El Clasico Reflections: The Gap Between Real Madrid and Barcelona

On November 19,2005 FC Barcelona "Left The Bernabeu To Applause”, on May 2, 2009 FC Barcelona left the Bernabeu in tatters. On November 19,2005 Ronaldinho destroyed Madrid completely, on May 2,2009 Thierry Henry, Lion-like Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta destroyed Madrid completely with even Gerard Pique not being able to help himself hammer another nail in Madrid’s coffin.

On November 19,2005 Barcelona scored three goals, on May 2,2009 Barcelona scored six. On November 19,2005 the Bernabeu rose to applaud Ronaldinho, on May 2,2009 the Bernabeu was half empty by the time the referee blew the final whistle. On November 19,2005 the Bernabeu witnessed one of the greatest clasicos ever, on May 2,2009 the Bernabeu witnessed the greatest clasico ever.

This was supposed to be the biggest match on the planet, a match that would showcase Spain's finest, the Clasico, the gran clasico, where decades of history, politics, sociological factors and cultural differences would get expressed through the universal outlet of football. It was billed as the match that could perhaps settle the Spanish championship, a match in which either Barcelona’s class or Real Madrid’s spirit would come out on top.

What it showed in the end was the enormous gap between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF and that gap was not just in terms of the scoreline either.

All this season Barcelona have been playing the best and most entertaining football anywhere in Europe. They have been scoring goals for fun, running rings round oppositions' defences and walking to six goal margin wins with ease. True, they have had some blips but which team doesn't go through an ‘off period’? And each time they have been down, they have come out better and stronger.

Real’s season’s started only after it was assumed to have been finished, that is, only after Juande Ramos became the coach in December. Before that they had been a disaster but it was Ramos who with nothing to lose and nothing to gain except perhaps the UEFA Champions League crown, which at the time was the only piece of silverware that would have rescued the Blancos' season, started instilling belief in the Madrid unit.

After his first game in charge of the 'world’s biggest club', he was left with the implausibly impossible task of reducing a twelve point deficit, a feat that no team in the history of Spanish football had achieved.

Since then until the second clasico of the season, Real Madrid had won 17 league matches out of 18, and the one match they couldn't win was a draw with unpredictability master Atletico Madrid. Barcelona, in that period, had collected 44 points out of a possible 54, implying that if the league race was to be considered during this period of time, Madrid would win the title.

But while Madrid’s game had been built on strengthening the backline (they had conceded just 11 goals in these 17 matches), playing a double-pivot system that curbed the already narrow channel of imagination and creativity and relying at times on individual brilliance and perhaps on a little rub of the green, Barcelona's game plan has been playing in that same old perfect 4-3-3 formation with Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Theirry Henry, Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi maintaining as much possession of the ball as they can and playing higher up the line, ripping apart rival’s defence with short quick passes that relied as much on individual genius as on collective understanding.

Barcelona's season-long approach to football revealed itself again on Tuesday evening but Madrid’s supposed steel and valour went flying out of the window on Harry Potter’s broomsticks. The 6-2 scoreline has been making all the headlines across the footballing world but what was more remarkable in the match was the football played by the two sides and the quality of the players.

While Real Madrid demonstrated an obvious lack of creativity and imagination, Barcelona showed just why they are the most feared attacking side in Europe and why the only way to stop them is to play with ten men and the team coach behind the ball. Except for the first 15 or so minutes inside which Madrid even went ahead, Juande Ramos's side were nowhere in the game and, if anything, played to Barcelona's strengths. Their football wasn’t any better than they have been under Ramos in the second half of the season while Barcelona’s football couldn’t have been any better.

A comparison between the two sets of players too would exhibit the all-consuming gap. While Real Madrid lined up Gonzalo Higuain, Raul and Marcelo against Puyol, Pique, Abidal and Alves, Barcelona lined up Henry, Messi, Eto'o and Iniesta against Ramos, Metzelder, Cannavaro and Heinze. While Yaya Toure and Xavi controlled the midfield for Barcelona, Lassana Diarra and Fernando Gagao tried to do the same for Real Madrid. But failed.

Even the most rigid Real Madrid supporter would have to accede that there is no one, except Iker Casillas, in the current Real Madrid side who is good enough to don the Barcelona shirt. Everywhere you looked it was only the Barcelona players who stood out: Henry was the star of the show, Messi rubbished weird beliefs that he is a big game flop, Iniesta was running rings round the Madrid defence, Xavi was coolness personified, Carles Puyol looked good and scored and even Pique showed that he is not as bad as those blokes at Manchester think he is.

As for Real Madrid, except Casillas there was no one really who could be applauded. Higuain scored in the 13th minute but went quiet after that, Sergio Ramos delivered some tantalizing crosses but was a shamble at the back and was all too eager to fall on his bum whenever Henry came anywhere near him just as he had fallen on his bum in 2006 when Henry played in an Arsenal shirt; Raul was anonymous again, Fabio Cannavaro and Christoph Metzelder might have already played their last clasico, Gago once again disappointed in a big game, Lassana Diarra made a horrible mistake that resulted in a Barcelona goal and Gabriel Heinze was a disaster-master once again.

But perhaps the biggest difference between the two sides was the transformation/transgression they have undergone since May 7, 2008, but that should be the subject matter of another piece altogether.

Subhankar Mondal