Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Clásico Competition: Barça v, Madrid

Monday November 29 marked a day of excitement and anticipation for soccer fans everywhere. It was the big game between two top leagues of the world, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Both teams also include the top players of the Spanish national team. In net for Madrid is Iker Casillas, recently named FIFA best player of the world cup. Madrid's team also consists of Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos. Barcelona has a roster including David Villa, Lionel Puyol, Gerard Pique, and Xavi Fernandez. The game was already past the final score of 5-0 for Barcelona when the 3 minutes of injury time began. Tensions from Madrid were high due to the frustration of not being able to get a single goal past Barca when nearing the 2nd minute of overtime, top player Lionel Messi of Barcelona fell. It is difficult to say even after studying videos of the play whether this fall was accidental or due to the foot of Ramos purposefully hitting Messi's leg. All the chaos led to both Barca players and Madrid players to get into deep arguments with each other. It began when some of the Barca team ran to defend Messi and Ramos stood up for his play knocking over Puyol with a shove. He later went to do the same to Fernandez when he shoved his face using his hand. At the same time Casillas was seen arguing with Pique on the side. To fans it seems there will be an awkward mood at the next national team practice, however, Puyol insisted in a comment after that he is forgiven and the incident has already been forgotten. Sergio also commented in a separate interview saying, "We lost, but it is not the end of the world."

Click for video of Ramos' red card: <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rKN8mIV8N9Q" frameborder="0"></iframe>