The refereeing in Spain, it's quite amazing how they have developed their underhand tactics so well. Screw us over again and again and again, but not in the more obvious way every time (like today) which would even get noticed by the ignorant world media.
You can turn around and say there wasn't any big decision that decided the outcome of the game; true, but the kind of shit we had to face from those thugs till they got yellows, it became almost impossible for us to do anything with the ball. When a referee keeps blowing for free kicks in the middle of the pitch, not showing yellows, the thug opponents couldn't care less, in fact, they are more than happy to wind down the clock.
This effectively negates anybody from playing football for a large portion of the game, before finally giving a yellow for some obvious challenge towards the end. There was one obvious pull on Neymar I think it was, early in the game, a standard yellow for the cynical pullback, which everybody just assumes is a yellow and moves on. He blew a foul and didn't brandish the yellow. At this point I knew this cunt was going to screw us.
Apart from that, why on earth did we not try shooting from outside the box? We didn't do it in the earlier years, but it IS something we have been doing under Enrique; think - Rakitic just a few games back scoring us the opener. There were plenty of opportunities, and when you haven't been able to score for 70 minutes, surely, someone should have had a go!
It's a weird thing, but Messi somehow can't shoot after he's come back from his injury. I mean, people come back with bad finishing, just sloppy play, he seems to be okay with other things (not yet at his best ofc) but for some reason he can't generate any more power than a 5th grade kid when he actually attempts to shoot! I held off on making this comment till now as I thought it could have bene a one off, but I've noticed in every game so far that his shot has been so tame and straight at the keeper. Can't really come up with an explanation for it, it's just odd! Suarez missing open goal from about a meter away - sums up the night.
I HATE ESPANOL. I FUCKING HATE THAT CLUB. /endrant