Ewan Macdonald holds up Real Madrid's and Barcelona's respective weekend performances as seasons in a microcosm...


Perhaps the defining moments in a weekend that saw Barcelona pull nine points clear of Real Madrid didn't even involve the kicking of a football.

With ten minutes to go at the Camp Nou Lionel Messi was substituted off for young Pedro. The replacement was barely to touch the ball, but the atmosphere remained electric: Messi left the pitch to rapturous applause, despite having not had the best of games, while the young substitute was clearly buoyed by a team still rampant thanks to a four-goal advantage over high-flying Valencia.

In stark contrast to last season, everyone at Camp Nou was a friend to the guy next to them. The fans were united as one in their joy; the players performed the type of 'total football' absent, seemingly, for over two years. But it was away from the football - in the sheer adulation shown to the substitutes and to the players at full-time, that showed how far Barcelona have come of late.

Meanwhile over in the capital Marcelo jogged off with four minutes to go in Sevilla's 4-3 win over Real Madrid, next week's suspension no doubt looming large in his mind, to be replaced by Alberto Bueno, a talent who has yet to reach even the 'raw' stage. (If Bojan is an uncooked steak, Bueno's still chewing the cud in the field.)

The fans - those who hadn't yet left the rain-soaked stadium, at least - responded with a mixture of curious silence and whistles, whistles directed at the bench, at the pitch, at the manager, at the chairman, at God.

Sure enough the last-ditch introduction of an untried forward failed to prevent the inevitable as Madrid slipped to their fourth Liga defeat of the season and their first at the Bernabeu.

Inevitable it was, for despite the thrills, spills, and heroics from Madrid in clawing back a two goal deficit, the outcome is emblematic of their season.

Same Old, Same Old

Indeed, losing by the odd goal in seven summed it up perfectly. From a careless start with sloppy defending Madrid put themselves up against it, but their ever-effervescent attack put things right - or right-er - heading up to the break.

But all around the pitch there were signs that not all was well. Fernando Gago did a disappearing act in the first period, and he was certainly not alone in that. That he made such a triumphant second half appearance - complete with a well-earned goal - is mystifying: why not start as one means to go on?

The sense of hubris is plain. Madrid entered the most crucial league game of the season so far and proceeded to sit out the first half of it. Only after the break - and whatever was said in the dressing room we'll probably never know - did Madrid begin to play football.

That they managed to reduce the two-goal deficit and make it 3-3 wasn't actually a huge surprise. The world knows that Madrid can turn it on when they want to. But what we've also learned since August is that just as they can produce great things, they can also destroy. And when Arjen Robben was sent off, phase one of the demolition was underway. The hell-for-leather attempt to trump eleven canny men with ten was phase two; Renato's closing goal the icing on the cake.

There were some fine performers in white shirts on Sunday night but there were far more poor ones. Iker Casillas will have tears in his eyes as he remembers his own showing - what on earth has happened to this man? Marcelo's yellow card was the least of his worries. Fabio Cannavaro, while well-positioned at times, was caught wanting when Sevilla hit on the break. (One wonders what havoc Luis Fabiano would have caused.)

Yes, Madrid will cry 'bad luck'. It's true: they hit the woodwork, called out more than a few wonder-saves from Palop, and of course suffered a massive injury crisis in the weeks leading up to the match. But, again, hubris dominates: this club, led by a remarkably myopic president in Ramon Calderon, did not meaningfully strengthen over the summer; their one proper acquisition, Rafael van der Vaart, was not a leading light last night, and while Gonzalo Higuain once again did a fine impersonation of a striker even he must have looked back at his ten team-mates and asked how it all came to this.

Out With The Same Old

Meanwhile at Barcelona the exact opposite scenario had played out just twenty-four hours prior.

We saw at Camp Nou a team willing to play for each other, and fans that were lapping it up. Gone were the white handkerchiefs and the constant whistles; in their place is the sense of confidence that was lost last season.

And it's confidence that's come at considerable cost. A summer's worth of rebuilding - expensive rebuilding at that, this being a factor that's often forgotten - and a near-miss for president Joan Laporta who was very nearly ousted after another disastrous campaign.

Certainly Laporta had much soul-searching to do as his manifold failures - his inability to ignite revolution in a squad far past its sell-by-date, his arrogance, his short temper, his sense of denial - were held up to the spotlight. Yet he has fixed if not himself, then certainly his club, with the help of the seemingly inspired Pep Guardiola.

And this was seen on the pitch, where the heroes ranged from the local boys made good such as Xavi to the youth signings like Lionel Messi, and then, perhaps above all, to the "flop" Thierry Henry, who finally silenced some more of his doubters. And there was Pep Guardiola, water bottle in hand, conducting this footballing symphony.

Just as Bernd Schuster was for a brief moment the golden boy of Madrid as he led the champions to a Clasico win at Camp Nou, so too is Guardiola very likely to be the toast of Barcelona. The difference is, though, he is genuinely liked in the city and by the club - not merely tolerated as is the German. It seems that a new cycle is truly beginning as the last one ends.

Cycle

In fact, for Barcelona, finally rhetoric is matching deed. Truly we are seeing the start of a new 'cycle' at the Camp Nou. It may not be as meaningful or successful as Frank Rijkaard's early league and Champions League double, but on the strength of Saturday's showing it won't be too far off it.

But even aside from success on the pitch, the sense of confidence and cameraderie is at a three-year high. The players play for each other, and for their coach, too; even Samuel Eto'o, long since characterised as a volatile liability, cracked a few smiles and cheers as he watched his squadmates excel without him from his perch in the stands. And the fans, harder to please than most in Spain, knew that what they were seeing was the real deal.

Scenes in Madrid were reminiscent of those in Barcelona six months ago. Vast banks of empty seats; more whistles than cheers, players shrugging and wincing at each other as goal after goal rains in against them, and the woodwork conspires again them at the other end.

It is too early to say that this is the start of a Barcelona-esque cycle of failure at the Bernabeu... but it doesn't look too far off it.

I said midway through last season that Barcelona were crippled by insidious doubt, and I'm tempted now to say the same about Madrid. But it's not just doubt. It is doubt mixed with a summer's worth of self-aggrandising over-confidence, and that is something that a couple of quick-fix signings in winter will not remedy half as effectively as a root and branch examination of all that is wrong with the current regime: hubris.

Of course it is not an insurpassable problem. Barcelona in May looked to be utterly dead and buried, and president Joan Laporta a lame duck. But one summer - and a heck of a lot of self-examination later - and things are back on track. One feels that Calderon and those below him must spend their July in similar fashion if Madrid aren't to start next season as they are continuing this one.

Ewan Macdonald, Goal.com

 

Hope we can cook them for breakfast so our dear catalans can have them fresh when they wake up the next mourning! {Amen}

 

i'll remember that.. essa..