Real Madrid vs. Barca

PHB

I'm really looking forward to this match, its gona be great

3-2 to Barca is my guess

Big Ears

Im looking forward to it too.

My guess is Barcelona to take an early 2-0 lead , Madrid to comeback and score 3 , and then Barca to lvl late on .( through a Saviola goal ) .

Makaveli

3-1 Barca.

Ok, so that's awfully ambitious, but Barca are in form and Real Madrid aren't. Also, Barca are gonna want revenge for losing in the Camp Nou this season.

Puyol is back, but Luis Garcia is injured. Great to have Puyol back in the defence. He gives his all and hopefully he wont pick up another knock. Luis Garcia is a big loss. He was in great form, and played a great game against Malaga last week.
If Barca turn in a performance like they did against Malaga, then I don't think Real Madrid will have a chance. Ok Real Madrid are much better than Malaga, but on the form Barcelona showed any they could roll over any team.
Afaik Ronaldo is out. So that helps.

A win will put Barca four points behind. Last time they met, they were ~20 points behind iirc. Deportivo drew last night aswell so, Barcelona will be still be in 3rd spot regardless of tonights match.

Valencia have a tough enough match away to Bilbao (who are looking for European football aswell) tonight. Hopefully they lose, and Barca win.

Big Ears

0-0 at half time . Valdez is playing a stormer in goals , except when he dropped Zidanes shot , although that was a great save in the first place . Great game so far .

Makaveli

Ole, Ole, Ole


Ecstatic!

Once Figo went, we owned this one. It could so easily have been 3-1. I'll settle for 2-1. I'm a bit too wired to actually comment on the match right now though.

PHB

What a great game, was great to see barca win it.

Ronaldinho is just absolutely unreal, what a chip!

I betcha he'll leave Barca this year for a price tag of about 60 million to Real or something, he is just so damm good!

mr_angry

Absolutely tremendous game. Victor Valdes was outstanding in goal for Barcelona. Even right before the Solari goal, the save he took off from Figo was ubelievable. If he didn't get man of the match, then the world has gone mad.

Ronaldinho only really shone in the last 15 minutes when Cambiasso and Beckham got tired (and Figo got sent off). Before that, he was marked out of it. Still, he managed to influence things when it mattered. Great invention for the goal.

All-in-all, not the most free-flowing match, but plenty of incident.

PHB

Before that he was fouled out of it.

Every single time he got the ball he nearly always got fouled, it was unreal

johnor

Good match to watch, Ronaldinho played very well toward the end, could have had one himself too! Hopefully Valencia will beat Bilboa now........Surely Ronaldinho will be a target for Real this summer??? Saw Perez on the edge of his seat watching him at one stage!

john

therecklessone

First full Spanish match I've watched in ages, but what a match.

Valdes was superb in goal, pulled off some stunning saves. Ronaldihno is a genius. And Davids was back to his snarling best. Great performance from Barca.

p.s. can we unban thesecret7, just for a few days???

MrJoeSoap

It was a real cracker, some great moves from both sides. Ronaldinho is a genius, plain and simple. Did anyone see his first half performance in the televised game last week? It was sensational. Beckhams leap into the air after van Bronckhorst stood on his toes was absolute comedy. He's such a wuss.

Space Coyote

Great game. Real should have won the game when they had 11 men. Fair play to Barca though. 16 games unbeaten now, not bad.

therecklessone

Originally posted by MrJoeSoap
Beckhams leap into the air after van Bronckhorst stood on his toes was absolute comedy. He's such a wuss.

Forgot about that...:D

Funny that the Rivaldo/Bolton talk this week prompted some media outlets to bring up his "injury" against Turkey in WC 2002 when the ball was kicked at him by the corner flag. I take it we won't see Beckham's 2ft jump from tonight's match when he moves on from Real...he's no Johnny Foreigner after all...:rolleyes:

Makaveli

Now that I've calmed down, I'll waffle my way through a match review.

The first half was a tense affair. The nerves were quite apparent and I had a serious case of them too. Because of this I didn't really enjoy the first half. It didn't help that Real were the better side.

