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Copa Del Rey Final

April 17, 2014 by  

Copa Del Rey Final, Gareth Bale demonstrated last night precisely why he is the world’s most expensive footballer.

With extra time looming in the Copa Del Rey final, in an atmosphere boiling with tension and nerves, the Welshman picked up the ball just inside the Real Madrid half and simply ran at the Barcelona defence. And he kept running, sprinting around the centre-back Marc Bartra as if he were a training ground dummy. Then he advanced into the penalty area and slipped the ball under the keeper José Pinto into the corner of the net for the winning goal.

It was a magnificent contribution from the former Spur, the goal that brought him the first piece of silverware of his career, the goal that proved the doubters wrong: boy, can he deliver in the games that count.

And as his wonderful strike took the cup to the capital, it confirmed what we had all been hearing: the era of Barcelona really is coming to a conclusion.

This is now the first season in which Barcelona will end without a trophy since 2008. When you climb high, the fall is precipitous. For Barcelona, the response to defeats in the Champions League, La Liga and now the Copa Del Rey in the space of eight days will be damning.

The coach, Tata Martino, whose stewardship was roundly dismissed under the headline “Tataclysm” in the newspaper El Mundo at the weekend, is now surely destined to join Spain’s swollen dole queue. This was a game he simply could not lose. But he did.

Certainly there were few of Barcelona sympathy anxious to hang around and watch Madrid triumphant. As Bale and his white-shirted colleagues bounced round the Mestalla carrying the cup, the Barcelona end was entirely empty.

Yet, until Bale punctured their hopes, the Barca supporters had seemed anxious to demonstrate that results may be changing, but their support is permanent. What a noise they had generated at the start of this game, a wall of fluttering Catalan flags greeted the teams as they arrived on to the pitch, as a giant banner was unfurled giving a phonetic reading of the Barca anthem. To counter the Catalan insurgency, at the other end a huge white flag read simply “Go Real”.

Perhaps it should have spelled out a more pertinent message to their rivals: get real. What was soon apparent as the game began is that Barcelona are being found out.

Everyone has known how they play for years yet has been unable to do anything about it. This season tika taka is being unpicked. Maybe as the principal architects Xavi and Abdrés Iniesta have aged, even sides as modest as Granada are blunting their precision. Atlético beat them in the Champions League by charging at them like dervishes whenever they had possession. And Atlético’s Madrid neighbours appeared to have been watching.

The issues surfaced within 10 minutes. Madrid – with Luca Modric and the brilliant Isco hassling, snarling, snapping into the tackles and Xabi Alonso sweeping – won the ball off Xavi high up the pitch.

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