Phil Ball in Spain

There are several ways of saying 'bewitched', or 'under the spell' in Spanish. I particularly like the words hechizado and embrujado. These words form part of the reason Real Madrid seem unable to function when they come to play Barcelona. Bewitched, bothered and bewildered. Since you'll have already read plenty of reports on the event by now, I won't seek to add anything radically different to most of the media's conclusions, but maybe proffer a two-pronged theory as to the eternal sand in Madrid's vaseline. Jose Mourinho thought that Barcelona were 'lucky', but that isn't really good enough. You know what he meant though - in the sense that if you simply consider the game as a series of events, Madrid could easily have won. The astonishing start - the fastest goal in the history of the clásicos, on 22 seconds, was itself a rather lucky event - although Mourinho seemed reluctant to include it in his thesis. Before we go any further, I'm sure you'll want to know which was the fastest goal before Benzema's, and we can deliver. It was after 40 seconds in the clásico in 1940, and it was scored by Chus Alonso in the Bernabeu. He was no relation to Xabi Alonso, in case you were wondering.