Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, 2012 El Clasico: Teams share spoils as Messi, Ronaldo shine

El Clasico. Two words with enormous meaning in the footballing universe. Barcelona and Real Madrid, arguably the two best teams on the planet, squared off for the second time this season. These fixtures have always been contentious, but they’ve been borderline unwatchable over the last few years as Madrid have resorted to increasingly desperate tactics to prevent themselves from being overrun by their archrivals. Sunday, however, brought an entirely different style of play.

Jose Mourinho’s Madrid are now good enough to actually play football against Barcelona.

Los Blancos were well on top for the first 25 minutes of the match as they pressured Barcelona off the ball and got numbers forward. It took a long time for Barcelona to find their rhythm, and they eventually paid for their slow start. The Blaugrana did manage to dodge couple of bullets, however, and were fortunate to go into the half having conceded only once.

Unfortunately, that didn’t mark a serious turn in form for Benzema on the day. He had an even clearer chance than his earlier one in the 25th minute, but managed to hit the post. He was eventually substituted for tactical reasons.

I can’t even begin to describe the passes that setup up Montoya’s chance, but it was beautiful. His strike almost matched it.

Madrid again conceded a dangerous free kick as the match went to stoppage time, this one slight to the left of the center of goal, about 25 yards away. Xavi’s shot went off the wall for a corner kick that was taken short by Barca. They passed the ball around again, patiently waiting for an opening that never came as Madrid held firm defensively.

Kaka, admit it you probably forget he was on Madrid’s roster, replaced Mesut Özil with 10 minutes to play. Kaka looked good in Madrid’s win over Ajax in the midweek so he’s late appearance wasn’t a complete surprise. It didn’t immediately seem to change anything on the pitch though as Barca continued to be patience and totally dominate possession as Madrid defended, waiting for a chance to counter and try to get a winner.

Less than five minutes left to go, can someone find a winner?

The hat trick was not to be, at least not yet, as Messi’s shot cleared the wall, but failed to sink down enough and went harmlessly over the cross bar. A sigh of relief for Madrid and a look of annoyance on Messi’s face for the miss. Hey, you can’t be brilliant every time.

With less than 15 minutes left though, Barcelona are looking like the better side putting good pressure on Madrid and starting to connect more with their passes in the attacking third. Madrid will have to be careful has Barca have been downright lethal in the final minutes of matches this season.

A minute later, Ronaldo tore the Barcelona defense apart making a perfect run right through the middle of the defense receiving a perfectly place pass from Mesut Özil. Ronaldo just abused Adriano and once he was one-on-one with Victor Valdes, you just knew he’d score...and he did.

Nothing fancy, just a solid strike that Valdes had no hope to deal with and Madrid just like that equalized the match again at 2-2.

Andres Iniesta was apparently taken down just inside the box by Pepe but the referee waved off both the penalty shout and the foul. There appeared to be some contact, but it was most likely somewhere between a foul and dive. Barca were awarded a corner kick instead but nothing came from it as Madrid quickly cleared the ball away.

Great start overall for Madrid though to the half, excellent possession, better passing and early pressure. Barca will want to find a way to attack and take some of the pressure off again.

Update: Real Madrid 2-2 Barcelona, Final Score.

One minute after that run, Madrid found a deserved goal. Ronaldo was the scorer, capitalizing on a nifty bit of play by Benzema. With his back to goal, the Madrid center forward turned and played Ronaldo through on goal. Daniel Alves was slow to react and Ronaldo stepped into a composed finish. Two minutes later, Madrid nearly doubled their lead when Angel di Maria supplied Benzema with a chance on a silver platter, but he was caught a bit off balance and his stretching effort hit the post.

The Barca goal definitely slowed the match tempo down, but it also upped the physicality as the challenges started to increase in both frequency and “meatiness”

The story of the first half was definitely missed opportunities due to less than perfect passing in the attacking third and off-target finished. Both teams fell victim to their own errors and considering the two misses from Karim Benzima, Madrid might be a little bummed to now be in the lead after 45 minutes. That however is the game and if you’re not clincial and don’t take advantage of your chances, you often find yourself on the end of a unfavorable result.

