A crucial span of 7 days which will decide the fate of Copa Del Rey and Champions league for both Barcelona and Real Madrid began last night and Madrid drew first blood as they knocked down the Catalans with a comfortable 1-3 scoreline at Camp Nou. With a 1-1 home draw to overcome from the first leg, Jose Mourinho’s men arrived at Camp Nou with a plan to frustrate the Catalans and they executed the plan to perfection. Barcelona had about 65% of possession and had 3 shots on target while Real Madrid defended throughout the 90 minutes and had 8 successful shots on target which indicates what they had in mind.
Having already lost to Milan 2-0 at San Siro, Barcelona are now out of the Copa Del Rey as well.
It was one of those games where Madrid controlled the game without having any possession. What we saw, was a Barcelona side that lacked depth against a Madrid defence that knew what it had to do, how it had to do it, and a side in total harmony with its coach’s plan to push its defensive line up into the midfield.
Barcelona were clueless against the speed of the visitors’ attack and found themselves unable to profit from Real Madrid’s tactics and the space left in behind the defenders. In any case, the feeling is that on the night Madrid would have been more than capable of defending anything that was thrown at them. Two false number nines, attacks from the wings and the introduction of Villa in the second half couldn’t do any justice to assistant manager Jordi Roura.
The Catalans decided to defend deep from the very beginning of the game and which resulted in huge gaps in the midfield when their forwards had the ball and allowed Cristiano Ronaldo and Co to use the space effectively on the rare occasions they had possession. The goal scored by Ronaldo in the beginning of the second half was the perfect example of how effective were Mourinho’s tactics. A rebound which fell perfectly for the Portuguese International to pounce on after some good work by Khedira which saw Di Maria against Puyol, the winger showed some beautiful feet to drive a shot against Pinto, but the keeper managed to block it only to be netted in by Ronaldo.
Varane headed in the third goal to complete a magical night for the Los Blancos. So Real Madrid are almost sure to win the Copa Del Rey this year giving the players and fans something to look forward after a dismal season. Mourinho’s problem is that he has not prepared a side able to see off the challenges of the Betis’s, Sevilla’s and Granada’s of this world. This season, players have not responded to him either on those games and that has been their failure. But if he was signed purely with the objective of beating Barcelona – mission accomplished. Footballing logic turned on its head. So while Barcelona played hoping an individual would rescue them, Madrid knew what they had to do, understood what was required for every minute from every corner of the pitch.
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