It’s called tiki-taka, but I don’t see it as pretty football. Yet, it’s a productive way of keeping the ball within the team. It was pretty obvious that all that Barcelona wanted to do in the game, was to pass around the ball in midfield and then pass it deep to one of their forwards. Mourinho reacted to this tactic and countered it by making Real Madrid’s defensive midfielders and defenders lay low and just wait.
The only way, as I see it, to make the game more even is to make Messi more invisible than usual. And that can only be done by not being as aggressive when it comes to conquering the ball against Messi, but instead wait for Messi’s move and then get hold of the ball again. In my view, Messi was pretty invisible during this El Clásico.
Real Madrid has struggled again and again against this Barcelona. We all remember the 5-0 thrashing. But even though Real Madrid as a team has come a little bit closer to Barcelona in terms of play, Barcelona still hold the advantage and still seem more confident when going into these matches. One could also argue that with Barcelona probably already having decided the league outcome, then this title is more important for Real Madrid than Barcelona. Yet we all know that an El Clásico is an El Clásico and that both teams would rather die than to lose, no matter what.
A factor in making the games more even has always been Cristiano Ronaldo. It just seems that he scores and scores during the El Clásicos more often in recent days than Messi, something that has been keenly noted by the spanish press. Without Ronaldo, Real Madrid would be in way more trouble than they are against Barcelona. Another thing that I am personally amazed by is why Barcelona just didn’t seem to create that much against an inferior defensive line of Real Madrid; López; Essien, Carvalho, Varane, Arbeloa, even though Varane came out to become man of the match.
That is the main reason as to why I see the El Clásicos as being more even nowadays. Real Madrid with a lot of their players missing, still got some good play going on against Barcelona, and held up defensively quite nicely. Who wouldn’t want to instead play with Ramos, Pepe, Casillas, Marcelo and Di María against Barcelona? The only missing person for Barcelona was Tito Vilanova, who was in New York at the time, with Jordi Roura taking over the tactical disposals. Perhaps Vilanova going missing was a factor as well to the game. Valdés was obviously also missing but that is Barcelona’s choice.
It’s a 50/50 chance of winning for both sides nowadays.
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