The Lasting Effects of El Clasico

We are a few days removed from El Clasico where Barcelona massacred Madrid 5-0. It was truly a performance for the ages, but many Real fans have said it doesn’t matter, as it is only one game of a 38-game season. I beg to differ.

In these past two seasons Barcelona have won the La Liga crown twice. They have also won all four editions of El Clasico during that period.

Surely, it cannot be a coincidence?

In the preceding seasons, when Barcelona didn’t win a Clasico they subsequently failed to win the league.

Coincidence again? I think not.

El Clasico is the biggest game in club football. The media attention devoted to it, I believe is not matched by any other game. This places huge expectation on the game and this year it revolved around Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho and Lionel Messi.

However, the game only turned out well for one of them. Guess which one!

Ronaldo in particular was forced to retract his previous statements as he told the press in a pre-match interview:

"May the best team win, and the winner will be Real Madrid."

Now as someone else once said, "You should make your words light and fluffy in case you have to eat them."

Surely, Ronaldo should’ve heeded that advice as countless numbers of Real players have made similar predictions, only for them to backfire spectacularly at the hands of the Blaugrana.

These predictions must have a huge mental effect on the players who dared to make them public knowledge. The confidence in the team was almost cruelly taken away. I can’t imagine how one must feel, when you play to the best of your ability, only to be humiliated, - in some cases - by your friends (Sergio Ramos can attest to that).

I doubt that the Real Madrid players had ever suffered a 5-0 defeat. This must have a psychological effect somehow.

Imagine if you were Ronaldo. Once you have finished your 8-hour long daily beauty regime, you remember how you couldn’t influence the game at all. You remember watching on as your team-mates were outclassed in every single way.

You also remember how that meanie Pep Guardiola wouldn’t give you your ball back.

The memory of the game will scar every involved with Real Madrid for years to come, and in the immediate future, Mourinho—who it has been proven now is only the Overhyped One—will have to rebuild a team, reinstall the confidence in a team that will be without Ramos for a few games, without Higuain for the foreseeable future, and possibly without Ronaldo, at least confidence-wise.

If they lose to Valencia on Saturday and Barcelona win there will be a 5-point gap between the two.

If last season is anything to go by, that’ll be enough to win the title, especially if Barca win the next Clasico at the Bernabeu. After all, playing catch-up with this team is damn-near impossible.

Just in case you haven’t seen it on the blog, this joke was on a post by Adi-Oula Sebastian and seems even more relevant now.

In the El Grand Classico pre match conference, a reporter asks Ronaldo as a footballer what he brings to the sport as a whole. Ronaldo responds, "God sent me to earth to show the world how football is meant to be played". Later in the conference, as Messi sits alongside Guardiola, the same reporter asks Messi what's his opinion on Ronaldo's comment. Messi replies, "I didn't send anyone!"