Well, this was the end of Clasicos for the year, and I think most of us will agree that the last installment wasn't very classic, outside of Messi's play and his goals. Real Madrid came into the match down two away goals and knowing that they would need a minor miracle to advance to the Champion's League Final in London. We were hoping, in that context, that this version would indeed be classic.
Madrid came right out of the gates with a nice attacking start, and they looked like they were going to make a game out of it, like they weren't willing to yield all the possession to Barca. However, after a few minutes, normal service was resumed for Barca and they hogged the ball as per usual. We had some of the fouls and some of the diving that had marred the first leg, but not too much. It looked like both sides actually fancied playing some football.
Barca finally started building some pressure around the 22nd minute, when Sergio Busquets got a decent header off of a corner, but it went right to St. Iker for the save. Then Messi decided to really get involved. In the 32nd minute he got off a wonderful shot that forced Casillas into an equally wonderful save. The Little Genius was at it again barely a minute later, but this time his shot was off target. Barcelona wasn't deterred though, David Villa got off a shot in the 34th which forced Casillas to again earn his pay, Pedro put a hot high in the 35th, and in the 37th Messi came on again putting another shot on target. They were tearing Madrid up, but despite that, we still went to the half at 0-0.
Controversy again reared it's head almost right away in the second half. Higuain put the ball in the back of the net right off the bat, and appeared to have given Madrid a leg to stand on in the tie, but the goal was disallowed because Mascherano went down right behing the play, ostensibly at the hand of Christiano Ronaldo. CR7 was furious, as replay showed he had a right to be. On replay you could clearly see that Ronaldo had been fouled by Picque and had fallen into Mascherano. Instead of needing only one goal to equalize the tie, Madrid was still stuck, and in my opinion, screwed.
Barca put it all to bed a few minutes later. In the 54th minute Iniesta slipped a nice ball into Pedro who finally beat Casillas and gave Barca a 1-0 lead, 3-0 on agg.
That was pretty much it. Madrid did equalize the match in the 64th minute with a goal from Marcello, but it was too little, too late. After that, Madrid, obviously frustrated, started fouling and Barca started diving, making the match nearly as ugly as the first leg, but in the end the match was a draw at 1-1, with Barca advancing 3-1 on aggregate.
Ronaldo complained about the goal afterward, and rightly so. A goal that early could have changed the dynamic of the second half. I won't say it cost them the tie though. Real lost the tie because they sat back at home and let Barca dictate in leg 1, then imploded when they got flustered. Sure, the refs were horrid, almost MLS like at times, but you can't convince me that Barca didn't deserve to advance. In a tie where there wasn't a lot of football played, Barca played it better.
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