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Come Fan with UsMonday, June 29, 2026

Real Madrid Vs. Barcelona, 2012 El Clasico: Mourinho Makes Some Changes

Despite all of his histronics, Sergio Busquets is one of the best midfielders in the world and he shows it when Fabio Coentrao dares to try to burst past him on the Barcelona right, diving into an inch-perfect slide tackle that takes the ball off the fullback, flattens him, and allows to keep it in play. Granted, if someone did that to him he'd have claimed it broke his leg, but it's still a brilliant piece of play regardless.

Real Madrid, who'd really quite like to win this match, are making a change, taking off Gonzalo Higuain and Lassana Diarra and replacing them with Mesut Ozil and Jose Callejon, which will allow them to move from this defensive 4-3-3 to a more familiar 4-2-3-1. Whether or not that's enough to break down this Barcelona defence or not is a good question, but there's plenty of firepower and speed in the hosts' front line at this point, and it's just a matter of getting them the ball. Within seconds of coming on, Callejon takes out Lionel Messi and earns himself a yellow card. Pepe treads on Messi's hand while he's on the ground and should be sent off, but isn't.

For more on the two teams, check out Real Madrid blog Managing Madrid and FC Barcelona blog Barca Blaugranes. We have live coverage of the match in our Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, 2012 El Clasico StoryStream.

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