The memes following the 4-0 win by Barcelona over Real Madrid in El Clasico focus on Cristiano Ronaldo disappearing at the Santiago Bernabeu and Rafa Benitez being on the verge of being fired.
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He decided on Messi beginning on the bench during the week, he said. In a sign of Barcelona’s dominance, the scorer of the third goal, Andres Iniesta, was applauded by some Madrid fans when he was substituted in the second half. “It was a memorable game”.
The Madrid club have won one league title in seven years, despite lavishly spending huge money on top class attacking talent. It’s not always that you can win with such superiority. “We didn’t play as a team, and if you’re not compact against Barcelona, then this happens”.
Despite just two defeats in 16 games in charge, Real boss Rafael Benitez’s job is now in doubt as fans turned on club president Florentino Perez toward the end of the game.
The coach also explained the decision to wait until the 57th minute before introducing Messi.
Benitez called for his side to react quickly to a second successive league defeat, this humiliation following the 3-2 reverse to Sevilla a fortnight ago.
“We battled hard and tried to play our game despite the weather and the main thing is that we got a point”, defender Maicon said. I think the game is more merit of Barcelona than demerit of Real Madrid. “We have to get ourselves out of this situation”.
At half time we spoke about lifting our game and finding a goal.
“We wanted to win the ball back high up the pitch and try to dominate possession, but we failed to do that…”
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He added: “We made mistakes, we paid dearly for them against a good team, with quality. We have faith in our manager and in our teammates”, he said. The team’s attitude has not disappointed me. “The most important is to recover the group, to show them that we have a responsibility to the fans”.
