It was "Hell Classico" at the Bernabeu, Ten finally Hanged, B'dor: Rodri or robbery… What a week!

It was “Hell Classico” at the Bernabeu, Ten finally Hanged, B’dor: Rodri or robbery… What a week!

Before the game, Carlo didn’t know what was coming.

This Sunday saw the biggest game in Spain; Real Madrid played host to Barcelona.
Both teams went for it head-on giving a very cagey first half. Vinicius missed an early chance but Barca’s very high line meant that Mbappe was caught offside 8 times in the first half alone. Barca were in relative control but didn’t create enough to get a goal. However, everything changed in the second half.

Frenkie De Jong came in for Fermin and Barca started asserting some dominance. Soon, Casadó found some space in the middle and played in Lewandowski who very marginally beat the defence line and wasted no time picking his spot. 1-0.

In few minutes, Frenkie found Balde in acres of space on the left and a very sumptuous cross found Lewandowski alarmingly unmarked in between the centre backs to head home a second. Real Madrid didn’t back out and soon Vinicius was freed on the left and sent a beautiful pass with his outside foot behind the Barca defence for Mbappe who hits the goalkeeper with his shot. Again, he was found and after hitting the back of the net, the offside flag was up again. That summed up his night.

Barca never lost steam and kept creating goal opportunities, Lewandowski squandering two glorious chances. There was however no chance for Real Madrid into the game as Raphinha found Yamal in space and the teenager struck the ball hard to the roof of the net. The final nail on the coffin was left late as a long ball over the top from defence found Raphinha who lobbed the ball over the on rushing Lunin. 4-0.

Whether 17 or 36, age is just a number. Real Madrid would know that.

Barcelona made a big statement Sunday night. A 4-0 win at the Bernabeu just after a 4-1 thrashing of Bayern Munich, Flick-ball is just scary. They have the best attacking trio in the world right now. In 14 games in the league and the Champions League, Lewandowski has 17 goals and two assists, Lamine Yamal 6 goals and seven assists and Raphinha 10 goals and seven assists; this new look Barcelona team is no joke and they’ve put the football world on notice.
It was “Hell Classico” for Madridistas.

After just three wins in 9 games in the Premier league and 3 points from three games in the Europa League, the abysmal start to the season all came to a climax with the loss to a struggling West Ham. Ten Hag got hanged at last.

Since the second half of last season, he has been on the fringes of being axed but the FA cup win last June seemed to have bought him enough time. A new ownership came in during the summer and despite all the changes they made, Ten Hag was asked to stay to continue as gaffer. After requests of boosting the quality of the squad, new signings came in to bring to a total of £615 million spent on transfers by Ten Hag since he arrived in the summer of 2022, yet there was no significant improvement leaving Man utd fans with more questions than answers after every game. The games went the same way – Man utd would have one very good half and a very poor one, conceding a lot of chances while wasting the ones they see. The attackers kept misfiring, teams strolled past Man utd’s midfield and defending was an eyesore.

From afar, one could feel the motivation was dwindling and the players were beginning to have doubts themselves. Ten Hag’s interviews weren’t helping matters as he was either blaming someone or something except himself or repeatedly putting it in our faces that he has won two trophies, forgetting that though winning trophies was the goal, fighting for the league title is how his job of bringing back Ferguson’s glory days would be assessed.
At the end, when Ten Hag said at his arrival, “I admire Man City and Liverpool…but eras come to an end”, it’s fair to say, he knew which era he was talking about (laughs).

“Hey, pack the bags. Back to Twente.”, Ten Hag must have said.

The announcement of Rodri has Ballon d’or winner has sparked a lot of reactions all across the football world. Former players, journalists, pundits and many fans have well expressed their displeasure, many claiming the integrity of the award has been jeopardized after Vinicius, the undoubted winner in their eyes was condemned to 2nd position.

As a lover of team sports; football and basketball being my favorites, I’m not a big fan of individual awards. A team sport is so complex that singling out an individual as the best never tells the beautiful story behind the team’s great achievement.

Ballon d’or is football’s biggest individual award and it has been the ultimate metric by which players impacts are judged. It is common knowledge that over the years, it has favoured the attackers more than the midfielders, defenders and goalkeepers. The aim of a football game is to win and winning only happens by scoring goals hence the inherent bias that the attackers who produce the numbers that matter should take most of the shine. Debates and hot takes accompany the award every year and this year’s was a really intriguing one.

Man City’s Rodri, Inter Milan’s Lautaro and Real Madrid’s Bellingham, Vinicius, Carvajal and Mbappe were front runners for the coveted prize and they all had very legitimate claims to the award. I won’t go into analyzing who should have won it but I’m strongly against one thing – saying Rodri shouldn’t win it because Xavi and Iniesta didn’t OR saying Vinicius shouldn’t win it because Neymar didn’t.
The Ballon d’or has a yearly context to it. Just one year and winning it (especially just once), doesn’t say much about your greatness at the end of the day. It only reflects how much you stood out above the rest in a particular year and we’ve even seen how much bias goes it that. Vinicius will still win it…or maybe not.