El Clasico stars Ronaldo and Messi ‘from another planet’

Spain’s El Clasico is sometimes the most overhyped match on earth, but on Sunday evening Barcelona and Real Madrid lived up to their billing with a genuine classic, illuminated by scintillating displays from the two stars.

Barcelona’s new manager, Tito Vilanova, was content with a draw that kept his team eight points clear of Madrid. José Mourinho was relieved still to be in the title race. An 11-point gap in mid-October would have been too much to contemplate.

Barcelona’s defending again gave their fans palpitations. Vilanova made the point afterwards that he fielded a team “without a single first-choice defender” but it seemed that after adopting the “false number 9” system he was pioneering “the false number 5” as well. Madrid might easily have gone two or three up early on.