El Clasico, Round 1: 11/29/10

Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid

Well, that was certainly a complete thrashing. The match started out with plenty of challenges and tackles allowed by the referee, surprising for a Spanish league match, but eventually he made up for it with thirteen total bookings, all in the last hour of the match. It all changed when Pep Guardiola cheekily flipped a ball that was out of play away from Cristiano Ronaldo, and The Hairgelled One shoved the Barca gaffer, which was met with fury from the full Barca squad and led to yellow cards to C-Ron and Barca goalie Victor Valdes- the latter the two booked for some combination of dissent and leaving his area for the handbags. Later, Leo Messi was booked for a dive, and then was knocked down by a Ricardo Carvalho elbow that went unpunished. At the end of the match, Sergio Ramos was sent off on a second yellow card, the final booking of the match for a dangerous, near-intent-to-injure tackle on Messi, which he then followed post-sending off by shoving Geico Caveman Carles Puyol.

On to the scoring! Somewhat as expected, Barcelona held 67% of possession throughout the match. The question was whether Jose Mourinho would be able to use his Real Madrid squad to pull off the defend-and-counter he used to good enough effect at Inter Milan last year that his squad eliminated Barca from the Champions League last spring. The answer was: not even close. Xavi scored a mere ten minutes into the match after an incisive throughball from Andres Iniesta split three defenders, deflecting off the last and falling to just the right spot to allow him to slot home. The second goal came after almost thirty straight passes led to a cross that struck Iker Casillas' hands but got through and sat right for Pedro to tap in from point-blank range with no defender in front of him. The rest of the first half was locked down as noted above, and the only other scoring "chance" of note was C-Ron attempting a frustrated shot from 45 yards out. Shockingly, it was off target (Madrid only hit the target twice on the evening).

The second half opened quickly again for the hosts, with three separate scoring chances just missing before David Villa scored two goals in four minutes on his Clasico debut, the first in the 55th on a great pass from Messi, though there was a small question whether Villa was offside (these questions were posed fervently by Casillas, which earned him a booking for dissension). Once Villa scored the fourth in the 58th minute, on another great service from Messi, the match was simply done and dusted. The final goal, just preceding Ramos' sending off, was scored by Jeffren in the first minute of stoppage time. It was more of the cross-and-volley style, but it counted just the same as all the others.

Of course, the true joy of this match was seeing Cristiano Ronaldo's version of my favorite type of schadenfreude: Manningface.

Ray Hudson-ism Of The Match 1 (On Lionel Messi's speed): "He could follow you into a revolving door and come out first!"

Ray Hudson-ism Of The Match 2 (On Messi's control): "Like a squirrel on a telegraph!"