In the game that is more than a game for a club that is "more than a club" (their official motto), things could even have gone better. Messi hit the post with an audacious effort on six minutes, chipping a curling shot over and around a strangely unsuspecting Iker Casillas, only to see the effort rebound of the inside of the post and be cleared. At 2-0, there was a moment when Messi clearly should have passed instead of shot and it would almost certainly have gone to 3-0. And when Xavi rounded Casillas early in the second half, he too, should have squared back across goal rather than attempting to hit a volley from a ridiculous angle.
But Barcelona had to take only some of their chances on a night in which they were utterly dominant. The 98,000 Nou Camp faithful were singing after only 10 minutes as Iniesta's perfectly weighted ball through five Madrid defenders skipped up fortuitously of the heel of Xavi for him to volley delicately around Casillas. The masters of the tiki-taka, as Barcelona's style of play is called, combined in their unique way to go one up on Madrid. Less than ten minutes later, it was some truly awful defending from Ramos and rather uninspiring play from Casillas that led to Barcelona's second. Sensing danger, Ramos followed one of the midfield runners into the box, but in so doing, left Madrid's right flank entirely open. Villa received a 50-yard cross field ball in acres of space, and as Ramos went back out to meet him, Villa danced around him and played in a low cross that Casillas could only parry into the path of Pedro who happily tapped in.
The second half opened at a blistering pace, and after Xavi couldn't finish after rounding Casillas, the same exact ball from Messi put Villa through and he was never going to miss. Three-nil. Three minutes later, instead of a 10-yard ball from Messi, it was a 50-yard ball as he sent Villa in behind a ball-watching Ramos. Villa finished exquisitely, slipping the ball between brave Casillas's legs. Four-nil. Barcelona were content at this point to sit back and resume their monologue with less attacking impetus, although had Bojan not stumbled when played through shortly after his introduction, it surely would have been five. Madrid could produce nothing, though, and Barcelona hit them on a counter late on, Bojan firing in a cross for fellow youth-academy graduate Jeffren to slot home.
What more could one have asked for? Five goals. The first loss for Real Madrid under Mourinho. Mourinho's worst defeat in his managerial career. Ronaldo stymied yet again. 3 goals from products of La Masia, Barcelona's youth academy. 4 assists from youth academy graduates. As Tom Adams wrote on Soccernet.com, "The school defeated the bank." The most expensive team in the history of the world succumbed to the Barcelona monologue in startlingly average fashion.
Surely the euphoric mood in Barcelona has not yet abated. This is not merely a sporting event. It is a battle of the two regions' historical ideologies, with Barcelona providing the leftist resistance to a history of Madrid-based domination under Franco. Everything for which Barcelona stand was repressed by a dictatorship that may have gone so far as to get involved in breaking up the transfer of Alfredo DiStefano to Barcelona so that he would wind up at Real Madrid.
That so many of Barcelona's players are Catalán is not merely a byproduct of a good youth development program; it is partly the goal of the program. Pride in Cataluña is a central tenet of the Barcelona way. Five of Barcelona's players last night were born in Cataluña: Valdes, Piqué, Puyol, Busquets, Xavi, and Bojan. Messi and Iniesta have both been there for a decade and as one admittedly biased Brazilian colleague of mine said, "Messi is more Catalán than Argentinian."
The most telling moment of the night for me, however, came on 31 minutes when Barcelona's coach, Pep Guardiola, held the ball a little too long for the liking of Ronaldo who was attempting to take a quick throw in. Ronaldo shoved Guardiola who, to his credit, didn't go down in a moment of play-acting. It is the only time in my life when I can remember Iniesta getting angry. Iniesta is consistently one of the most fouled players in the game. And he might ask for a card. He might require treatment. He might go down too easily for some fans' liking, but he never gets angry. He is never disrespectful. Well, when Ronaldo shoved Guardiola, the diminutive Iniesta went over and got in Ronaldo's face. He was the first one there verbally abusing Ronaldo, the ever-disrespectful monstrosity of a human, who is undoubtedly 50% larger than the little midfield maestro for Barcelona. The immediate defense of Guardiola, a man who wholly embodies the Catalán cause, by the entire team (Valdes rushed some 70 yards from his goal to get himself involved) is truly indicative of the sense of cohesion the coach as created in the team. They love him for everything he is.
The season is long and the lead is only two points, but Barcelona could not have dealt their most bitter rivals any more of a psychological blow. Valdes had only two saves to make on the night, and in an even more telling statistic, Casillas made only one. A shot-stopping percentage in the teens is never a good statistic for a 'keeper, but Casillas's reputation is such that the statistic speaks more to the success of the Barcelona way (pass the ball into the back of the net) than anything else. Madrid have Valencia at home next week, and the season could quickly spiral out of control for them. Barcelona will surely own the head-to-head tiebreak at the end of the season, and that means that Madrid must now win the league outright.
Barcelona 5 - Real Madrid 0. Absolute Euphoria.
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