The last few days have been sad, confusing and painful in Barcelona.
If the Spanish and European champions were nothing more than the winning automatons they have appeared to be these last three-and-a-half years (13 trophies won out of a possible 16) the simple fact of having taken a flurry of footballing blows from Real Madrid, parried them, and emerged 4-3 winners of the Clasico Cup quarter-final would armour them for anything.
Please enable cookies in your browser to display the rest of this article.