1. When running at players with the ball, Messi has no peer. Brilliant player.

2. Barcelona have really pissed me off in these games with their playacting. Madrid have been able supporting actors, but Barcelona players should be ashamed of themselves for playing up fouls and surrounding the referee.

3. I like Mourinho, but to go down with all of Higuain, Benzema and Kaka all on the bench while your teams fails to create a consistent and credible attacking threat is unfortunate. Real would have benefited from having more players who could control the game on offense, rather than depending on two holding midfielders and a deep-lying playmaker.

Agree with Mourinho's comments to a fair extent. The achievements of this Barca side are being thrown into question by this string of flaky decisions.

Barca and Madrid are no better than each other when it comes to gamesmanship but it's Barcelona who get the calls.

Also, I fucking hate Alves. He's a blight on the game.

Tbf, the ref in that Chelsea game 2 years ago was definitely bought. No question about it.

I hate Alves as well. Horrible man. Lots of players dive and cheat but he really makes an effort to go that extra mile.

I don't mind players trying to influence the referee by shouting in face. Chelsea do it, Barcelona do it, Ferguson does and, frankly, I wish we did it as well because I think it works. What irritates me is that Barcelona then try and take the moral high ground.

Messi is unreal.

I find watching Alves' scamming really upsetting actually. Loathsome individual, but definitely a very talented player as well.

Barcelona not only try to take the moral high ground, a compliant media has (to this point) happily given it to them. Here's hoping that storyline will change.

otfgoon wrote:

Tuesday 10 August 2010. Steve Gerrard: "anything Messi can do, Joe Cole can do as well, if not better."

Capello, 2011: "Gareth Bale is today the number one player in the world."

Good ol' Capello, always good for a laugh.

Alves is always at it but for me, it was Pedro who took the absolute piss last night.

Yeah Pedro's antics that resulted in Arbeloa getting a yellow card were deplorable.
He charged straight into him and then collapsed in a heap clutching his face.
Pathetic.

Why did we lose to these bunch of cheating cunts. Best team in the world yet still feel they need to cheat. Pathetic.

Real were not much better though. Let's not forget they played a centre back in midfield for the sole purpose of kicking Messi.

Both teams summed up the ugly sides of football. Barca - diving and cheating, Real - ruining the game as a spectacle.

But if you play with all of your men behind the ball and fast strikers who can score goals, you always win.

I only watched about ten minutes, probably from about the 70th minute roughly, and that was enough to see that I should have stuck to my guns and avoided it. With all the talk of playacting I'm surprised Puyol hasn't been mentioned. There was one incident where Adebayor was closing him down on the touchline and Adebayor's arm was his chest, Puyol clutched his face as if he'd been punched and looked at the linesman in disbelief that nothing was given. Cheating, game ruining, pussy, whinging, nancy, flouncing bastards the lot of them.

Man marking and kicking isn't the same thing, Gurgen.

About ruining the game as a spectacle, well, personally I find Barcelona's defenders passing the ball around for 30 minutes no less irritating than a team that packs ten players in front of the penalty area. Not to mention that Madrid was, like us at Camp Nou, really starting to come out of their shell(dominating even), before the sending off. So it wasn't like they were parking the bus or anything.

Imagine if we had players like Real have at disposal and use them properly to play our kind of footie.

Would thrash Barca easily last night

Can't imagine that we'd play Barca in a CL SF and leave both Kaka and Benzema on the bench for 90 minutes.

Ricky1985 wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

Imagine if we had players like Real have at disposal and use them properly to play our kind of footie.

Would thrash Barca easily last night

Another way of looking at that is imagine if Wenger was Madrid manager. Holy shit they'd be frightening. If Arsenal fans get their wish it might happen.

Wenger as Madrid manager would be such a hilarious clusterfuck, sure he might win a trophy or two but the melodrama in Spain would be off the scale!