#5 Silly fouls, controversial claims – a Classic Clasico
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Over the years, El Clasico has been linked with fouls, fights and appealing to the referee too often and both teams did not disappoint on that front tonight. It only took two minutes for the first controversial claim of the game, however, Mascherano's tackle of Lucas Vazquez seemed like a 50-50 challenge and a penalty would have been harsh on Barcelona.
Barcelona, on the other hand, had their fair share of appeals for penalties after plenty of possible handball claims but once again, none of them seemed like a penalty. In all fairness to the referee, he was consistent with his decisions. Barcelona committed far too many fouls in the midfield while Real Madrid committed too many fouls in the attacking third leaving Barcelona with a few great chances.
Also read: El Clasico: Game in pictures
The biggest lesson for both teams could be from the fact that both the goals in the game came from extremely unnecessary fouls, by Raphael Varane and Arda Turan for their respective teams. However, it could have been much more for the Catalans had they taken their chances after receiving plenty of free kicks in the attacking third.
