Something which has in no way surprised me but disappointed me all the same in the aftermath of El Clasico has been the level of abuse Cristiano Ronaldo has suffered. Yes, he did not have the best game of his life, and the match being billed as Ronaldo v Messi by Sky Sports probably did not help matters, with all the Leo Messi fanatics so high on their perch that they can now hold a face to face conversation with God – who after Marcelo’s deflection is certainly a Barca fan – and people now using Ronaldo as the scapegoat for the poor result.
Well sorry to burst that bubble but if you win together as a team, you lose together as a team, and blame – as Casillas has rightly said – cannot be levelled at one player and one player alone.
Ironically enough, Real were billed as the favourites because of the break away from being overly reliant on Ronaldo, and no longer as much of a one man team as Barcelona with regards to Messi. If this is the case, then surely Ronaldo should not be culpable for the entire result?
Another massive mistake is to assume Barcelona are a one man team. Yes, Messi is a fantastic player, but he was by no means the best Barca player on the pitch on Saturday night. Yet again this will draw criticism, but in my eyes Xavi and especially Iniesta were sublime.
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Long have I said that it is Iniesta not Messi who is the key to making Barcelona tick, and whilst each of the members of the golden trifecta of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are out of this world, on the performance against Real Madrid, you would not be able to say hand on heart Messi was better than either of the other two.
In short, the reason for the defeat from a Los Blancos perspective was yes a little bit of bad luck, but mainly the inability to be clinical in finishing the chances that were created.
Fair enough two of the chances that fell to Ronaldo should have been buried in the back of the net and 99 times out of 100 they would have been. Yet it is not only Ronaldo who can score a goal – Benzema, Higuain, Kaka and Di Maria are all capable, and a host more of players of finishing or even creating a chance, and short of King Karim’s quickest ever Clasico goal, they did not.