FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid, 2-2

[flywoman]

With international qualifiers right around the corner, I was happy to see that the Argentinians and Spaniards were still showing affection for their Seleccion teammates despite the usual tensions attendant on El Clasico. Otherwise, the first part of the game was frankly terror-inducing, especially given that Tito had opted to replace injured central defenders Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique with... wait for it... left-back Adriano Correia instead of Marc Bartra or our newly purchased supposed CB substitute, Alex Song. Still, even he was more effective in his unaccustomed position than right-back Dani Alves, who luckily was injured early in the game and had to be replaced by the recently promoted and always awesome Martin Montoya. By then, Cristiano Ronaldo had already scored his first, and Karim Benzema had come ludicrously close to scoring another (although fortunately for us, he choked completely in front of goal and sent his shot way wide).

Man of the Match was definitely Lionel Messi, who tracked a cross from Pedro Rodriguez as it pinballed among the RM defense and finally slammed it past Iker Casillas with his left foot. In the second half, our Leo scored again, this time off a free kick into Casillas' top right corner that was truly beautiful to behold. But not to be outdone, Ronaldo scored his second goal five minutes later, and although the Barcelona players had several good chances in the last fifteen minutes, including a hard shot off the crossbar by Montoya and a tragic miss by Pedro, they were held to a draw.

Bottom line: we could have either lost or won by several additional goals, so I've decided that I'm happy with the result. Although where Pepe gets off criticizing our players for diving is beyond me, especially after a particularly brutal game by Xabi Alonso that could have ended in expulsion. And Andres Iniesta really should have been awarded that PK.

Comments

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

lol exactly, it looks like he so wants to give Iker's arse a pinch (on a clearly less shallow note; that kit is great, blue really suits him, great improvement on 'the radio active grapefruit + traffic cone socks' situation).

Totally agree with this, both the appearance of barely suppressed arse fondling and the vast superiority of Iker's blue kit to the radioactive tangerine/traffic cone monstrosity.

I'm not quite sure why people still call Dani Alves a right-back, he's just sort of there and does whatever.

I feel like if we didn't already have such a brilliant midfield, Tito should just put him at right mid and let him run back and forth and pass to Messi to his heart's content.

but yeah him and his stupid hair, not so much

Ahahaha, his hair was especially obnoxious last night for sure.

Shame he didn't get a hat trick.

I know, right? You can bet that he would have been much happier about his goals if they had resulted in a 3-2 victory, anyway.

Did Casillas even make a save the whole match?

Hmm... can't remember one, tbh.

Pepe is mad as a box of frogs so kind of expected that, but yes really ... might want to look at your own squad first. Anyway Andres has never dived in his life, surely.

Totally agree with both of these statements!

[sageharper.livejournal.com]

Good to know it's not just me (you'd think he would have diffrent gloves to match the blue kit though). :)

That would make a lot of sense, or even as a winger maybe; but yes who would you displace.

Even my dad was like 'omg what is that', then C.Ron tapped his temple after the goal and like 'uh yeah stop reminding us'.
Who lets him do these things? Between him, Sese, and Iker, then Xabi must regularly feel like the only sober person at a party, fashion speaking.

Think everyone would have been, and then could take the ball home for his little boy because clearly doesn't already have enough.

You'd get a whole DVD boxset out of footage of their fouls, it's crazy.