First leg of Copa del Rey quarterfinals goes to Barcelona

Despite Barcelona's form against Real Madrid lately it didn't look so promising this time round, as after 10 minutes Cristiano Ronaldo put Madrid in the lead, after some scrappy play from both the Barcelona defense and keeper Pinto.

However, Madrid seemed incapable of capitalising upon that advantage through much of the remainder of the first half, while Barcelona tried to claw back a goal. The first half ended one nil to Real Madrid.

However, after the break Barcelona came onlooking refreshed and whatever Guardiola had said to them during the break paid off: just three minutes into the second half they scored from a corner. In move they had agreed during the break, Xavi kicked the ball into the area, which was headed by Puyol into the back of the net, his second goal against Real Madrid.
After that Barcelona had several opportunities which came to nothing but Madrid up also came close to scoring again. However Madrid's players seemed were fazed by this stage of the game and starting to play dirty in order to intimidate the Catalans.

Pepe in particular was notable for it his aggressive stance and some of his behaviour was laughable. At one point he dived to the ground clutching at his face, although replays clearly show that he haven't been touched. However a few minutes later it wasn't so funny when he can clearly be seen stamping on Messi's hand, despite having already been shown the yellow card earlier in the match. The footage has since been beamed around the world to universal condemnation. This incident was unseen by the ref and clearly behaviour deserving a red card.

That wasn't the only incident though and Messi was brought down hard with the kick to the knee when he had a chance to attack the Madrid goalmouth. Again there was no card and it was certainly deserving of a yellow and quite probably a red. However in the 76th minute Messi passed the ball in the area to Abidal, who shot from close range to put Barcelona in the lead.

Barcelona kept this advantage to the end and finished the match winning 2-1. The next leg is played next Wednesday with Barcelona firm favourites to make it through to the Copa del Rey semifinal.