The two European and Spanish giants met on Saturday, October 26th, 2024, in an El Classico match, in which the Los Blancos were obliterated in a 4-nill thriller.
This is what you call pure humiliation. Barcelona destroyed Real Madrid in the Benabue in the El Classico beating them 4 to 0. The first half was not up to. Mbappe thought he had scored in his Classico debut but the Barcelona high line kept playing Madrid players offside especially Mbappe and Vinicius jnr missing heavy chances. The second half favored Barcelona with Robert Lewandowski scoring two goals in 2 minutes. He should have had a couple more but he missed them. Then the wonder kid Yamin Yamal scored the third—the youngest player to score in the classico at just 17 years old making history at the Bernabeu. With Raphinha, he topped it up as the most in-form player with a beautiful chip to make it 4 for Barcelona
Many football fans and supporters anticipated the most-watched football match in Europe and the world to be entertaining and tactical.
Within the week, Real Madrid met Dortmund in a Champions League clash. The Los Blancos came from 2-nil down to win by a 5-goal margin. In this match, Vinicius jnr, the top contender for the Ballon d’ior scored a hat trick, cementing his position for the Ballon d’Or.
Barcelona, won by 4 goals to 1 in the Champions League match between Bayern Munich. This was interesting because the Bayern team had over the years demolished Barcelona back-to-back. It was interesting to see Barcelona finally winning against Bayern. Raphinha, another Brazilian who is in top form scored a hat trick against the German team.
Both teams went into the match with high ambitions of securing a victory. For real Madrid, it meant equaling the record of 43 unbeaten matches with the potential of breaking that record in the next La Liga league game. And for Barcelona, it was in their interest to stop the opponent from achieving that aim as well as breaking the recent dominance by Real Madrid
Many football pundits have said it was a game of 2 halves with Real Madrid dominating somehow in the first half with a lot of scoring opportunities. They were however caught in offside positions on 12 different occasions with Mbappe being the main culprit. Barcelona’s high line ensured Madrid suffered to penetrate to make any attempt at a goal. Any attempt, even successful, led to offside positions.
Barcelona mostly dominated the second half. Hansi Flick made a substitution on the break, introducing Frankie De Jone in the midfield. Perhaps, the introduction of the midfielder and forward Dani Olmo might have worked the magic for the Catalans.
When Robert Lewandowski put Barcelona ahead by 2 goals, it could have been much worse for Los Blancos. The striker had two additional clear chances of which one was an empty net.
Yamin Yamal and Raphinha both converted their chances to make it 4 nil to Barcelona.
The Barcelona first team players, mostly promoted from the academy side seem to have found their rhythm once more and it is such a joy to watch. All Barcelona fans owe Hansi flick the world. What he’s doing with the team is incredible. Some fans have begun tipping the team to win the treble.