That's because frankly, manager Carlo Ancelotti -- as he promised ahead of the game when he said there would be "no surprises" -- did nothing particularly fancy that night. His XI -- with Isco in for the injured Gareth Bale -- picked itself. (Or, if you're really, really cynical, you might say a man named Florentino Perez picked it.)
What Madrid did was execute and figure out a way to get a lopsided, top-heavy lineup to work against a devastating offensive force like Barcelona. The answer came on the training ground, both in persuading "skill players" to bust their rear ends in ways they've rarely had to do before, and in teaching them the difference between efficient running and wasted effort. It's nuts and bolts stuff, an old-school blend of man-management and simply teaching the game, something Ancelotti does very well.
Across the way with Barcelona, Luis Enrique had far more to think about. He had many more options and many more to get wrong. He made three big personnel decisions and was criticised for all three.
Was it fair? Let's see.
Switching Jeremy Mathieu from central defence to left-back was designed to curb Cristiano Ronaldo and provide cover for Neymar. Mathieu, of course, has played left-back for most of his career, but for the past year or so has excelled centrally.
It may have been a way to keep his size and defensive nous in the lineup without breaking up the Javier Mascherano-Gerard Pique partnership, but it meant giving up on Jordi Alba's width and effectively leaving Neymar to battle alone on the left wing.
The questionable decision was compounded by the fact that Mathieu contributed little offensively (apart from one vicious, driving shot that Iker Casillas saved well) and even less defensively.
Xavi over Ivan Rakitic was probably a sentimental choice. He's a resident legend, is unflappable and has plenty of experience in the clasico. On its own, you could live with it. But Xavi's presence meant there was no room for Rakitic, and the Croatian's blend of passing and energy would have been invaluable against Real Madrid, particularly given the Barca boss' third big call, which was to play Luis Suarez from the first minute.
Suarez's presence in the front three meant the midfield had virtually no cover. It's not because he isn't willing to work and track back -- we've seen him do it enough times, with Uruguay and Liverpool -- but because doing so requires timing and precision of the kind you won't have in your competitive debut with your new club.
Suarez drifted inside, he drifted back, he tried to adjust his movement based on where Lionel Messi turned up, but it was clearly all haphazard. It's not that he played badly -- he set up Neymar's goal as well as Messi's 22nd-minute chance -- it's just that he was, predictably, a foreign object in Enrique's attacking mechanisms.
The cliché that football geniuses have wonderful telepathic understanding -- because they speak "the language of the game" -- may have a grain of truth to it when you're in possession. But moving correctly when you're defending requires chemistry and Barcelona are not there yet. That meant the front three didn't press the way they might have in the early Pep Guardiola era, but neither did they retreat to cover the midfield.
It was a classic 'tweener situation.
Still, you felt Barca could have carried one of those big personnel calls, possibly two. However, all three created a cascade effect, where one compounded the ill-effects of the next.
And yet -- this is the beauty or the cruelty of the game -- Barcelona could have been up 2-0, and the match perhaps could have taken a very different turn. Neymar's opener, made possible in part by some miscommunication between Dani Carvajal and Pepe, and Messi's chance -- credit Iker Casillas here, too -- could have set up a situation where Enrique could have hit on the counter.
But it's a moot point and Madrid's dominance in the second half underscored just how much of a deserved win it was.
What next for Enrique?
There's work to be done in fine-tuning that front three. And it will have to be based on performance, not results, because the reality remains that with so much firepower up front, Barca will be able to play badly but still win.
The reality is that Barca are still top of La Liga, alongside Sevilla, and they have the benefit of a return clasico at the Camp Nou in March. Thus, they control their destiny but they have to find the right balance.
Neymar-Messi-Suarez is not utopia; it can work, but not overnight. Until those three can sustain both phases of play -- attacking and defending -- bolstering the midfield, perhaps by placing Mascherano alongside Sergio Busquets, might be a necessary move.
As for Madrid, nine wins in a row, in which they scored 38 goals, tell their own story. Credit the players for turning blue collar and making it work. But it's hard to see how this can be sustained all season. It's just too taxing on certain players, those whose bodies and skill sets make them unsuited to this kind of two-way intensity.
Particularly in certain matches, help will need to come from somewhere, whether it's bringing in Sami Khedira or Asier Illarramendi, or possibly making a new signing in January.
Slow progress for van Gaal's United
It's pretty standard for rival managers to view the same game two different ways.
"We are not happy with a point and that shows how good we are," Jose Mourinho said after Chelsea's 1-1 draw vs. Manchester United. "Was this a good result? I don't think so, but it was a good performance."
