Excusing Lionel Messi, Victor Valdez and Iker Casillas, not one of the players for Barcelona and Real Madrid deserved to be on the pitch last week.
El Clasico is supposed to be a matchup of the two best sides in the world (arguably). When it's in the Champions League semifinals, that's even better.
But the match on April 27 at the Bernabeu was a disgrace, except from the aforementioned players.
No more than three minutes could pass without a harsh tackle by Real Madrid which resulted in a Barca player writhing on the floor in agony for at least two minutes. Immediately after the foul, no fewer than five players from each team would run to the referee to protest and ask for a card.
Dani Alves was an embarrassment to Barca and Brazil for his ridiculous antics, especially when he rolled around for several minutes, even after Pepe had already been somewhat unfairly sent off. True to form, seconds later, he was back running up and down the pitch after being miraculously cured.
Barca captain Carles Puyol stayed on his feet, but his protests and arguments got extremely tiring, as did Gerard Pique's and Xavi's. And we'll get to Sergio Busquets later.
On Real's side, anti-football was the order of the day with hard tackles flying in from everywhere. Marcelo did his best to get Barca players booked while Sergio Ramos did his best to ruin the game even more than Jose Mourinho's tactics were.
Overall, it was a disgrace of a football match. Thank God for Messi's two moments of brilliance.