An early goal and now an inury to a key defender, this are looking rough for Barcelona at the moment.

Madrid should have scored minutes later after another defensive breakdown allowed Karim Benzima to get a shot on an open goal, but again he was off target.

Action began to pick up as the match the 10 minute mark. Possession evened out a bit and there were flashes of a wild back and forth style that threatened to send any neutral watching this one in to a fit of joy.

Pepe earned the ire of the home fans in the 15th minute after staying down in the wake of an innocuous 50/50 challenge.

Madrid looked content to absorb pressure and try to break-up a pass and launch a counter attack, but as things settled they began to pressure more and move forward. They were able to make a foray in the attacking third about six minutes in, but Angel di Maria’s shot sailed high over the cross bar. Madrid also made some probing long balls, testing the unusual central defense alignment. Mesut Özil got behind the defense in the 7th minute, but the pass was just a touch too far and was collected by Victor Valdes.

Check out both side’s full lineups here.

Will Madrid take the game to Barca or will we sill yet another match in which the Catalan side controls the ball and Madrid patiently look for a chance to counter attack? We’re about to find out!

Update: Real Madrid 2-2 Barcelona, Final Score.

Kickoff is at 7:50 p.m. local, 1:50 p.m. ET from Camp Nou in Barcelona. You can catch the game on beIN Sport in the U.S., Sky Sports 1 in the U.K., and Canal+ in Spain.

Mourinho could also opt to leave Angel di Maria on the bench and narrow things up, but it doesn’t sound like he’ll be reverting to the trivot.

So, what do you do? Do you play Modric from the start? Or do you keep the joker in your deck for when you really need it?

The most interesting thing about Modric’s versatile skill set and his potential role in El Clasico is that there’s no way to predict whether or not he’ll start, when he’ll come in if he doesn’t, and what role he’ll play whether he starts or comes off the bench. Mourinho has shown a willingness to stick with his normal lineup against Barcelona, but he’s also gone with more conservative versions of the same 4-2-3-1, as well as the widely lauded or derided, depending on which sect of the media you’re reading, trivot that he deployed two years ago with Pepe as a defensive midfielder.

Update: Real Madrid 2-2 Barcelona, Final Score.

For the last two years, until last season, La Liga was all about the Clasicos and little else. That was until Barcelona entered last year’s second league Clasico with only a slim chance of winning the league, even though they had one the first clash between the two teams. The two aren’t getting the exact same results in the league anymore, slightly lessening the importance of last year’s Clasicos, as well as Sunday’s match.

It should seem simple for a man who has won the Champions League twice with inferior teams to devise a strategy to overcome Barcelona, but Mourinho has been handicapped by several factors beyond his control. As well as the phenomenal level of the opposition, a transfer policy which has overwhelmingly favoured attack over defence, partly out of the realities of 90% of the games Los Merengues face, and partly out of a traditional bias for the club towards individualists, has left Mourinho in unfamiliar territory. His previous great teams have been built with caution, discipline, and pragmatism. Not for nothing will he have been so reluctant to place his hopes on a solitary game.

Barcelona’s reputation has reached such stratospheric levels that even the fact they can be defeated is under dispute. Or at least, they cannot be defeated by another team - only by themselves. Conventional wisdom states that when you play them, your only hope is to turn up, do your best, and hope they have an off day, and if they play half as well as they’re capable of playing, hard luck. There’s nothing you could’ve done. The level of truth in that idea is debatable, but it cannot be a gameplan Mourinho can rely upon.

Tito Vilanova has been tasked with replacing a Barcelona legend. Because he is the immediate successor to Pep Guardiola, he will always be compared to Pep. It doesn’t matter whether or not that’s fair.

For Tito Vilanova, his success, and ultimately his legacy, as manager of Barcelona will be weighed against the successes of Pep Guardiola.