"We created a lot of chances, much more than Chelsea. We could have finished off the game before halftime, but we didn't do that and then they scored," said his opposite number, Louis van Gaal, who added that the point was deserved: "And Jose Mourinho knows it."
In situations like these, as the cliché goes, the truth lies somewhere in between . . . but probably closer to one end.
United did create chances and have more shots on goal than Chelsea, but probably not more clear-cut opportunities. And Mourinho was right to complain about referee Phil Dowd missing the first-half wrestling matches in the United area, which should have been punished with a penalty kick. (Take your pick whether you'd rather sanction Chris Smalling on Branislav Ivanovic, or Marcos Rojo on John Terry . . . )
Both goals featured defensive blunders.
Rafael was left on his own with Didier Drogba, which is a mismatch of Usain Bolt vs. a pile of rocks proportions. (Van Gaal later said there was "miscommunication.")
And Kurt Zouma was slow to react to the rebound that Robin van Persie stabbed home.
Beyond that, both goalkeepers -- David De Gea and Thibaut Courtois -- made some outstanding saves, but for long stretches, it looked as if Chelsea had the upper hand, despite an off-day from Cesc Fabregas (not least because United bottled him up well).
What is striking, however, is how United seemed to treat this as a "statement game," evidence that three months into the van Gaal project, they could take on what their manager called "one of the best teams in the world" and hold their own.
They did hold their own, all told, but they did it in an un-van Gaal way. The first half saw them work hard to contain Chelsea and hit on the break. The second saw Chelsea shift gears, and having taken the lead, force United into what looked to be a fruitless chase until van Persie's late, late equalizer.
It's un-van Gaal-like for those who are used to seeing his teams take the game to the opposition, particularly at home. But it speaks volumes about the tricky balancing of priorities at Old Trafford right now that United were rather more buttoned-up, looking to ensure that their two centre-backs had plenty of protection.
As Netherlands manager, van Gaal showed a pragmatic side at the World Cup and nobody would fault him for it. When you manage a national team, you're stuck with the players you have and you need to put results above performance.
But this is a manager whose reputation was built on outplaying the opposition, not devising complicated counterattacking mechanisms. It's not his fault; he needs to keep the points coming in at this stage. But at the same time, he needs to continue building the kind of United side he wants to see.
You can point to the key absences in the United ranks -- Radamel Falcao and Wayne Rooney above all, but also Ander Herrera -- but it's not as if their replacements were randoms pulled in off the street.
Sunday showed that the gap is still huge and the road ahead is still long.
Tricky position for Ferguson
On the one hand, Sir Alex Ferguson has his autobiography to promote and that means fielding questions about this Manchester United side. On the other, he knows that precisely because he speaks out so rarely, his every word on the club will be parsed, examined and re-examined, like the pronouncements of some oracle.
At the same time, he's still Sir Alex. He doesn't want to be a mindless cheerleader for the club. Nor does he want to come across a bitter old-timer, angry that his chosen successor, David Moyes, was turfed out so quickly.
And so you have to assume that he weighs his words very carefully.
So what to make of his assessment of United's season so far as "one step forward, two steps back"?
First off, he did qualify it, saying it was "a result of injuries," citing Phil Jones specifically, which rather suggests he doesn't want to be sniping at his successor.
But then, when he says "one step forward, two steps back," he's making a conscious choice, not least because the more common version of the phrase -- which is slightly less cynical -- is "two steps forward, one step back."
The latter suggests forward progress, however laboured. The former indicates a backward slide.
Statistically, that's where United are compared to last season. They have one point fewer than they did at this stage under Moyes and that's aggravated by the fact that they've played just two teams who finished in the top 10 last year (Chelsea and Everton).
Meanwhile, Moyes had at the same stage faced Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Southampton and Stoke, all of which ended the year in the top half of the table. And -- as Moyes might tell us if he were to speak his mind -- this is after spending close to a quarter of a billion dollars in the transfer market, a luxury the club didn't have last year.
It's also indicative that Sir Alex went out of his way to point out that he had no input in Moyes' dismissal or in van Gaal's appointment. It's a way of saying it's out of his hands.
That's where he is now. He is "of" United, but not "in" United.
Managing that distance -- ensuring it's neither too near, nor too far -- is one of his challenges now. He knows full well that his words still carry tremendous weight.
Tragedy in South Africa
On Sunday, two men walked into a house in Vosloorus, a suburb in Johannesburg's vast hinterland. They were armed, they demanded the homeowner hand over jewelry and valuables.
What exactly happened next is unclear, but what we do know is that a 27-year-old man, the boyfriend of the woman who lived in the house, was shot in the chest and died shortly thereafter.
