predicting an probable outcome of the match just yesterday. Yes, I did predicted Real and that exactly what happened. Technically I did not see Barca posing a threat to Real with Ronaldo, Benzama, Bell together in a quite decent form. On the contrary Barcelona is overloaded with slow, aged and unfit players and Messi is awfully out of form. And yes Real killed Barca with their raw speed. The combination of Marsello, Isco, Ronaldo, Benzama was lethal particularly in the second half. And they looked like scoring each time they had the ball. Awesome one touch football by Real on the contrary only Suarez did impressed for Barca providing a neat assist to Neymar who scored from the top of the box but it was more of mistake by Real defence than excellence of Neymar. Neymar was allowed much space without any reason and Pepe who was close to him should have went in for the challenge rather than going back and waiting Neymar to pass. But immediately after the goal Real came out all guns blazing and Benzama almost scored with just top bar post coming to rescue for Barca. The recociated attempt of wild 
slash out of exuviations went sailing over the top. It was then Barca’s chance to double the lead, but a nice ball to Messi saw a good save from Iker Casillas. But Messi should have scored. Ever since the world cup prelims Messi is not really in the best form and he failed to make a mark today. He fall deep and handed the ball cheaply most of the time. With the chance gone Real started dominating and Pique did something only he could answer why. He handed the ball inside penalty box. Referee as expected shown him yellow and awarded penalty to Real which was grabbed by Ronaldo with open arms to score the equalizer.
In the second half Real took the field with more hunger and Marsello and Isco with constant overlapping posed danger for Barca. Real got their second goal from Pepe who headed in a corner. The Barca defence found waiting once again. It was then Isco who made a solo run down the left wing to fox Iniesta and providing the pass to Ronaldo who feed it beautifully to Benzama to score the third for Real. Suarez making his derby debut did not have the fitness to play whole 90 minutes and aging Iniesta limped of the field. And none of Messi or Neymar proved threatening and Ramos happily kept clearing the ball delivered into the penalty box.
Barcelona likes to make the game slow and they have slow players mostly like Mascharano, Pique, Iniesta. Their playing style is good if they get early lead with good number of goals but when they are down the slow building strategy back fires and that’s evident from last two years when Chelsea and Bayern exposed their weakness. Real on the other hand with their superior speed, overlapping, disposing the opponent, run down the wings and the mid pitch were no match to their opponent.
Barca now have faced two good teams PSG and Real Madrid and have lost both of the matches and with this Barca lineup I would not bet my money on them to do something spectacular. Lot of rethinking to do for them.
As a post script would like to add Real Madrid did play fabulous football today and entertained me a lot. With this win Real closed in to 1 point difference with league leaders Barcelona.
[Original Source: http://ronylive.in/real-to-hot-to-handle/]
Tags: Barcelona Benzama Messi neymar Real Madrid Ronaldo
