El Clasico began with Real Madrid gloating of their silverware-stuffed year but ended with Barcelona racing 14 points clear of the European and La Liga champions and with Lionel Messi goading the Santiago Bernabeu while the 300 visiting fans chanted “campeones”.
Messi has delivered many outstanding displays on enemy territory although this was not one of them. Instead, his highly functional Barcelona side sat and waited for Madrid to implode and then strode in to take advantage, lulling the stadium into a stunned silence in the piercing early afternoon winter sunshine.
Madrid had begun the game so well and come closest to scoring 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 in turn allowed Luis Suarez to fire past the helpless Keylor Navas 10 minutes after the interval.
Chaos reigned again for Barca’s second goal, which came via Messi from the penalty spot after Dani Carvajal was sent off for handball, desperately trying to block Paulinho’s header after his fellow defenders had been caught ragged by another bursting Barca break.
Zinedine Zidane had begun with a surprise holding midfield pair of Casemiro and Mateo Kovacic before throwing caution to the wind by bringing on Marco Asensio and Gareth Bale but it was too late, and there was an air of inevitability about Aleix Vidal’s injury-time strike which further compounded Real’s misery.
Dani Carvajal was shown a straight red for his handball on the line
This was their heaviest defeat to Barca since they were thrashed 4-0 here while Rafael Benitez was manager but unlike then there were no cries for a revolution, they just glumly accepted their defeat. Barca’s pocket of away fans, tucked up in the top tier of the Bernabeu, meanwhile, chanted “Visca Barça, visca Catalunya”.
This was the first meeting between Madrid and Barca since the banned October referendum on Catalan independence which engulfed Spain in its biggest political crisis in 39 years of democracy and came hot on the heels of Thursday’s snap regional elections in which pro-independence parties won a majority.
Club allegiances do not always dictate political allegiances, however: 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 meant the political heat rarely reached boiling point.
Lionel Messi made no mistake from the penalty spot.
A giant banner was unveiled before kick off displaying the five trophies Real have 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 triumphant cries were punctured by the offside flag.
Ronaldo blushed with embarrassment when he failed to connect with a simple pass on the edge of the area but later forced Marc-Andre ter 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 Keylor Navas to tip goalbound shots away for a corner. Down the other end another often-mocked player, 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. So too did their slim hopes of retaining a title which looks absolutely certain to be heading back to Catalonia.
_The Telegraph
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