A 'Footballing Orgasm'

Barcelona’s hectic month of football continues to roll on and many fans, like me, are constantly kept at the end of their seats wondering what’s next. Barcelona has been a force to recon with this season. They have humbled all of the big teams in Spain as well from various other heavy-weights from Europe. But this past month has been something of an anomaly in the footballing calendar for them.

This past weekend saw a clearly tiring Barcelona team visit Los Blancos of Real Madrid at the Bernabéu. Barça faced Sevilla, Valencia and Chelsea all before this game, with Chelsea being a mid week clash. Real Madrid on the other hand shared more or less the same schedule of matches leading up this minus the Valencia and Chelsea matches. Real Madrid were also 4 points behind the league leaders with 5 more matches in the season. This was their chance to close the gap, and make this title race another close run in. Regrettably for Los Blancos, this was not to be a close encounter.

Barça ran out 6-2 winners, the largest defeat felt by Real Madrid at home since the 1930’s. This match was a masterclass in football, as real Madrid could not seem to come up with an answer for a rampaging Thierry Henry on the left flank, or an eve improving Iniesta and Xavi partnership in the middle of the park, with no shortage of support from Yaya Toure. Messi and Eto’o were their usual threatening selves, and the back four of Marquez, Dani Alves, Abidal and pique were as solid as ever.

Real’s back four were all grossly out of their league, turning to fouling when they realized that they could not keep pace with the league leaders. Sergio Ramos looked like a school boy when faced with Henry’s class. Canavaro and Marcelo were missing for most of the game, leaving some to think that they went to purchase some snacks in the neighbourhood parlour during the match. Their midfield was none existent, and their chosen one Raul looked like he bought a ticket to the match and was sitting in the 20th row. In the words of Louis Enrique, this was truly a ‘Footballing orgasm’.

With a 7 point gap between them and their nearest rival and 4 more matches to go, the title race is all but over. If Barça bring in 3 points against Villareal in Saturday’s encounter the trophy will be theirs. But right now their focus is on their midweek clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. This will be a first-class test for them in a must win clash. I’m sure fans of Barça would love to see a Barcelona- Manchester United Champions’ League final clash. We wait to see if they cross that blue hurdle on Wednesday.

Buena Suerte a Barça!!!