Cristiano boss at Messi's house: it's the revenge of Mourinho's Real Madrid, who thanks to the Portuguese brace and Varane's revelation goal conquered the Camp Nou with the largest score for half a century now. Barcelona-Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey, first leg semi-final and starter of the championship clasico scheduled for Saturday, ends with a relentless 1-3, which for the blaugrana comes a week after the San Siro flop (2-0 for Milan ) interspersed with a painful home win against Sevilla, in a comeback (2-1).
The most alarming fact for the team that has won 14 out of 19 titles in the last 4 years, in addition to the emotional backlash of losing at home to the hated Madrid ("It hurts our souls to lose against Real," said Iniesta), is that of goals conceded: 6 only in the last week, of which 5 very heavy, against prestigious opponents, with whom you would never want to lose, and who will probably cost eliminations from the Champions League and national cup.
So this season it's not just Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi who scores in all matches: lately against Tito Vilanova's men (temporarily replaced by Jordi Roura) it also happens that the forwards of the opposing teams are having fun, big or small as they are. And while the advantage in the league is now so consolidated as to allow for distractions, the latter are instead proving to be dangerously frequent and decisive in the cups.
In particular in that Champions League which Barça has won 3 times in the last 7 years, but which this year has become very complicated: already a surprise defeat by Celtic in the qualifying round, the team brought to the top of the world by Pep Guardiola she will now have to be the author of a historic comeback against Milan. Comeback that failed against Inter three years ago, and that is not exactly the specialty of the house. "This generation has never completed a great comeback, we want to do it now," said Xavi thinking about the second leg against the Rossoneri.
Meanwhile, however, the invincible Barcelona looks more and more like a team on the boulevard of the sunset: either for the age and the infirmities of some key players (see Xavi and Puyol), or for the satisfaction of a group that, in large even with the Spanish national team, he really won everything (Messi himself, after all, might want to look for new challenges), both for the double change of coach in a few months (Vilanova helps Roura with text messages, but evidently it's not the same thing). Is this the end of a cycle?
