After yesterday's defeat to the principled rival Madrid "Real", "Barcelona" defender Javier Mascherano said that the Catalans had to play smarter.
"Barca" took the lead in this match when Gerard Pique scored after almost an hour from a corner kick, but just a few minutes later Karim Benzema scored a great goal.
With seven minutes left in the match, Sergio Ramos finally received a second yellow card, but it was not the home team who scored the winning goal, but the "royal" club leader Cristiano Ronaldo.
"It's a sad feeling. We all wanted to win and achieve a better result, but in the last 15 minutes we didn't play smart enough," Mascherano said.
"We couldn't understand that we had to control the ball, not lose it, and eventually we let them launch two counterattacks. They beat us with two counterattacks."
"I feel uncomfortable because for 70 minutes we played well. We didn't take advantage of the best opportunities."
"Real's" victory over "Barcelona" allowed them to close the gap to seven points, while Madrid "Atletico", who crushed Seville's "Real Betis" 5-1, remains in second place, trailing the Catalans by six points.
