I’ve been mulling over ideas for a piece on this run of clásicos since just before the Copa del Rey final. Well, in no small part because having this many matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid this close together is affecting my mind in extreme ways. It sounded like a lot of fun when it first became clear this was going to happen, but the result has really been an undercurrent of worry for the month. And it’s infiltrating my mind in weird ways, too. I was out watching jazz in Harlem on Friday, and before I knew it, I was trying to work out which band member was which Barcelona player. (‘The bass player is like Xavi because he’s the least flashy, but he’s supporting everyone else. And the piano player is Messi because. . . ) Which, no they’re not, but it shows how deeply this has infiltrated my conscience. When my date asks me what I’m thinking about, and (in a replay of a scene from Fever Pitch) I have to actively avoid telling her the truth (“Ibrahim Afellay,”) that’s how I knew it was time for me to finally get to writing this. Maybe a little catharsis was in order. So here’s my somewhat introspective review of the semi-final first leg. I know there’s other things to talk about, too, but I’m not particularly concerned about the Real Sociedad result, and the only thing I’ve really noticed about my reaction to the Copa del Rey result was that I was more annoyed that Real won than that Barcelona lost. So. There it is.

I confess that I was pessimistic going into the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. I was worried. The specter of Mourinho hung over the match – yes, the 5-0 thrashing in the league earlier this year was starting to look like an incredible outlier as the memories of the 2-3 aggregate loss to Mourinho’s Inter last year, the miserable 1-1 in the league and the 0-1 in the Copa del Rey final mounted. For all the aesthetic complaints, and the accusations of anti-football, and the griping about the most expensive bus-park ever assembled, the reality of the situation looked clear: there was a solution to Guardiola’s Barcelona, and Jose Mourinho had figured it out.The outlook was exceedingly grim.

The omens were not good in the run-up to the match. In the pre-match press conference, the normally suave Guardiola was down to profanely sniping back at Mourinho instead of taking his normal approach to questions about his rival (“I have nothing to say about that.”) Was he rattled? Many of my friends liked seeing him fight back, but I was worried that it meant Real was under his skin.

In the first half, there didn’t seem to be much reason for a more optimistic outlook. Pepe, who’d been the key player in both the league match and the Cup final, was doing his work again – closing down Xavi, not allowing him time on the ball, and breaking up attacking moves all over the pitch. The match was scrappy and violent, with players on both sides (yes, both sides, we have to concede if we’re being honest) committing hard fouls, and overreacting to those fouls. This is not Barcelona’s game. As both previous matches showed, when the game gets physical, it’s to the Mourinho side’s advantage. Like a schoolyard bully, if Real provokes Barcelona into a fight, it’s only going to make it worse for Barcelona.

But something did seem slightly different. As if following Pep’s pre-match example, the Barcelona players were starting to return the hard tackles. Javier Mascherano and Seydou Keita, in particular, were physical forces. The Real players, who were apparently (and fairly) expecting Barcelona to try to just dribble by all the hard tackles, started to look a little shaken. This culminated in the ugly scene outside the dugouts at half-time that got Jose Manuel Pinto a straight red. (Pinto, by the way, has spent a pretty disproportionate amount of this Champions League suspended.)

And, somehow, it came to pass that Barcelona was beating Real at their own game. Angel di Maria was resorting to the sort of pouting, hands-in-the-air response to every tackle that he could only have learned from Cristiano Ronaldo. Real players were backing off some, leaving Xavi and Messi with more time on the ball than they’d been allowed in either of the Cup or league matches. And then Pepe, the man who nearly single-handedly stifled the Barcelona attacking machine in those matches, was sent off for a tackle that might not have been a red card in a different, less heated context, but which could well have deserved a sending off all this considered. What I mean is, the tackle was high and dangerous, but not particularly so. But in this match, there was just always going to be a sending off (in addition to Pinto’s) and Pepe was the most reckless of the lot.

The rest, of course, you know. Mourinho sent to pout in the stands. Afellay brought on for Pedro. A major tactical error from Real (arguably their first in the three matches) by not replacing Pepe in the midfield, thereby allowing Xavi all the time he needed on the ball. A lovely run by Afellay to set up Messi’s first goal, and then a classic of a run from Messi to set up his own second. (That second was aided by some indifferent, sloppy defensive positioning – on that overhead camera shot of the goal, you can see it coming a mile away.) And there it was. Barcelona had beat Real at their own game, in their own stadium, in the match that meant the most of the three.

I don’t have much to add to Erik’s rebuttal letter to Jose Mourinho. I would just point out two things about Mourinho’s hysterical post-match ramblings. First of all, the point I most disagree with him on is that this tie is over. That would be a very dangerous thing for Barcelona to go into the second leg thinking. Real scores once early, and it’s a whole new match. The team has got to be as prepared for this match Tuesday as they would be if the game was 0-2 to Real. We saw earlier this year against Betis how complacent they’re capable of getting with a big lead into a second leg, and they’ll have to avoid a repeat of that performance.

The second thing, and perhaps the biggest long-term victory to come out of this match, was Pep Guardiola’s answer when asked about Mourinho’s comments. “I have nothing to say about that.”

Written by Ryan Morgan for barcaloco.com