Since I am a Madrid fan (if that’s not obvious enough), I thought I’d respond to some of the things that the Barcelona fans said in the comments of the previous posts, to clarify a few of my points. Obviously, they are more than welcome to express their opinions here even though we may not like it, but we of course reserve the right to respond. So, here are my responses to several points that have been made.
“The team who was really immature was Madrid… at least behave like real men! Not like a bunch of four-year-olds.”
– During the game, was Mourinho immature? Was Iker? Xabi? Benzema? No. Several of our players, as we all have readily admitted, should have behaved better. But overall, I don’t think the team itself was behaving immaturely.
“I don’t understand how Barça were the “immature” ones.
– I don’t know about you, but I find flopping and over-exaggerations a bit immature, considering you’re playing at the highest level in the world and are all grown men.
“‘I am shocked by all the hating on Piqué… The manita was an appeal to the home fans…”
– I was objecting to Piqué doing that while the game was still going on. He can do whatever he wants AFTER the game; it’s his right. Doing that during the game was, if I can say, immature. In addition, if it were acceptable behavior, why did Puyol have to shout at him to stop and tell him to be quiet? Piqué then asked Puyol again why and Puyol told him to be silent.
“And also, stop trashing pique!! and least he knows how to play some real football!!!”
– So, just because he knows how to play “real” football, as you put it, his behavior can be excused?
“The idea that Madrid fans are more respectful is absurd.”
– Just think: if Cristiano had a fantastic game yesterday, would the Camp Nou have applauded him? I think not.
“Cristiano Ronaldo was downright disrespectful to Guardiola. Pep has a habit of picking up the ball when it comes to him out of play and passing it to whoever needs it. In this case, he’d thought Barca had won it over so he was handing it to us. In no way does that warrant Ronaldo pushing him. THAT was immature and childish.”
– Second point first: the majority of the Madrid fans here agree that Cristiano should have been more mature, and that he shouldn’t shove anyone. And in going back to the previous point, if the roles had been reversed and a Barcelona player had shoved José Mourinho, I would bet you that all the Barcelona fans would be cheering that player and elevating him to god status instead of condemning the player, like we have with Cristiano.
And as to the first point, why is everyone in the world expected to know what one coach of one team in one league does in a situation so specific as “when the ball comes to him out of play”? If Cris didn’t know, and I’m betting he didn’t, he would have interpreted the gesture exactly as I or most people would: that Pep was deliberately being difficult. And in the heat of the moment, people react in ways that in hindsight they regret. We are all guilty of that.
“Sergio Ramos shoved Puyol in the face pretty hard, and Xavi too. That is immature and childish, not to mention he behaved that way towards his national teammates. It was downright disgraceful.”
– what does the national team have to do with this? Based on your logic, is Sergio’s action worse because he did it to several of his national team teammates and not to someone else? I think he would have shoved anyone in that situation, regardless of who it was. And it would have been equally bad. We all also agree that he shouldn’t have done that.
“I don’t understand how you can even say Barca was behaving without class.”
– Show me where I said that. The only time I mentioned class in the post was to say that some Barcelona players have it.
“Also, I really hate this stupid excuse everyones using now (that Barca is a finished product etc) its just lame, both teams got new players, just have to admit that in THIS game Barca was better!”
– I have admitted that Barcelona was better in this game (link to post upon request).
– The finished product is not an excuse, it’s a statement. Take a look at the starting line-ups, for example. Barcelona has one new player, Villa, who has played with seven of his Barcelona teammates before, on the national team. All the other players are in their third year or more. Madrid has four first-year players, and three second-year players, not to mention a coach in his first year. Their only player with more than six years of experience is someone who doesn’t participate in the plays.
Or, if you average the numbers of years of club experience of the starting line-ups, the average comes to six for Barcelona, and 3.2 for Real Madrid. Now tell me if the two are comparable.
In conclusion: I think we can all agree that we’ll mostly support whatever our team does, whether it’s right or wrong, whether it’s classy or not. The difference I see is that many Madrid fans can also see when their team does wrong (just look at us condemning the actions of Cristiano and Sergio) but most Barcelona fans can’t (and it’s in their right not to). Imagine if the situation had been reversed. I would still say the same things, but the Barcelona fans would then say the complete opposite.
This is just my opinion, and I’m not expecting everyone to be in agreement. If you do disagree, please at least stay respectful towards others. This is the last I’m going to say about this subject, since I think we Madrid fans are all ready to move on, unless there’s something that I really vehemently disagree with.
P.S. – for those of you who came here from conlaroja, welcome, and I hope this doesn’t affect how you view that blog. I do my best to keep club issues out of there.
P.P.S. – the next posts will have pictures, I promise! All this text is giving me a headache!