Whenever you lose to ten men it's bad. It makes it even worse when you take that L against your fiercest rivals in your own hometown. That's what happened to Barcelona where Madrid came out swinging in the second half and punished them with their devastating counter-attacking power.
Before the game, all my chips were put in for Barcelona. They were on an amazing run and with the best attacking trio in the world against a Madrid defense that almost conceded three against Roma, it seemed obvious they would get beat. But football keeps on surprising us and no matter how invincible we think a team may be, there always comes a time where they can look ordinary.
In the second half, Madrid really made Barcelona look like any old regular team who are totally exposed on a good counter attack. Normally the space works in their favour, however with the power of the Welsh Beast mode and the underwear model with a sprinkle of the sextape scandal Frenchman, they turned the tables on Barcelona on their home patch.
These Barcelona bunch, at least the core, have known incredible success and know how to bounce back from losses. So it isn't as if they are in unchartered territory having never tasted a painful defeat. Lest we forget how they were unable to defeat a ten-man Chelsea team who were much weaker than Madrid and had one less player for the whole of the second half and a good section of the first? The same match in which we saw Messi in tears?
Mentally, they should be fine but what it does show that they can be beaten. They missed some good opportunities and could have put the game to bed earlier on, but they are not the most resolute defensively. Each time Madrid had the ball in attacking areas, they looked far more dangerous than Barcelona. Also, just their positional sense in the defensive area was all over the place and if you would imagine a Bayern employing this same tactic with some of the most potent wingers in the world, you could see a serious beatdown.
I think they will be fine but it gives a shred of hope for Atletico and forces Enrique to preach defensive solidarity a bit more because he knows what they need to do in attack. Just have to organize themselves when the eventual counter comes so they know when and where to intercept and don't allow any dangerous passes threading their way through into the box. HH
Comment below using your Facebook or Twitter Account to Log Into Disqus.
