Every other saturday night, the Santiago Bernabeu turns into one of the noisiest places in Europe. On some Saturdays, it's hard to hear even your own voice in front of you through all the cheers, whistles, and ultras. You cease to be individual and blend simply into a giant mosaic of white, along with 80,000 of your best friends for the next 90 minutes. December 10th was one of those Saturdays, because Real Madrid played Barcelona. Coming off a 14 game winning streak, averaging 4 goals a game, 2 strikers in killer form, and a rival with a woeful away record; for the first time in years, the pundits and the bookies both actually fancied Real Madrid.

Of course, the real game went much different from what the stats on paper had predicted. The whites crashed to their 32435th defeat to Barcelona under Guardiola. Pep is actually unbeaten at the Bernabeu. It's like his home ground. 3-0, 5-0, 2-6, 3-1; over the years the scores have varied, but the story has remained the same. It pains me to say it, but Pep's men have schooled us whenever we've played them, save for the Copa del Rey final. We can claim to have been unlucky this last time, but it's hard to point towards luck when you think of Coentrao's horror show against Iniesta, or Ronaldo's usual toothlessness, or Ozil's ineffectiveness. A hundred little mistakes and micro-victories from Barcelona over the course of the game meant that the Cules took the cake once again, meaning Real Madrid have beaten the eternal rival only thrice since 2007.

To put this into perspective, 2007 was before Spain had ever won any silverware. The world hadn't even heard of a global financial crisis, and blissfully ignorant teenagers hadn't been punished by the music of Justin Bieber. On the talk show, we spoke about a certain 'Barca trauma' that might have gripped the team after that 6-2 and 5-0 loss, making our boys timid to fly out of the blocks against the Cules as we normally would, but I'm beginning to suspect something even worse - 'the 2nd place mentality'.

I remember a long time ago when we put 4 past Barca, I didn't even bat an eyelid. We were entitled to whoop their catalan butts because our club was the greatest of the century. Royalty. This time, when Benzema scored for us, I could feel my hand shaking. That was how nervous I was. When Barca started coming at us, and I still couldn't stop shaking, I knew we were in for it. Deep down, I already had that dirty feeling that it would only be a matter of time before one of the gnomes put it in the net. And unfortunately, I was right; lucky or not.

A few years ago, it would have been one of ours who made the telling difference. It would have been Raul winning a crucial penalty, or Guti playing a majestic pass in the 90th minute, or Roberto Carlos making a daring clearance off the line. Those have now been replaced by Xavi getting deflected goals, Messi scoring an unbelievable number of goals in the 90th minute, and Puyol solid like a rock at the back - only against Real Madrid.

After so much suffering - both emotional and psychological that Real Madrid have gone through in the last 3 or 4 years as Barca hit the apex of their history, do you guys also feel like we might be slipping from our perch? For instance, we no longer take whooping Cules as something we're entitled to do. We dont mind our coach hiding his goal behind an 11 man defense, and our players blow the simplest of chances when against other teams they would do it with their eyes closed. If this isn't performance anxiety, then I don't know what is.

I don't know the solution, but I know that Jose will have to come up with one soon. Real Madrid might meet Barcelona in the quarters of the Spanish Cup in February. Besides, I feel like another year of Barca showing their superiority over us, and it wont be long before we're known as the 'second team of Spain'.

And that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth just thinking about it.