Barcelona vs Real Madrid The greatest game in history

On Monday 29th November 2010 at 8pm kicked off the greatest game of football I have ever watched. I have since spoken to a number of people that watched the highlights or only the goals thinking that the performance was OK but nothing to cry home about. They could not be more wrong. A 5 minute highlight reel will never do this game any justice. Instead take just over 90 minutes out of your busy life to sit down and watch it, I promise that you won't regret it.

I thought that it would be a game of two world class teams competing at the highest level with not too much between them in terms of quality. Both can boast of world class talent with Real having spent multi millions in there chase to catch up with the success of Barcelona over recent years. With the likes of Ozil, Alonso, di Maria, Benzema and of course Cristiano Ronaldo acquired Real pose a genuine threat to any team.

Standing in there way was a team including no less than 7 players in there starting line up from the Spanish world cup winning squad. Oh...it also included the best footballer on the planet for the last few years...Lionel Messi. (Note: I am quite aware that this could just become a Barcelona love hub, so I will try to focus on the game in question. No promises though.).

It is important to note that the method of football Barcelona play (known as Tika-Taka as introduced by Johan Cruyff in the late 80's / early 90's) won the game for them. It was spectacular the way that they pass and move whilst closing down the opposition as soon as possession is lost.

Its very difficult to compare the two as in a head to head on goals scored (at the time of writing this) both have scored roughly the same. Its also quite hard to prove which of the two provides more for the team in terms of key passes, but in the 09-10 season Messi contributed 13 assists to Ronaldo's 7. At the time of writing Real have collectively scored 38 goals, Barcelona have 46.

Ronaldo used to provide alot more assists and contribute more in general play but in his final years at Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson encouraged Cristiano to become more selfish and go for goals. He happily accepted and scored a staggering 31 goals in 36 games, though his assists record almost halved.