Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, 1-2

[flywoman]

I was worried even before the match began. I knew that we had to win or draw this match, or score enough goals to make up for that second silly goal that Angel DiMaria scored in the first leg. And Dani Alves had apparently hurt himself during warm-up and had to be replaced by substitute leftback Adriano Correia on the right.

The first half hour of play made me wonder whether RM's poor performances in their last two Liga matches was an elaborate tactic by Jose Mourinho to lull us into a false sense of security, or whether the beatings had continued until team morale improved. Either way, it was tremendously exciting and fast-paced, and I think there's no arguing that Madrid was playing the better game. Gonzalo Higuain scored a definitive goal in the 11th minute, and Cristiano Ronaldo doubled their lead in the 19th after a beautiful display of ball control. But don't think that Victor Valdes was having another bad day - on the contrary, he made save after awesome save as the offensive onslaught continued throughout the match.

As usual, the RM defense (and most of their midfield) focused on neutralizing Leo Messi, trying to force him to play deep. At times I wondered whether I was watching football or WWE. On the other hand, the failure of our defenders to form a back line, knowing that RM has fast forwards who could easily outrun us during a break, had me chewing my fingernails off. Once Adriano got sent off with a red card, I figured it was all over.


*innocent blinking* Yellow card? What for?

But then, just before the end of the first half, we earned a free kick that led to this Messi-merizing goal:

So now it looked like there was still hope. If we could just score a second goal, we would draw RM and take the trophy home with us. And our boys fought on valiantly until the end, but alas, it was not to be. At least we didn't concede any more goals, even with a man down. Unfortunately, having to replace forward Alexis Sanchez with Martin Montoya to shore up our back line after Adriano's expulsion made scoring very difficult, and playing left winger Cristian Tello on the right in Pedro Rodriguez's place didn't do much for us either. On the bright side, former Arsenal defensive mid Alex Song debuted for us to relieve Sergio Busquets and looked really good for the 15 minutes he was on the pitch.

So no Supercopa trophy for us this year. At least no fistfights broke out on the pitch, and no one stuck a finger in anyone's eye.