It was a passionate night of football that saw the two giants of Spanish football, Real Madrid and Barcelona, take on each other at Santiago Bernabeu, home of the Galacticos.
After an extremely hard fought match filled with tantrums and tatters from players of both sides, the Catalan giants were the one to come out on top of their arch rivals, with their talisman Lionel Messi scoring the winner right on the last kick of the match.
With this win in the El Clasico, Barcelona went to the top of the Spanish La Liga points table with 75 points, toppling Real Madrid from their number one position on goal difference.
The matchup, as expected, saw a number of fouls from both sets of players done on their opponents. The atmosphere got even more heated up with the Real Madrid skipper and defensive stalwart Sergio Ramos seeing a red card for an ill-timed challenge on Lionel Messi.
The match was full of talking points, three of which are being discussed in the following lines-
1. Lionel Messi’s brilliant brace-
Lionel Messi, arguably the best player in this world, has been in an immaculate form of late. The Argentine captain had scored 29 goals before this match and upped his tally by two more, one in the 33rd minute and another in which is considered very much to be the last kick of the match, in the 92nd minute. His precision with both the shots was pinpoint, beating Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas to find the back of the net. His closest rival and current Balon D’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo was again out of form, even after scoring a hat-trick in Real’s last encounter against German champions Bayern Munich.
2. Sergio Ramos’ Red Card-
Defensively, the Los Blancos have been exposing their weaker side of late. Two of their most trustworthy defenders, Pepe and Rafael Varane have been sidelined with injuries for quite some time, and that has put the defensive responsibility majorly on the shoulders of their skipper Sergio Ramos. However, his unruly two-legged challenge on Lionel Messi in the 76th minute led the referee to show him a red card, leaving the Real Madrid defence in a vulnerable position.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo’s off form-
The Galacticos were depending on their Portuguese star, who scored a hat-trick in their last encounter against Bayern Munich at Bernabeu. This time around though, the talismanic player was found to be ineffective in front of the opposition goal and was not able to convert the few balls that he received from his teammates into goals.
