Lionel Messi Delivered One Of Football’s ‘Coldest Moments’ After Sergio Ramos Horror Tackle

A savage foul from Sergio Ramos on Lionel Messi when Real Madrid played Barcelona in 2010 led to Messi responding with one of the coldest moments of his career.

The match was Real's ultimate humiliation: a 5-0 La Liga defeat during Jose Mourinho's first season in charge that wrecked their unbeaten start to the season in devastating style against their biggest rivals.

Messi ran the show and, as he dribbled at Real's defence in search of a sixth goal, Ramos swung his leg back and brutally kicked Barca's No 10 into the air, earning himself a red card.

But Messi had the last laugh. After receiving treatment on the pitch, he very slowly walked to the sidelines, deliberately looking up at the Camp Nou scoreboard showing the 5-0 scoreline: right past a watching Cristiano Ronaldo and towards a stone-faced Mourinho on the bench. Icy.

The moment, captured in all its glory on this Tweet, sums up the amazing end to a remarkable game as Ramos shoved his international teammate Carles Puyol in the face as Barcelona players swarmed angrily around him.

Ramos, who's had numerous battles with Barca over his 16 trophy-filled years with Real, had clearly had enough on this demoralising evening and just hacked crudely at Messi to earn his sending off.

However the then 23-year-old Messi had already helped embarrass Real on the pitch and now he was rubbing salt into the wound in the dying seconds of the game with his sly reaction as he slowly trod off the field to replace his shin pad on the touchline.

Messi did not actually score on the night as Xavi, Pedro, David Villa (twice) and Jeffren did the damage for Pep Guardiola's team. But he recorded two assists and pulled Real's defence apart with his skills.

Ramos had had enough by the end, but he'd also have his successes against Barca in an era when clearly the two best teams on the planet were regularly going against one another in Liga, cup and Champions League action.

With Ramos departing Real this summer, a little bit more of that golden era comes to an end.

Although this is one moment the centre-back won't be treasuring as he recalls the many memorable matches he's been involved with for Los Blancos.

Topics: Sergio Ramos, El Clasico, Barcelona, Lionel Messi, Real Madrid, La Liga

Alex Reid

Alex Reid is a writer at SPORTbible who’s previously strung words together for FourFourTwo, Boxing News, The Guardian and, yes, Cruise International (it’s about big ships, not Tom). Interests range from football and boxing to real sports like WWE and darts. He is not a cage fighter.

@otheralexreid