SOCCER SPANISH LA LIGA: Barcelona 5 Real Madrid 0:JOSE MOURINHO insisted this game would not be decisive but it felt like it last night. He insisted that, having enjoyed the best start of any coach in the club's history, Madrid would lose one day, but he did not expect to lose like this.
Real Madrid, so impermeable before, were punctured last night. Five times. A stunning win that represents the worst league defeat Mourinho has suffered in his career.
The chant going round this stadium, inspired by Mourinho’s infamous accusation that Leo Messi had play-acted during a Chelsea-Barcelona Champions League clash was clear: “Mourinho, go to the theatre”.
He might have wished he had. There would have been little comfort in the fact that this Barcelona side is a genuinely special one. Pep Guardiola’s side were imperious, their control of the ball often breath-taking.
Speaking of special. If this was indeed the game that would decide who the best player in the world is, there can be only one answer. Leo Messi may have failed to score for the first time in 10 games, but his performance – with those of Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, and Sergio Busquets – was nonetheless sublime.
There were fewer brilliant dribbles, less fantasy. But there was a stunning assuredness of touch and impeccable precision in the passing. This was the Messi who controls the game. And then decides it.
Then, of course, there were the two men with the strongest claims upon being the finest footballer around, men who have come to define their clubs: Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
But it was the man who the Spaniards consider the strongest candidate to win this year’s ballon d’or, Xavi, the ideologue behind Spain’s World Cup success, that opened the scoring after just nine minutes. Messi, who spent much of the game dropping off from his “false number nine” role into midfield, was content to play simple passes and keep the ball moving, combined with Hernandez deep in midfield.
Opening up his body, the Argentinian swept the ball to the left for Iniesta. His pass into the box found Xavi running though and as the ball sat up fortuitously off his heel, he was able to nudge a volley past Iker Casillas.
It was the perfect demonstration of Barcelona’s football. Short, clever passing, a man always in support.
Soon, the Camp Nou was roaring again. Villa collected, delivering a cross that Casillas could only just reach. As the ball squirmed away from him, Pedro got ahead of Marcelo to push it over the line.
Madrid were not finished. They had little of the ball but when they did recover possession they broke rapidly and with intent. while increasingly irritated, was coming into the game. A shot flashed wide, a free-kick dipped past the post and just before half-time he appealed for a penalty as Valdes dived at his feet.
Referee Iturralde Gonzalez gestured for him to get up. He clearly felt that Ronaldo had looked for the penalty and replays suggested that while he may have looked for it, he may also have found it.
Still Barcelona continued to move the ball around with a smooth, slick quality that Madrid could not match.
Ten minutes after the break Messi sent a perfectly weighted pass through the gap and Villa, sneaking in behind Pepe, struck for his seventh of the season.
Almost immediately, he got his eighth. Again Messi provided the angled through ball. Again, Villa slipped behind the defence. This time he toe-poked the ball in.
Jeffren rounded the game up with the fifth in stoppage time.
Guardian Service
BARCELONA: Valdes; Dani Alves, Puyol, Pique, Abidal; Busquets; Xavi, Iniesta; Pedro, Messi, Villa. Subs: Pinto, Keita, Mascherano, Correia, Jeffren, Maxwell, Bojan. Booked: Valdes, Villa.
REAL MADRID:Casillas; Ramos, Pepe, Carvalho, Marcelo; Khedira, Alonso; Di Maria, Ozil, Ronaldo; Benzema. Subs: Dudek, L Diarra, Albiol, Higuain, M Diarra, Arbeloa, Pedro Leon. Booked: Ronaldo, Pepe, Khedira, Carvalho, L Diarra, Ramos.
Referee: I Gonzalez.