Valdes was unreal in the goal. Some of the saves were fantastic. He has been on form for a long time now, and for the first time in a long time I am actually confident in Barcelona's defensive capabilities. Puyol and Oleguer were rock solid for the majority of the match. Ok, one or two crosses got past them but they I can't recall them being split or caught on the break.

Valdes, however, was the hero of the first half. His stops were fantastic. The only slip being the spilled ball from Zidane's shot. The follow up save from Figo was superb. It for me summed up Barcelona's rejuvination this season. Pure passion and determination. Then Puyol was there to clear off the line aswell. And the punched shot off the line certainly didn't cross it. Figo protested and got booked. I'm sure he'll by very annoyed with himself over that now.

Half time arrived, and although a tense affair, the first half flew by.

The second half started as the first one ended with Real going forward from the tip off. It certainly seemed they would score first and they were relentless in their attack. There was little Barca could do other than try to soak up the pressure. Finally Real got their goal though. A scrappy afair, with Solari scoring after a miss-hit clearance from a corner. Figo's initial shot which won the corner was saved fantastically by Valdes. His athleticism was unreal. Sloppy defending gifted Real the goal though, but to be honest they deserved it.

So 1-0 to the home team, but it was short lived. Rijkaard seeing that things just weren't happening up front made two changes. Kluivert for Saviola and Luis Enrique for Overmars. Overmars had done ok in the first half but was proving too ineffective. Saviola was of little effect. He was too small for crosses and not many balls were coming through the centre for him.

This turned out to be an inspired move by Rijkaard, after only two minutes on the pitch Kluivert drew the teams level. A great ball over the top by Cocu saw Van Bronckhorst break the offside trap. He lobbed the ball across the 18 yard box to Kluivert who was free to head into an empty net. 1-1 and I was delighted. I was close to tears when Real scored so this really lifted my spirits and clearly the Barcelona players were lifted too.

They were playing with more confidence now. They were begining to show the form that had lead to a run of 15 games unbeaten before this match. Real were not out though. They still had plenty of attack in them and continued to press.

The turning point in the game came around the 70 minute mark when Figo received his second yellow card for a challenge on Puyol. He went in studs up and caught Puyol. It wasn't malicious just passionate. He had to go though.

Puyol, who had a stormer, was soon substituted. He'd been through the wars and after a rather cynical challenge from Solari brought him and a rather awkard clearance it was clear Puyol was hurting. He'd only come back from injury so Rijkaard sensibly replaced him with Thiago Motta.

Zindane soon left the game too, truely exhausted he was replaced by Guti. Although he had little impact on the remained of the game.

Down to 10 men though and the tired legs of the Real players were begining to fade. Barca on the other hand had a surge in energy and confidence. Now they were on the attack and had the home side on the back foot. With Figo off and Zidane subbed, they began to boss the midfield. The extra man was ultimatley the reason they could do this.

Now the vulnerable Real defence was being put to the test, and with just 5 minutes to go Ronaldinho chipped in a gorgeous pass to Xavi, who was played well onside foolishly by Raul Bravo. Xavi lobbed the ball over Casillas, who was forced to come out, and Bravo, despite his best efforts couldn't stop the ball crossing the line. I lost the plot here. I was absolutley thrilled. Barcelona were leading 2-1 in the Bernebeu with 5 minutes left on the clock.

Barca weren't finished though. They had no intention of sitting back on the lead and they continued to press on for a third. Ronaldinho came closest when his speed and strength saw him out sprint 3 Real Madrid players and his shot beat Casillias, unfortunatley it was about a foot wide of the goal.

Then there were a couple of poor calls by the linesman, where he ruled Kluivert offside when he was clearly on. Thiago Motta even broke free and was into the box but was caught in two minds between crossing and shooting and in the end the ball trickled well wide.

Then after 3 minutes of stoppage time, the ref blew his whistle. Barcelona had gotten their revenge for the loss in the Camp Nou in December. Barcelona had closed the gap on Real Madrid to just 4 points. Barcelona had now pretty much secured a Champions Legaue spot for next season.

I'm over the moon.

Final score: Real Madrid 1 - FC Barcelona 2

Viva Los Cules!

NightStrike

Seeing this match kind of makes you wonder where Utd would have finished had they sealed the Ronaldinho deal!

Ronaldinho and Ronaldo attacking your defence anyone?!