The last Clasico of the season ended the same as the previous three; Barcelona triumphing in chaotic circumstances.
The hosts ran out 4-3 victors in a feral dog of a game on Sunday afternoon, violently thrashing around Montjuic with a wild, almost vengeful sense of unpredictability. Real Madrid led 2-0 before shipping four first-half goals without reply.
Kylian Mbappe completed his hat-trick in the second half and Madrid had the chances to level if not win a laughably unhinged contest in the closing stages, although Barcelona’s status as victors – and La Liga champions-elect – can hardly be questioned.
How the game unfoldedCarlo Ancelotti insisted that Real Madrid were “full of confidence” despite losing the previous three Clasicos by an aggregate score of 12-4. That self-assurance initially seemed to be justified by two goals from Mbappe inside the opening quarter-hour.
Madrid’s record-breaker needed less than five minutes to win and convert a penalty, pouncing upon Pau Cubarsi’s loose touch before beating Wojciech Szczesny in a foot race and from 12 yards. Mbappe nabbed his second at the sharp end of a devastatingly swift sequence. Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior ferried the ball half the length of the pitch and into the Frenchman’s stride with two passes in ten seconds.
The game, however, was only just warming up.
The flow of a contest Madrid had been dominating was already beginning to swing Barcelona’s way as Thibaut Courtois rapidly rebuffed a pair of long-range efforts. Eric Garcia swiftly halved the deficit with 19 minutes on the clock, darting behind Federico Valverde and in front of Raul Asencio to nod in a deft header from a corner.
Suddenly, that confidence Ancelotti had been championing evaporated in front of his eyes. Barcelona teased the ball around the edge of Madrid’s box before it finally found its way to Lamine Yamal, who didn’t even need to take a touch before bending a devastating effort into the bottom corner from an acute angle. The teenager mimicked Cristiano Ronaldo’s famous ‘Calma, calma’ celebration, but no sense of serenity could survive this febrile matchup.
Exactly 100 seconds later, Raphinha had Barcelona in front for the first time. Mbappe ran into Dani Ceballos in the middle of the pitch, gifting possession to Pedri who wasted no time shuffling the ball into the stride of his ruthless Brazilian teammate.
Aurelien Tchouameni could have been sent off, Raphinha headed over from close range and Mbappe had a penalty chalked off by VAR before this breathless first half drew to a close. Raphinha still found time to add a second – and Barcelona’s fourth – gratefully gobbling up a dawdling Lucas Vazquez in the 45th minute.
Ancelotti made two changes at the interval seemingly in an effort to stem the bleeding rather than inflict any damage. Barcelona continued to spear through the white shirts, yet it was the visitors who surprisingly struck the first blow of the second half.
Vinicius Junior finally avoided stumbling into Barcelona’s offside trap, latching onto a wonderfully weighted through ball from Luka Modric – one of Ancelotti’s substitutes – before squaring for Mbappe to complete his hat-trick in the 70th minute.
This all-time epic almost had one final chapter written by Madrid’s 21-year-old debutant Victor Munoz. Played through on goal in the 90th minute, the reserve team striker blazed a shot high and wide with his first touch in senior football.
Kylian Mbappe has enjoyed and endured a confusing debut season at Real Madrid / Alex Caparros/GettyImages
For most other players, at most other clubs in most other seasons, Kylian Mbappe’s debut campaign for Real Madrid would be on to savour. The jet-heeled Frenchman took his tally to a record-breaking 38 goals across all competitions with a hat-trick against his new club’s fiercest rivals on Sunday. Rather than a mere flat-track bully, Mbappe has scored in three finals this season alone, winning two of them, yet there is the lingering sense that his arrival has made Madrid worse.
Paris Saint-Germain’s rise in his absence has only compounded the idea that Mbappe is a luxury soloist unsuited to sustained success at the elite level. The 26-year-old doesn’t press with feverish intensity and boasts just three top-flight assists this season – the same number which Barcelona’s striker matched during the space of one Clasico.
Ferran Torres (right) created three of Barcelona’s goals / Alex Caparros/GettyImages
The role of a backup striker to Robert Lewandowski is a thankless task. The hyper-dedicated professional – the footballing equivalent of tennis’ Novak Djokovic, a fitness-obsessive who sleeps on his left-hand side to preserve the muscles in his right leg – rarely misses many matches.
The Pole’s unrelenting goalscoring record prompts few coaches to overlook him even when he is half-fit, yet Flick had no qualms leaving Lewandowski on the bench for Sunday’s Clasico.
Torres, after all, has made the most of his fleeting cameos. Despite playing 2,300 fewer minutes, he’s scored three more goals than the rightly lauded Yamal this season. The former Manchester City forward teed up three Barcelona goals this weekend and haunted every waking moment of Madrid’s back four.
A dedicated professional who has openly discussed his struggles with the role of perennial substitute, Torres is justifying exactly why Xavi Hernandez described him as an individual who “embodies what a mentally strong footballer is”.
Carlo Ancelotti has been beaten by Barcelona more often than any other opponent in his long managerial career / Alex Caparros/GettyImages
If this is to be Ancelotti’s final Clasico as Real Madrid manager – a rumour which has swollen into accepted fact by this point – the Italian tactician did his best to impact proceedings.
Ancelotti made a number of specific tweaks in a bid to avoid a fourth straight Clasico defeat, most of which involved his star pupil Federico Valverde. The tenacious Uruguayan notably took several of Madrid’s goal kicks, using his powerful strike to pump the ball as far forward as possible.
When he wasn’t launching the red orb into space, Valverde man-marked Barcelona’s Dani Olmo. That tactic worked – the Spanish playmaker was floored inside the opening minute and rarely impacted play thereafter – and keeping the ball out of Madrid’s defensive third somewhat neutralised Barcelona’s press.
Yet, Madrid seemed to bizarrely ditch their direct approach after taking a 2-0 lead, instead nervously inviting Barcelona onto them with tepid buildup play that led to two goals. “If they listen to me,” Ancelotti grinned pre-game, “it will work out well.” If only they had stuck to his plan for more of the match.
While the recriminations will come in the aftermath of Madrid’s fourth Clasico defeat of the season – the first time they have suffered such a galling set of results since the 1982/83 campaign – there will be no bad blood between Ancelotti and the club. “The honeymoon never ends with this club,” the Italian insisted. “It’s like relationships. At the beginning, there is a lot of passion and when it subsides, affection and other things grow. The honeymoon will last until the last day of my life.”
Hansi Flick’s side could win the title as early as Wednesday / Pedro Salado/GettyImages
Before his first appearance in the fixture, Hansi Flick beamed: “When you start to play football you want to play in a Clasico. And this is the proper Clasico. In Germany we have some games that they call Clasicos but it’s not the same, it’s not Real Madrid and Barcelona.”
If only Flick could manage El Clasico every week. The German coach – who became the first Barcelona boss since Pep Guardiola to win his opening four outings in this historic fixture – has already won two titles after beating Real Madrid this season, and took one major step towards claiming a third this weekend.
Boasting a seven-point lead with three games remaining, Barcelona could be mathematically crowned La Liga champions if Madrid fail to defeat Mallorca on Wednesday. Alternatively, a win away to Catalan rivals Espanyol on Thursday would also make for a pretty satisfactory coronation setting.
Check out the player ratings for Barcelona 4-3 Real Madrid here.
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