El Clasicos really don't come more heated than Sunday night's edition of the fixture.

Domestic football's biggest game didn't have the La Liga title on the line like it normally does, but Barcelona and Real Madrid certainly had a lot to play for.

The Blaugrana had their unbeaten league record to maintain and they did so, recording a credible 2-2 draw at the Nou Camp.

They played the whole second-half with 10 men after Sergi Roberto's red card for slapping Marcelo with Gareth Bale scoring late on to earn Los Blancos a point.

Tempers flared throughout the game, with Sergio Ramos making quite an extraordinary claim about Lionel Messi after the final whistle.

The Real Madrid captain insisted that Barca's talisman had put the referee under pressure at half-time.

“Messi put him under a bit of pressure in the tunnel, I don’t know if there are cameras, maybe he caused him to referee in the second half in a different way,” said Ramos.

“He said everything to him. This is football and everything should stay on the pitch.”

Some reports from Spain even suggested that Messi called the referee an obscene name, mocking him for favouring the visitors with his decisions.

While that hasn't been proved, Messi's entourage has come out and spoken to Marca about the incident.

He claims that what Ramos said is completely false and that the Argentine barely had any contact with the referee in the tunnel.

"Lionel never called the referee a name, or disrespected him," he said."He spoke with the referee on several occasions, as the television images showed.

"However, it was more on the pitch than in the tunnel."

Very interesting. With no footage or still images to support the claims made by Real Madrid and Ramos, you have to wonder if they're simply trying to put Messi and Barca in a bad light.

It does seem very out-of-character for the usually calm Messi to do something like this and without proof, you almost have to side with the Blaugrana legend.