By Chris Wright
With roughly half-an-hour left and Barcelona leading 2-1, Sunday evening’s Clasico came perilously close to descending into the usual stop/start, fragmented, bitchy dive-fest.
Thankfully, after a fractious ten-minute spell where a red card or two seemed inevitable (11 bookings were administered in total), things began levelling out again as Barca cruised to victory.
However, that wasn’t before Javier Mascherano could plumb the depths of poor sportsmanship with an embarrassingly histrionic attempt to get Cristiano Ronaldo in trouble…
*Sigh*