The reason you're reading this here is that the victim was Senzo Meyiwa, who kept goal for South Africa and Orlando Pirates. And he was a popular and famous footballer.
Let it serve as a reminder of the fickleness of human life, about how the things you hold can shatter and run through your fingers like dust. About how every moment of existence is a gift. And that gift can be senselessly revoked at any moment.
And let us also remember that for every Meyiwa, there are countless young people, whose names are known only to family and loved ones, who have suffered the same fate.
Growing pains for Dortmund
Borussia Dortmund's numbers, when you limit them to the Bundesliga, are horrible.
They are 15th in an 18-team league, having suffered four consecutive defeats, including Saturday's home setback against Hannover. They have won one point from the past six games -- all but one of which have been against opponents in the bottom half of the league.
The contrast with their Champions League record -- three wins out of three games, the best goal difference in the competition (plus-9) -- is stark.
I've argued before that there's no sense in panicking, that often in those defeats Dortmund did enough to win. And it remains true, just as it was true against Hannover.
But it's equally true that this is necessarily a team undergoing an evolutionary process. The breakneck gegenpressing that took Dortmund to the big time cannot be relied on ad infinitum and Jurgen Klopp knows this, especially when you lose your best players year after year.
All that is why he's been working on alternatives, including a more patient buildup and intermittent pressing. With that work comes risk, and with risk, inconsistency.
It is safe to say, though, that he expected that the evolution would come on the fly, without dropping so many points along the way.
After Maiga struggled, Sakho finds success
That's six goals in six Premier League games for Diafra Sakho, who helped West Ham upend Manchester City 2-1 on Saturday. A $5.5 million signing from Metz, the 24-year-old looks one of the better summer signings in the Premier League.
Some have drawn a parallel with Modibo Maiga, whom West Ham picked up for $6.7 million in summer 2012. And why not?
Both are tall, athletic center-forwards from Africa who arrived at age 24 from France (Maiga was at Sochaux). And yet Maiga was a bust -- he's back in France, coincidentally on loan at Metz, after a tally of four goals in 39 games in England -- whereas Sakho looks a hit.
But the parallel between the two is a rather facile one. Maiga was raw when he arrived -- he had one prolific season at Sochaux, followed by a rather pedestrian one -- whereas Sakho looks considerably more mature, having notched 39 goals in two years at Metz and having been voted player of the year in Ligue 2.
So why was Sakho cheaper? Because Maiga has been moderately hyped in scouting circles ever since he moved from Mali to Morocco's Raja Casablanca as a 17-year-old. And supposedly because he had a bigger upside. Sakho's progression, on the other hand, was much more gradual, moving to Metz from the club's overseas academy in Senegal at 18 and developing into a steady goal scorer.
Sakho was seen as no-frills, whereas Maiga was a project who could develop into the next big thing. We know how this one is working out.
Time to move on
It's very simple. Don't go there. Don't bring up painful and controversial stuff even if you think it's funny.
Last week, Juventus president Andrea Agnelli commented on the departure of honorary Inter president Massimo Moratti. Speaking at a shareholders' meeting, he said: "Moratti has always been crazy about Inter, so much so that he even accepted a scudetto that he didn't win on the pitch."
It was a reference to the 2006 Calciopoli scandal, which saw Juventus relegated, stripped of two titles and Inter was handed the 2005-06 Italian championship. This prompted a harsh statement from Inter, who accused him of trying to "distort the facts and change history." The Milan club noted that the title was "legitimately" awarded to Inter and Juventus were relegated "along with their reputation."
And so Juventus fired back via chief executive Beppe Marotta, who described the statement as inappropriately harsh, pointed out that Agnelli was being "ironic" and added that it was "unacceptable" to suggest that Juve's reputation had been in any way sullied by the relegation.
I don't know who is entertained by this puerile tit for tat. But for the good of the game, SHUT UP.
Calciopoli was eight years ago. What happened happened. Move on.
Whatever your views on it -- and Agnelli's attempt to sue to get the titles back makes it very clear how he feels -- there is no need to bring it up again and again. Not in passing, not "with irony," not at all.
Equally, both whoever penned that statement at Inter needs to chill out. You're not defending Moratti's honor here, everybody has their view about what happened and it's not going to change with a news release.
As for Marotta, he can stick his head in the sand all he likes, but the fact is Juve's reputation -- and that of the Italian game as a whole -- was smeared by Calciopoli. Whether the verdicts were just or unjust, that's what happened. Juve were relegated and the titles stripped and that hurt the club and their reputation.
The sooner all parties draw a line under this and move forward rather than sniping away from a distance, the better.
