Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, 2014 El Clásico: Gareth Bale wins Copa del Rey for Los Blancos

Man, this must be hard to take. Just pretend it’s not that big of a deal.

Okay, I can see that this is making you very sad.

One and/or all of the three.

That Ronaldo face looks amazingly like that of every 15-year-old girl who walks up to him.

After a typically tight and physical start to the Clásico, it was Real Madrid who would take an early lead, slicing apart Barca’s defense on the counter attack.

With a goal secured, it was time to add a bit of nastiness to the match.

Injuries will play a major part in Wednesday’s final with both teams missing key players.

Barcelona are without first-choice goalkeeper Victor Valdés, though he wouldn’t have played anyway since Barca have been consistently playing José Manuel Pinto in Copa del Rey matches for several years.

On current form, Barcelona look the least likely of Spain’s new big three to lift the league title at the end of the season. And because of that and their aforementioned European exit, the Copa del Rey final is by far the biggest game of their season, or will be if they’re not within three points of Atléti and ahead of Madrid entering the final round of the league season. This represents Barca’s best chance to win a trophy, salvage their season and perhaps give Tata a second season in charge at Camp Nou.

But even though Barcelona look like the side more in need of a victory on Wednesday, another Clásico loss -- this time in a cup final -- could be Ancelotti’s undoing. It’s very possible that they could get taken apart by Pep Guardiola’s side in the Champions League semifinals and finish third in La Liga. That nightmare scenario, along with a Copa del Rey loss to Barcelona, would probably lead to Ancelotti being shown the door after just one year in charge.

Anytime one of the world’s best players is out of a game, it changes things. Madrid must adjust to not having their star, while their opponent must adjust to a different lineup. While we witnessed Madrid struggle without Ronaldo against Dortmund in the Champions League, that hasn’t been the norm this season when he’s been injured.

From a purely statistical perspective, Los Blancos have been quite strong in the nine matches played without Ronaldo in 2013/14. The team has seven wins, one loss and one draw with the Portuguese attacker sidelined. In those nine games, they’ve scored 24 goals for an average of 2.7 per game. In six of those matches, their attack generated at least three goals.