Real Madrid ended Barcelona’s 39-game unbeaten run yesterday after coming away with a 2-1 win over their rivals at the Camp Nou. Gerard Pique opened the scoring early in the second half with a thumping header.
But Benzema equalized for Real Madrid 6 minutes later scoring in acrobatic fashion at the end of a counter-attack. And five minutes before the end of the game they came up with the winner with none other than Cristiano Ronaldo scoring the goal.
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Gareth Bale was one of Madrid’s best players yesterday and talked about the tactics they used to beat the Catalans.”We had a game plan, we know we've got speed on the counter-attack so we used that to our advantage”
Bale cited Barcelona’s defense as their main weakness saying, “We know obviously if you attack them they're not the best defensive team in the world. they're great at attacking so we worked on that in training and yeah, it's paid off”
The 26-year had a goal disallowed in the second half for a foul on Jordi Alba and the Welshman felt it was a harsh decision. “I can't believe it was disallowed. [The referee] said to me that I pushed him, I didn't even touch the guy. I was just a bit taller, I made sure I got over the top, I made sure I didn't touch him because I know what the Spanish referees are like. A very bad decision in my eyes.”
Madrid revive slim title hopes
With that win, Madrid closed the points gap to 7 with seven games remaining in the season. Barcelona are still favourites for the title but this win will give Real Madrid some hope to try and give their opponents a run for their money.
Bale still feels optimistic of Real’s chances of winning something this season saying, “I think if the league's still possible to win then we fully believe we can do it. We know it's not going to be easy, it's very against us, but if we give ourselves a chance that's all we can do.”
“Most important thing today was to get the win, build confidence for the rest of the season. There's still the Champions League as well, which we're really looking forward to. It's about building and growing strong.”
"If we want to win the league this was a game we had to win. You never know, football does funny things to teams when you lose and you never know what could happen. All they need is a few bad results and we need a few good ones and we're right back in.”
