By Omar Leebbie

This weekend saw the thriller between Real Madrid and Barcelona, the El Clasico, one of the fiercest match ups known to the history of mankind.  Futbol Club Barcelona commonly known as fc Barcelona and Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, commonly known as Real Madrid are well known as being the best teams in the Spain’s top division football league, the La Liga, went head to head in a full blown fight till the end. Both teams consisted of exciting players including the two best in the world Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) and Lionel Messi (Barcelona) alongside other world class players such Neymar, Karim Benzema, Gerard Pique and many more.

The game had a scheduled 10:15 AM kick on a warm upbeat and exhilarating day, it was being showed in over one hundred countries large amount indeed but unfortunately was not showing in the United Kingdom due to complications with the football providers of the United Kingdom the FA.

The starting lineup for Real Madrid was as shown, according to managingmadrid.com, Starting XI: Keylor Navas, Carvajal, Varane, Ramos, Marcelo, Luka Modric, Mateo Kovacic, Isco, Lucas Vazquez, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Karim Benzema. And the starting lineup for Barcelona was as shown according to managingmadrid.com Starting XI: Ter Stegen, Sergi Roberto, Mascherano, Pique, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, Ivan Rakitic, Andre Gomes, Neymar, Leo Messi, Luis Suarez.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo during El Clasico. Photo courtesy of bleachereport.com

10:15 pheeee phee the high pitch deafening sound of, Carlos Clos Gómez, the referee’s whistle echoed around the stadium it was a signal of the match starting, straight away Barcelona started to dominated with their world class strategy of tikka taka. It was very clear that Real Madrid’s strategy was to stay back and control the halfway line so they could counter attack at any possible time, the strategy certainly worked well defensively, as Real Madrid maintained an excellent organizational structure in the first half. Furthermore as the game started to proceed Real Madrid started to lose their defensive shape a lot, they started to pressurize Barcelona a lot whilst leaving a lot of space for Barca to attack, this problem mainly occurred because Real Madrid were missing one of their best players Gareth Bale, his replacement was a far less experienced Lucas Vasquez who specialized more in attacking than defending. On the other hand “Barcelona came into this game cautiously, looking to see what Real Madrid would do before enacting their game plan. Once they understood that Los Blancos intended to park the bus, Barcelona took possession of the ball and flooded men forward” according to http://www.managingmadrid.com/

Thus was the reason why the first goal was scared in favor of Barcelona at 53′ 1 – 0 Luis Suarez scored just after the break to put Barcelona 1-0 in lead at Camp Nou. After this goal it seemed like Real Madrid suddenly felt inspired to attack and score, they started to pressurize the Barcelona defense like white on rice. Then suddenly in the dying seconds of the game Sergio Ramos was able to equalize the score and snatch a one point gain, for real Madrid, on the la liga league table.

Overall I myself and I think the rest of the world thought this game was a disappointment due to its lack of goals and excitement