A lesson in determination

If you want to see determination on a field of play, watch the replay of the Barcelona vs. Real Betis on Solar Sports this coming Saturday February 21 at 2am.

The skinny: Barcelona was down 0-2 to the Seville club with a capacity 52,000 people screaming at their faces. With Real Madrid within striking distance, the Catalan team needed to pull level or win. A draw meant a point while a loss would allow Los Blancos to further cut down on their lead of 12 points). Barcelona drew (with two goals from Samuel Eto'o who has been scorching the nets) and got a point to move to 13 ahead of Madrid. But the following day, the two-time defending champs won 4-0 over Sporting Gijon to cut the lead down to 10. So the draw was still huge.

When you watch the game, you'll see how Barca never panicked and continued to attack and attack up to the final whistle. I'd also recommend Real Madrid's game against Mallorca when they won the La Liga title two years ago but I don't think watching that game would be easy. Looking for the goals on youtube doesn't begin to tell the titanic struggle of Real Madrid.

And speaking of the defending Spanish league champs, Raul scored two goals fin that rout against Sporting Gijon and he now has 309 goals for the club. That's two more than Alfredo Di Stefano.