Barcelona bury Real’s title hopes
El Clasico began with Real Madrid gloating about their silverware-stuffed year but ended with Barcelona racing 14 points clear of the European and La Liga champions, who also trail Atletico Madrid and Valencia, and with Lionel Messi goading the Santiago Bernabeu as the 300 visiting fans chanted “campeones”.
Messi has given many outstanding displays on enemy territory. This was not one of them. Instead, his highly functional Barcelona side waited for Madrid to implode, then strode in to take advantage, lulling this famous stadium into stunned silence in the piercing, early afternoon winter sunshine.
Madrid had begun the game well and came closest to scoring first but were unzipped in the second half and reduced to a dishevelled mess.
Ivan Rakitic could hardly believe his luck as he strolled through an empty midfield towards the box and played in Sergi Roberto, who allowed Luis Suarez to fire past the helpless Keylor Navas 10 minutes after the interval.
Chaos reigned again for Barca’s second goal, a Messi penalty won when Dani Carvajal was sent off for desperately trying to block Paulinho’s header after his fellow defenders had been run ragged by another sweeping Barca break Suarez should have finished off.
Real manager Zinedine Zidane had begun with a surprise holding midfield pair of Casemiro and Mateo Kovacic but threw caution to the wind by bringing on Marco Asensio and Gareth Bale when it was too late.
There was an air of inevitability about Aleix Vidal’s injury-time strike a minute after the Catalan defender came off the bench to inflict the heaviest defeat on Real in just under two years of Zidane’s trophy-laden tenure.
“I know tomorrow I am going to be killed for this,” said the Frenchman, his usual beaming smile replaced by a fixed, sullen expression. “I’m here to make decisions, and I have no regrets. The game would have been different if we’d scored in the first half. We didn’t, and that’s football.”
This was Real’s heaviest defeat by Barca since they were thrashed 4-0 here when Rafael Benitez was manager, but unlike then, there were no cries for a revolution from the faithful. They just glumly accepted their lot.
“We didn’t even play that badly, which is why this hurts so much,” added Zidane. “I can’t be happy with how we lost, but I still am with my players. What they’ve done until now is brilliant, but today we are devastated.”
Barca coach Ernesto Valverde talked before the game of a desire to avenge the 5-1 aggregate defeat to Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup back in August, after which some immediately began to question his suitability for the job of reviving an ageing team.
The man with a reputation of being a steady pair of hands is very different to his fiery predecessors, Luis Enrique and Pep Guardiola, but has proved an extremely effective coach, and his unglamorous game plan paid off.
“In a game as physical as this you notice a difference as the game gets older, In the second half, we could break with more freedom,” he said. “I don’t think Madrid let us through. We just knew how to manage the game better. This game is a lesson for everyone – in football, things can change very quickly.”
As the Bernabeu emptied, Barca’s fans, tucked up in the top tier of the stadium, chanted
(“Long live Barca, long live Catalonia”), packing an extra political punch into their victims.
This was the first meeting between Madrid and Barca since the banned October referendum on Catalan independence which engulfed Spain in a political crisis, and it came hot on the heels of Thursday’s snap regional elections in which pro-independence parties won a majority.
Barca have huge numbers of supporters in favour of independence for Catalonia, but club allegiances do not always dictate political ones. Ines Arrimadas, the rising star of the staunchly pro-Spanish unity party Ciudadanos (Citizens), which won the most votes in the election, is a huge Barcelona fan.
The added tension could be felt in the home fans’ angry cries when a decision went Barca’s way or whenever agitator-in-chief Gerard Pique touched the ball, although the absence of a large away following and the lunchtime kick-off, unprecedented for a Clasico, meant the political heat rarely reached boiling point, aside from when Messi stood alone, arms aloft in front of the baying Madrid fans moments after he had hammered in the second goal.
Before kick-off, Real fans displayed a giant banner showing the five trophies their team had won in 2017 along with the words “White Christmas”. The game was not two minutes old when Cristiano Ronaldo headed a corner in off the bar, but the early cheers were punctured by an offside flag.
Ronaldo then forced Marc-Andre ter
Top of La Liga compared to last season
Stegen to boot away a low shot that was destined for the bottom corner. Barca’s danger man before the interval was the unlikely figure of Paulinho, who twice forced Navas to tip goalbound shots away for a corner. At the other end, Karim Benzema came closest to breaking the deadlock, heading Marcelo’s cross against the post.
The second half promised much for Real, but they inexplicably fell apart, as did their slim hopes of retaining a title which looks certain to be heading back to Catalonia. Asked if the title race was finished as a contest, goalscorer Suarez dug the knife further into Madrid.
“It’s not over yet,” he said. “Atletico and Valencia will keep pushing us.”