As many of my readers know that I get straight to the point without any INTRODUCTORY paragraphs and the point I want to get to quickly is that the El Clasico showed why the offside rule sucks and how much Barcelona suck when they used it cleverly against Real Madrid despite being the HEX CHAMPS.
Look at Messi’s goal a little more closely when the pass was made by Xavi to, supposedly, Messi both Alves and Pedro were offside. Now I know many of the Barcelona fans would say that they were non active while Messi who touched the ball was active.
That is exactly where the offside rule sucks. I am sure atleast 50 percent of the people who watch soccer would not be able to answer the question of when an offside is an offside? Is the offside instant taken to be the one when the pass is made or when the pass is received ( I know the answer but I am just saying that this rule stinks).
Even a more difficult question would be, what the heck does ACTIVE and NON ACTIVE player means? As far as I am concerned, if a player is on the field then he is not there to inspect the pitch or is he?. He is there to PLAY the MATCH that is being PLAYED, which makes him active. In England the referees are a bit more strict about this than in La liga but still this grey area should be removed.
And how Barcelona exploited it so well is not beyond me. They had Pedro and Alves in an clearly offside position. Look at the replay and you will see that Real Madrid defenders stepped up the line for the offside, little did they know that Messi creeped in between them.
This is unacceptable, you win matches by playing better or by being more efficient or with some luck not through clever tricks. Real Madrid lost the match, I am fine with that but what I am not fine with is the way Barcelona scored their first goal which really set the tone for the remaining match.
And ofcourse, if we are talking about tricks with and without the feet then we are talking about Messi. The guy is a great player no doubt, he scores goals only few can imagine of scoring but when it comes to morals, he is ultra light. He has scored from the hand, from the shirt, has even spit on a black player so if he starts taking drugs too then he would really imitate his idol in Maradonna.
Real Madrid lost because we all thought that NEO Galacticos were as good as the ORIGINAL Galactico. The reality is that they are not. They are too young and quite frankly, Kaka is not and will never be a Zidane and neither will C.Ronaldo be as effective as Figo or Ronaldo and lets just not even mention the fact that instead of Roberto Carlos (who sometimes won matches for Real Madrid on his own and through his energy levels) we have Marcelo who tactically is the dumbest player on the squad.
Ok, rant over. Coming back to La Liga. 7 games left, 21 points left and according to some optimistic write at www.realmadrid.com, Real Madrid need to get to 98 points to win the league as no other team has ever lost the title with that many points.
I don’t know but Barcelona do not look like a team who would drop points and even if they do, Real Madrid would still have to win their games in order to take advantage and in the past Real Madrid have not done particularly great towards the end of the league season.
One other point. SACK PELLIGRINI and yeah I am jumping the wrecked ship and yeah I know that we should all give him and Real Madrid a bit more time but while the squad is great, Pelligrini is not.
I am not going to start a list of solution here now, just to let you know that I am really upset at the way Real Madrid lost, we had chances but just choked. Messi’s goal, even after the clever bit, was scrappy and even could have been saved by Casillas had the shot been struck properly, Messi kind of like scuffed it and the ball bounced over Casillas.
Second goal was ok but Arbeloa’s pace was again exposed. Lets just hope that the squad’s motivation and confidence level is as high as they themselves (in the interviews on www.realmadrid.com) say they are. That is the only thing Real Madrid should currently work on and I think the squad has enough experience with these sort of situations already so it should not be a problem.
I want to hear your thoughts on this, what do you think? Were Real Madrid the worst of the two sides or did Barcelona beat Real Madrid on merit?
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