Real Madrid and Barcelona each wore pink jerseys in their respective games on Saturday in LaLiga but the unusual fashion experiment did not turn out well for either side.
Madrid, which wore its pink kit to show support for World Breast Cancer day, fell to a shock 1-0 defeat at home to promoted Cadiz, while a few miles down the road Barcelona, also sporting pink, then lost 1-0 at Getafe.
It was the first time the two giants of Spanish football had both lost league matches on the same day without scoring since May 6, 2000, when Barca went down 2-0 to Rayo Vallecano and Madrid was beaten 1-0 by Alaves.
Weaknesses
The twin results showcased both side’s weaknesses at the worst possible time, a week before they meet each other in the ‘Clasico’, Spanish football’s showcase game.
Talk of Antoine Griezmann’s best position had dominated the build-up to Barca’s game.
The Frenchman’s grievances looked woefully out of place, however, when a glorious chance fell his way early in the game only for him to blast the ball way over the bar.
Harrowing first half
Real coach Zinedine Zidane has long been an advocate of rotating his squad to keep his top players sharp, but the harrowing first half display against Cadiz showed this policy is now fraught with risk.
The Frenchman hauled off three players plus an injured Sergio Ramos at the start of the second half after his side had conceded five clear chances to Cadiz and he later remarked that Madrid was lucky to not be 3-0 down by halftime.
The results:
Premier League: Sheffield United 1 (Sharp 85-pen) drew with Fulham 1 (Lookman 77).
Serie A: Bologna 3 (Soriano 9, Svanberg 39, Orsolini 60) lost to Sassuolo 4 (Berardi 18, Djuricic 64, Caputo 70, Tomiyasu 77-og).
LaLiga: Eibar 0 drew with Osasuna 0.
Saturday: Premier League: Manchester City 1 (Sterling 23) bt Arsenal 0; Newcastle 1 (Shaw 2-og) lost to Manchester United 4 (Maguire 23, Fernandes 86, Wan-Bissaka 90, Rashford 90+6).
Serie A: Sampdoria 3 (Quagliarella 32, Augello 41, Damsgaard 74) bt Lazio 0; Crotone 1 (Tochukwu Nwankwo 12-pen) drew with Juventus 1 (Morata 21).
LaLiga: Celta Vigo 0 lost to Atletico Madrid 2 (Suarez 6, Carrasco 90+5).
Real Madrid 0 lost to Cadiz 1 (Lozano 16); Getafe 1 (Mata 56-pen) bt Barcelona 0.
Bundesliga: Arminia Bielefeld 1 (Doan 58) lost to Bayern Munich 4 (Muller 8, 51, Lewandowski 26, 45+1).
