Barcelona Win Again

For the last few weeks the jealousy and frustration and general how can this be happening of the Real Madrid universe has manifested itself in anti-Barcelona campaign. When The Greasy One was given a two match ban for breaking an opponents nose via elbow his teammates and and people from Real Madrid's staff went insane, demanding (in Jorge Valdano's words) that the disciplinary committee take into account whether or not the player being sanctioned plays attractive football before issuing a ban. Sergio Ramos and others were indignant at the ban because and noted that Lionel Messi, Barcelona's star and the best player in the world, once elbowed someone too. I am not making this up. As almost an asterisk or after thought the Real partisans admitted he didn't do damage to the other player. That is the one small difference between the two incidents. Which is kind of like saying if two people get drunk in a bar and one drives home while the other walks a DUI is unfair because they were both drunk.

The other strand of Barcelona hating is an insistence that Spanish referees are bent on pushing them over the top. This campaign has gained a lot of steam in the pro-Real Madrid media, particularly the paper/webiste As. (I actually like a lot of what As does, but their bias on this is annoying). When a quick free kick pass to Pedro resulted in the go-ahead and eventual game-winning goal against Sporting, there was an uproar about offside. To be fair it was a close call, but replay showed it was at best a tie and Pedro was probably onside. He was also more than 50 yards from goal at the time. As ran a still image showing him ahead of the Sporting defenders by about half a yard. What the supposed proof of favoritism ignored was that the ball was already in the air. This is campaign is particularly irritating considering it is in support of Real Madrid, a club so morally corrupt it hired a retired official as a liaison to referees and didn't even hide it.

So all this leads me to say I was very pleased watching Barcelona's 2-0 win today over Getafe and am a little curious how the Madridista outlets will play it. Barcelona's squad was missing several key players like Carles Puyol and Dani Alves and played Iniesta up front initially instead of in midfield. They deservedly went down a man in the 25th when Pique was sent off, making them play on 10 men for over an hour. Marquez was also sent off in a play that resulted in a Getafe spot-shot and their only goal. Barcelona dominated the match start to finish and if Keita was a little less erratic it would have been 4-0. Truly masterful, but more important the calls went against Barcelona and they did not blink. I am curious how this game will play in the capital.