Scissors Kick

Pep Guardiola
“Barcelona produced a truly legendary performance to go top of the table. Pep Guardiola deviated little from his favoured XI so far this season – the closest thing to a surprise was at left-back, where Eric Abidal played ahead of Maxwell. Lionel Messi started in the centre, with David Villa on the left.” (Zonal Marking)

Barcelona as Slime
“Poor Sergio Ramos — not to excuse or justify him, of course, but he’s an elite athlete, accustomed from childhood to running circles around other people, and now, before an enormous world-wide audience, to have people running circles around him — and so evidently enjoying it — well, that’s an insult not to be borne, I suppose. Everyone gets beaten sometimes: even Messi was dispossessed a couple of times yesterday. But to be humiliated for ninety minutes almost without respite, as Real Madrid’s players were yesterday . . . that doesn’t happen very often at that level of sport.” (Run of Play)

Barca teaches Real a master class
“Greatness is not measured in medals alone but in style. ‘Great clubs,’ Arrigo Sacchi said, ‘have had one thing in common throughout history, regardless of era and tactics. They owned the pitch and they owned the ball. That means when you have the ball, you dictate play and when you are defending, you control the space.’ There can hardly have been any doubt about the greatness of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, but beating Real Madrid 5-0 confirmed its place in the pantheon.” (SI)

David Villa strikes twice as slick Barcelona thrash Real Madrid
“José Mourinho always said that his side would lose one day but he did not expect to lose like this – not after enjoying the greatest start of any coach in Real Madrid’s history. His team, so impermeable before, were punctured. Five times. They were sunk. A 5-0 victory for Barcelona was described by the Madrid coach as a ‘historically bad result’ for his club – it was the worst defeat he has suffered in his career.” (Guardian)

No contest in clasico
“No contest. Those are the only two words that can sum up the clasico, a disappointing occasion if you’d been expecting an evenly-fought slug-out, a euphoric one if you’d been hoping that Barcelona could re-stamp their authority on the Spanish scene, after their rivals’ previously unbeaten start to the season. Whatever, the least one expected was a manita (little hand), the phrase reserved for games that end in a 5-0 scoreline. In some ways, they’re worse than a 6-0 result, because the latter has no nickname, no bruising synonym created to humiliate.” (ESPN)

Barca simply the best after Real rout
“It was said that Monday night’s game at Camp Nou – hyped like few other domestic league ties in the history of the game – would settle two raging debates: who are the best team in the world, and who is the best player in the world? If this solitary match could be said to be decisive in that regard, then the judgement was emphatic. It left no room whatsoever for argument.” (ESPN)

FC Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid (El Clasico) – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – La Liga
(The 90th Minute)

“The biggest game of the season so far, and a clash between – possibly – the two best teams in Europe at the moment. The first thing to consider is the mentality of Jose Mourinho. One point clear of Barcelona going into the game, it’s entirely likely that he would take the draw if it were offered to him now. His previous trip to the Nou Camp saw his Inter side defend solidly for the entire game with little or no attempt to get a goal (granted, with ten men, and a two-goal advantage going into the second leg), which shows he knows how to stop Barcelona playing.” (Zonal Marking)