Copa del Rey: FC Barcelona 1-3 Real Madrid: Player Ratings

Despite the score-line suggesting otherwise, I was impressed by Pinto’s performance in the Barcelona goal. His distribution has certainly improved over the past few years and yesterday was arguably his best showing in that regard; not even Victor Valdés has registered such a high pass completion rate this season. Factor in his five saves not to mention a crucial – if a little unorthodox – interception and I’d argue that we have a contender for MoTM.

Similar to Pinto, I don’t think Dani Alves deserved to be on the losing side; let alone on the receiving end of a score-line like this. Yes, Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice and won a penalty – but he only ever threatened the Blaugrana defense when he switched flank. Of course, the Madridista press will disagree, but I’d go as far as saying that Dani Alves dominated that match-up. In fact, Alves nearly compensated for Puyol’s slip on the second goal and he also made a couple of contributions at the offensive end, teeing up Busquets on 52 minutes. An all-round master-class from Alves.

First and foremost, Piqué loses a mark for giving away the penalty. I know he didn’t go to ground with the intention of conceding a penalty, but it was clear from the get-go that there was only ever going to be one outcome. Ronaldo is notoriously skilful, and infamously unprofessional. Even if Piqué won the ball, Ronaldo would have gone down and probably won the penalty from Undiano Mallenco. Aside from the penalty, Piqué was left exposed by a complete lack of cover from the front five; and we can hardly blame him for not being as quick as the Real Madrid attack.

Puyol’s broken his cheekbone – twice – and continued to play through the pain barrier on each occasion, so how anyone can criticise him and his effort is beyond my comprehension. This wasn’t a vintage performance from our captain, but this whole "he’s slow and therefore terrible" idea is just tiresome.

Jordi Alba scored a late consolation to notch his fourth goal in Barcelona colours, but he is likely to be disappointed with his overall performance. Unfortunately, with no help from Andrés Iniesta or even Cesc Fàbregas, Alba had to deal with a whole host of Real attackers, all of whom seemed to switch to his left-flank at some stage in the game. In particular, I was less than impressed with his pass accuracy, although we can accredit that to Di Maria’s pressure rather than a lack of skill on Alba’s part.

Busquets fought an uphill battle last night, putting in the hard yards in the Barça midfield. No player made more tackles than Sergio Busquets according to Whoscored, while only a select few can claim to have intercepted as many passes. On the whole then, this was a typical 90 minutes from Busi with the only thing missing being a victory.

Xavi was far from his best, which makes you wonder: was he ever fit to return in the first place? Certainly Xavi appears to be lacking a bit of match fitness at the very least; although with a day off to fully recover, hopefully we will be treated to a classic display at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Poor Cesc Fàbregas. Not only does he get criticised for his own performances, but he’s also criticised for Andrés Iniesta’s poor performances – at least when Don Andrés is pushed out to left-wing to accommodate for the former-Arsenal captain. Anyway, back to last night, and did Fàbregas really do anything terribly wrong? After all, he was one of just three Barcelona players to register a shot on target and Cesc also blocked what could have been a dangerous shot from Angel Di Maria. I will say however that he looked a little lost in midfield; almost as if he doesn’t know exactly what his role is when he features alongside Xavi.

Pedro was isolated for the majority of the game, but he still got the better of Fabio Coentrao in his 71 minutes on the field. How Undiano Mallenco adjudged Xabi Alonso’s body-check to be a fair challenge is beyond me; there was no intention to play the ball whatsoever, and of all people, it’s not like Pedro has a reputation for diving.

I’m probably in the minority here, but I think Messi did OK last night. Like many others, he was nowhere near his best, but let’s take a look back at the 90 minutes and go from there. Messi didn’t register a shot on target last night that much is true, but he came within inches of opening the scoring on 2 minutes, and he went closer still with a free-kick on 39 minutes. On another night, both of those shots could have found the back of the net and we would have been celebrating another virtuoso display from the Argentine forward. Oh, and at least Messi put in some effort in attack...

"Barcelona should take more shots" they said. Andrés Iniesta obliged, and proceeded to waste all six of his shots last night, providing irrefutable proof that Barcelona in fact shouldn’t simply hit and hope.

It might be harsh to judge him on this cameo performance, but I’m going to share the sentiment Bostjan echoed earlier: Villa starting (or Tello starting for that matter) wouldn’t have made a difference. He certainly didn’t make a difference in his 30 minutes on the field anyway.

No-one quite expected this result, but is it any reason to lose faith in the team? Prior to the penalty decision, Barcelona looked set to dominate the match. Ronaldo converted the penalty; then Barca got caught out by one of the world's greatest counter-attacking teams and a set-piece. Even then, they managed to fight back and restore some pride with a late consolation. As far as defeats go, I'd argue that it could have been far worse.

2.9? I don't even think Valdes received such a low rating, and he actually tried to dribble past Angel Di Maria...

Curiously enough, Lionel Messi finished second in the voting for MoTM, which is quite simply staggering, but at least he lost out to "None". For me, Alves was the clear candidate, with Pinto and Busquets tied for second.