The first leg of the long awaited El Clasico was finally played yesterday night at the Camp Nou, and it ended in a stalemate with the defending Champions Barcelona sharing the spoils with their rival Real Madrid. Both teams after the 90 minutes battle failed to convert any of their chances, which left the scoreline at 0-0 at the blast of the final whistle. You will recall that this fixture which was earlier scheduled to take place in October had to be postponed to yesterday due to politics unrest. Both teams have shown great eagerness to cling the title this season and a rejuvenating Madrid side under Zidane appear all fired up to take the trophy from Barcelona. Both teams were on 35 points before Wednesday's clash at the Camp Nou, making the build up to the encounter a bit more heated. With both Benzema and Messi also locked at 12 goals each in the league so far, all eyes were rolling in expectation to see who will go ahead and fire his side to a victory. However, with all these circumstances leading to an all glorious El Clasico, the tempo of the game and display from both teams was a bit below the standard we're used to. The heat, the fights, the goals, build up and dribbles didn't seem like Barca vs Madrid I'm used to.
What could have been the issue, The Catalunya Political Tension?
It's been over a decade, in fact approximately 17 years(i stand to be corrected) since we witnessed an El Clasico without a Goal. The 0-0 between the catalan giants and Los Blancos yesterday have continued to raise dusts in the media among fans and sports analysts around the globe. While some are of the view that the departure of Ronaldo and Hazard's injury went a long way to reduce the usual heat that comes from a typical El Clasico pitch, others are of the opinion that the political tension in Catalunya affected the game and the players didn't concentrate much in the match. I remember fans throwing some yellow balls into the pitch of play all in the name protest against the Spanish Authorities who are detaining some top Catalunya political activists. Possibly, this may have affected the players psychologically during the game due to instability. Though Madrid made few attempts to draw the first blood, it was still far from what we expected. Now both teams are having 36 points each after the draw. My question now is, was it the political atmosphere that affected the game or is it really that some players were missing?
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