El Clásico!

By: Isaiah | May 6th, 2008

I know that the rumors about who is leaving and who is arriving are flying thick and fast from all over the world (should we get ~~Anakin Skywalker~~ Rodrigo Palacio? How about Jozy Altidore, David Villa, or Peter Parker?), but there is something much more important afoot: El Clásico! Seriously, though, it’s the most important game of this half of the season and while it may be meaningless for our rivals, it means the world to this fan and to avoiding Champions League qualifiers. So there’s “heckaton” to play for and no doubt Real Madrid will want to put on some sort of a show against us as we give them the guard of honor (el pasillo, or tunnel, in Spanish) before the match. I’m sure that hurts the players’ pride and they don’t want to do it, but to be honest that sort of gesture has never bothered me. But seeing as it means nothing to me, I don’t see why we keep it around either because it doesn’t seem to be a gesture with any meaning anymore other than to hurt the opposing team who happens to be there on that day.

Anyway, it’s morbo time in the Bernabeu and our boys, including the recently cleared Toure, will be there. Here’s the full squad: Valdés, Pinto, Zambrotta, Oleguer, Thuram, Márquez, Puyol, Abidal, Sylvinho, Touré Yaya, Edmílson, Xavi, Gudjohnsen, Bojan, Ezquerro, Giovani, Henry, Messi.. We’ll be missing a few key players through suspension and injury, namely Eto’o and Deco who both picked up needless and stupid yellows in the win over Valencia. Milito and Iniesta are out through injury, the former for 6 months and the latter for as long as it takes to recover from a slipped meniscus.

This is the starting lineup I see coming: Valdes, Zambrotta, Thuram, Puyol, Abidal, Toure, Xavi, Gudjohnsen, Bojan, Henry, Messi. There’s just no other way about it because we’re missing several players throughout the field, Gio could get the start over Bojan if Rijkaard wants to hold out a frontline substitute, but every player should be thinking about going the distance. Márquez could get the start in the back line if Rijkaard is going to use Edmilson as a sub for Toure in the event that The Juggernaut needs to come out, but I’d rather have a dead Touré on the field than a healthy Edmilson, so I hope Marquez starts on the bench and can become a sub for Thuram or Toure.

When you’re doing the guard of honor thing, is Toure allowed to incinerate Raul with his laser eyes or is that considered bad form? I’m just wondering.

Let’s do a small bit of statistical analysis, shall we?

RM home record: 15W-0D-2L, 44GF 15GA
Barça away record: 4W-8D-5L, 24GF 24GA

On the surface this is a victory for Real Madrid, to be honest, because they’re so heavily favored, statistically. However, averages and statistics rarely apply on derby day and this is, for my money, the greatest rivalry in all of sports. So yeah: form, meet window. And if anyone is under the impression that Madrid isn’t going to play balls out (hopefully just figuratively), they are misimpressionated. That’s right, misimpressionated. Madrid are going to want to put the definitively Seal of Approval on this season by beaten us both away and then at home, but our boys can’t allow that to happen. This is a matter of pride, people!

The teams match up pretty well with each other, I have to say. Our defense will be short a Milito, but Abidal is playing well enough to keep Sergio Ramos at bay for most of the game, if not all of it, so our defense, Puyol-heavy as it is, should be fine in the middle. Thuram is perhaps a step slow, but so is Raul, so that evens things out a bit. If Henry is deployed in the center rather than the wing, I think it will shift a little bit of Real Madrid’s defending around since they’ll be without Cannavaro (whose red card seemed to actually help their cause) and will need to reign in Heinze’s attack so to deal with Messi full time. As much as I think Heinze is craptastic, he did a pretty good job in the Camp Nou, but this time he’s going to be taking on Messi and our little saint needs to make him look the subpar player he really is.

Gudjohnsen is going to have to play the game of his life against Diarra to make a difference, but I think he can do it if he’s willing to play the easy ball rather than attempting to win back the Barcelona fans with one super-duper nifty crazy golazo type nonsense move. He needs to be solid in an uncompromising and physical way. He can’t disappear for long stretches like he is prone to do — he need to muscle in on Diarra, get some freekicks, win some headers, and be the physical monster commentator seem to think he is. This midfield matchup is so important both for offensive and defensive reasons that I’m going to call it the key to the game. It’s more important than Heinze v Messi simply because if Diarra dominates Guddie, Messi will be running into a brick wall of 2 or 3 defenders every time he touches the ball. And even El Messias can’t be expected to get through that many defenders every time.

I want nothing short of a total asskicking from the blaugrana tomorrow. I don’t expect us to go to their field and lay down a 6-0 thrashing like we put down on Valencia, but if we win — and especially if we win well — I’ll be happy with this season, no questions asked. And I know that appeasing my sense of entitlement is exactly what the players are hoping to do so let’s see that 0-3 scoreline posted around the globe. I want to see Sport crow with pride for once, instead of bullshit indignation.

It is, however, tough to win in the Bernabeu…If you read the FC Barcelona official site regularly, you already saw this, but here it is: “Of all the different managers Barça have had, only Frank Rijkaard has won more than once in the league at the Bernabéu.” That’s a fact I was completely unaware of before reading that sentence…which made me aware of that fact…Even if this isn’t Frankie Boy’s last time to coach a team in the Bernabeu, let’s hope he comes out of there with another victory because we can always use something to tide us over until next year’s triple, eh? Yeah, I said it.

Official Prediction: 1-2 Barcelona. We’re going to goddamned do this. Goals by Messi and Bojan.

Where will the game be shown, you ask? Well, it will be on GolTV, which you can find at all of these fine establishments. So far we’ve got Boston, Indianapolis, New York, Seattle, and Montreal covered, but we’re always looking for more input. If you don’t have GolTV or access to a bar with said channel, check out TVU Player and scroll down to channel “65217 Football”. Gametime is 4pm EST, people, so get off work early and watch that shit! The game will also be reshown at 9pm on GolTV for those of you without DVRs/VCRs but with the channel.

As a finale, here’s a look at GolTV’s December banner followed the one for this game:

Interesting how they switched out Ronaldinho for Márquez, right?