El Clasico No. 3: Pep Grins as Arrogant Mourinho Goes Back to His Whiny Ways

The third "El Clasico" or "La Controversia" as dubbed by my friends, was hands down the worst Clasico of the season. 

For the first half an hour nothing much happened. Madrid parked the bus after five minutes of the match and didn't seem interest in playing the ball—rather, they were happy to defend and soak up the pressure. Barca tried to pass their way through the Madrid bus and managed to create a couple of chances. But they were efficiently repelled by Madrid's defense.

But what seemed to be a cagey affair in the first 30 minutes became an almost farcical show of who-can-play-act-more in the next 15. While Di Maria, Pedro and Busquets were leading their way from the front in that mini-game, Ramos, Pepe, Marcelo and Diara were playing let's-hack-down-a-Barca-player. 

After a half-time fracas which resulted in Pinto being sent off, the game resumed in a rather hostile atmosphere.

On the 61st minute the inevitable occurred. Pepe went for a ball with his studs up about the knee level and crashed into Dani Alves's leg. Let me make it clear: Pepe did make a slight contact with the ball but he did certainly strike Alves on the side of his upper shin with his cleats. Barca pressured the ref and Pepe was sent off. 

The decision a was stern one and might seem a little harsh in hindsight. But to depict it as inconceivable and unreasonable as the Madrid players, press and some fans have done is quite silly. These kind of red cards are given every other week all around the world. In the modern game you cannot go into a challenge with your cleats raised at knee-level. Pepe should have known better.

Then Marcelo stepped on Pedro—intentionally or unintentionally, no one will know—but that forced Barca to take off the ineffective Pedro and bring on the pacey Afellay, who made an instant impact by assisting Messi's first goal. Then Messi took the ball about 40 yards, skinned the tired Madrid defense and scored a Maradona-like goal to seal Barca's victory. A well-deserved victory for the Catalans.

Though many might have turned to their television to witness the spectacle that is 'El Clasico," many were disappointed with what they saw. The blame for this "La Controversia" lies with the on-field tactics and off-field antics of only one man—Jose Mourinho. 

His tactic to park the bus in the home leg of the Champions League semifinal against a Barca side who were forced to play Mascherano as their center back, Puyol (just coming out of injury) at left back and with no Inesita to support the out-of-form Villa and Pedro is quite unfathomable.

Though Madrid played with a similar formation and strategy at Valencia and went on to lift the Copa Del Rey, their tactics were very different. At Valencia, Madrid pressured Barca from the front and were taking to game to the Catalans. 

But at the Bernabeu, Madrid barely had a say in their attacking third. They never came close to even troubling Valdes and had no counter-attacking structure to their system. But Jose didn't bother thinking about where he and his team failed. 

After his ungracious and incensing remarks about Pep in the prematch conference, Mourinho sunk to a whole new level of low in his postmatch conference. 

In a desperate attempt to the instill the us-against-the world mentality in his players and fans, he talked about conspiracies against him and his teams and how UEFA favoured FC Barcelona. Most of his comments reflected the sentiment of a sore loser, but his rant about Pep not winning anything cleanly and taking a dig at Barca's collaboration with UNICEF were outright disgraceful and hypocritical.

On the contrary, Pep Guardiola was brilliant in his managerial tactics from the start. He started it all by deflecting all the pressure on Madrid, calling them favorites for this tie after the Copa Del Rey. Many bought into that considering how Madrid closed the gap between Barca and themselves since November's La Manita show by Barca. And that tag of being the favorites might be one of the reasons for their over-cautious approach. 

Then he uncharacteristically lashed out Jose in the prematch conference saying, "When it comes to sport we will play and sometimes we will win, sometimes we will lose. We are happy with smaller victories, trying to get the world to admire us and we are very proud of this...I can give you an immense list of things [that we could complain about]: 300,000 things."

This uncharacteristic outlash made the team more determined and resolute. And then he took a leaf out of Jose's book. He asked his full backs to not venture too far during attacks. He also asked players to do what Madrid did at Valencia: at every possible instance put pressure on the referee. And it worked. 

The sad part is if it had gone the result had gone other way in the same circumstances, Pep wouldn't have talked about the referee and everyone would have hailed Jose as a mastermind.

In all the controversy on and off the pitch, people are forgetting that Pep Guardiola managed to defeat an on-form Real Madrid side at the Bernabeu with a makeshift back line without Iniesta and with what was perhaps one of the worst bench quality FC Barcelona have had in years. 

Though the leg is not over, Madrid seems to have accepted their fate. I hope that is not the case and I hope the last of the El Clasicos would finally live up to its billing.