10-man Barcelona hold Real Madrid 2-2 in La Liga

Barcelona May 7 (IANS) The La Liga El Clasico between champions FC Barcelona and Real Madrid ended in a 2-2 draw despite the former being reduced to 10 men at the half-time here on Sunday.

Luis Suarez gave Barcelona the lead in the 10th minute connecting a cross from Sergi Roberto from the right at the Camp Nou Stadium.

But third-placed Real Madrid took only four minutes to come up with the equaliser through a strike from Cristiano Ronaldo who marked his 450th goal for the record European champions.

During the first-half injury time Barcelona right-back Sergi Roberto appeared to throw a hand towards Madrid left-back Marcelo s face in and was shown a red card.

Despite playing with a player short Barcelona came out strongly in the second half with Lionel Messi giving the Catalan outfit a 2-1 lead.

Madrid struggled to break through with talisman Ronaldo being substituted by Marco Asensio following an injury.

Real Madrid restored parity after a Toni Kroos through ball to Welsh forward Gareth Bale saw the latter come up with a powerful finish at the left post in the 72nd minute.

Four minutes later Real thought they should have been awarded a penalty after Marcelo was brought down inside the box by Jordi Alba.

Afterwards neither side was able to score a winner as Barcelona settled for the draw in a game marred by controversies in front of nearly 97 000 crowd as they continued their unbeaten campaign.

"It s tough playing down a man especially against Madrid " SuAirez said after the game as reported by Barcelona website. "But the team did a spectacular job physically."

Real Madrid wasted the opportunity to cut the deficit to second-placed Atletico Madrid who were stunned by Espanyol 0-2 earlier in the day. While Atletico have 75 points from 36 games Real Madrid have 72 points from 35 matches.

"I would liked to have won. In a Clasico where there was nothing at stake it was a great game. We both went out to play. We both played a great game and football is always the most important thing more so than the controversies " Real Madrid head coach Zinedine Zidane was quoted as saying by Marca.

"We played a good game (before the red card) and in contrast with the extra man we were a bit worse. We needed to have a little more patience but that doesn t change anything. We must congratulate Barcelona."

--IANS
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