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http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/laligaloca/archive/2010/11/30/madridista-press-brand-bar-231-a-bad-winners-while-catalonia-celebrates-bathtime.aspx

It’s always a fine sign that a thorough spanking combined with a bespoke *rse-handing-on-a-plate has been dished out when the big fat losers start moaning and groaning that the opposition are bad winners.

The whopping problem the paper faces in reacting to the monumental stonking is that its apron-strings are tied so tightly to their Castle Greyskull controllers that awkward questions such has whence The Special One? Whither Karim Benzema? and why Cristiano Ronaldo? have been cast aside with Tuesday’s teary editorial spluttering that ‘CR7’ should have been given a penalty at 2-0, Barça’s third goal was offside and Pep Guardiola was mean for failing to give the ball back to Ronaldo at one point in the first half - a game changing moment, perhaps...
“The gentlemanly conduct of Sandro Rosell did not translate to the pitch with the same behaviour,” scoffed the paper, somewhat overlooking the tenth La Liga red card of Sergio Ramos’ career, doled out for hacking Leo Messi from behind and then pushing his Spain teammates, Carles Puyol and Xavi full in the face. The little tyke.

Mad Tomás Roncero will not stand for such defeatist nonsense and follows Marca’s approach by attacking Puyol and Piqué for making a hand gesture displaying all five fingers, signifying the five goals - because of course no dignified, honourable, gentlemanly Real Madrid player would ever celebrate a humiliating beating handed out to their fiercest rivals in front of their own fans.
Or pass to a team-mate using their back when 2-0 up, for example. Ronaldo would never do that against Atlético Madrid. Never. Not even a couple of weeks ago. No.

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Jeffrén's late goal made little difference, but it made all the difference. Madrid were already being humiliated. José Mourinho, already suffering his worst ever defeat as a coach, felt "impotent", barely moving as fans chanted for him to "come out the dugout! José, come out the dugout!" It was already 4-0 and into added time and Almería's Henok Goitom, thrashed 8-0 by Barcelona last weekend, had long-since noted: "I know how you feel: you just want the game to finish." But the game had not finished, not yet. The fifth goal had to arrive and when it did, it mattered. It turned a baño – a bath, a drubbing – into a manita, a little hand. A goal for every finger. The most perfect of beatings.
 
It was not just that Barcelona beat Madrid, or even that they hammered them. It was not just that they defeated Mourinho – although they loved that – and a starting XI that cost €292m. Not that they defeated a team that had been unbeaten. It was not even that Guardiola completed a manita of his own – he has now won all five clásicos as coach, with a barely plausible aggregate score of 17-2. It was that they did it their way.

The second goal came after more than 20 passes and a minute of uninterrupted possession to a soundtrack of olés. If Barcelona scored from their first four shots on target – Messi's fantastic chip against a post counts as off target – it is because they did not shoot until putting the ball into the net with just another pass.
Barcelona battered Madrid. Not some team of donkeys: Madrid. Only battered is not really the word. Barcelona killed them softly, with precision not power. As Ramón Besa wrote in El País: "Goals fall at Camp Nou like autumn leaves: naturally, beautifully and serenely." It was the control that was stunning, the bewilderment felt by Madrid. "The worst thing isn't losing, the worst thing is not having a clue what's going on," sobbed AS's mad Madridista Tomás Roncero.

Barcelona completed 636 passes, Madrid 279. "They could have played with two balls," wrote Roberto Palomar, "and Barcelona would have controlled both." Xavi, the best central midfielder in Spanish history and the man who ran last year's clásico, completed 114 of 117 passes. It was the sixth time he has gone over 100. Busquets and Iniesta moved the ball with a pace and precision, usually with a single touch. And then there was Messi. He did not score for the first time in 10 games. Or do one of those runs. But he gave two perfect assists and laid bare the fallacy that Ronaldo is a more "complete" player, by doing the thing often missed amid the goals and the dribbles: controlling the game. Again.

There is a question that keeps getting asked: which Barcelona team is the best in the club's history? Last night, the current side raised their hand.