Barcelona has always found in the Bernabéu the best setting for its great declarations, its changes of direction, and even for the definitive verification of its resurrections, like this last one. Under the baton of Xavi Hernández, who so many times directed similar representations from the grass, Barça viciously unbound a Real Madrid that circulated through the League with authority, lying on what seemed like a comfortable cushion of advantage, and arrived with the formidable emotional high of the comeback against PSG in the Champions League. But Xavi’s Barça destroyed them, and he did it with the same hunger as before the institutional and financial depression, seeking to leave in Chamartín the cruel, sarcastic and proud greeting of a little hand.
0
Courtois, Dani Carvajal (Mariano, min. 45), Eder Militao, Nacho (Lucas Vázquez, min. 62), Alaba, Rodrygo (Marco Asensio, min. 62), Casemiro, Kroos (Camavinga, min. 45), Modric, Federico Valverde and Vinicius Junior
4
Ter Stegen, Ronald Araújo, Alba (Alves, min. 85), Piqué, Eric Garcia, Pedri (Nico González, min. 85), Busquets, Frenkie De Jong (Gavi, min. 70), Aubameyang (Depay, min. 70 ), Ferrán Torres and Ousmane Dembélé (Adama Traoré, min. 79)
goals 0-1 min. 28: Aubameyang. 0-2 min. 37: Ronald Araujo. 0-3 min. 46: Ferran Torres. 0-4 min. 50: Aubameyang.
Referee Juan Martinez Munuera
Yellow cards Kroos (min. 21), Frenkie De Jong (min. 25), Busquets (min. 30), Modric (min. 62), Alba (min. 73), Camavinga (min. 81), Lucas Vázquez (min. 87 ) and Nico González (min. 87)
The night was crooked for the Whites due to the absence of Karim Benzema, the league’s top scorer and assistant, but much more so in Ancelotti’s team, where he contributes to balancing attack, defense and rhythm. The night was crooked for the locals, but there was still a certain confidence due to the echo of the feat against PSG. However, the crater left by the French turned out to have unfathomable dimensions, and above all, disconcerting. Some degree of numbness was felt in all the goals Courtois conceded, but the 0-4 summed up all the disorientation.
Ferran Torres left Aubameyang alone in front of the goalkeeper with a filtered pass that the Whites’ defense judged offside. They disconnected, the striker scored, and the Madrid players only got active to start an unsuccessful discussion with Martínez Munuera on the pitch, while Mateu Lahoz painted lines in Las Rozas. The position was not even too tight, the referee gave a goal, and the dispute continued as to whether a flag had been raised on the sideline. Martínez Munuera did not care about that, he told them, because he had not whistled. He was removed from the center and Barça began to look for the fifth.
The story of how a Madrid full of morale, dominance and some brilliant streak of play ended in that position is not easy, but it does not have many revolts either. Benzema’s absence triggered a kind of cascade disassembly, a perplexity, which, however, did not appear immediately.
Without the Frenchman, Ancelotti decided to overtake Modric to float through the center of the attack, perhaps seeking to nullify his own confusion by provoking that of the rival. And there was an initial section of sharp thrust, with the very powerful runs of Fede Valverde and the duels of Vinicius against Araujo, a combat with a balance of rounds, but from which the Brazilian managed to get two scares.
But this was not Vinicius’s night, and yes, on that same lane, but at the other end of the field, that of Ousmane Dembélé. Barcelona recovered the ball and began to govern the match with Busquets, Pedri and De Jong, and there he turned Madrid off and turned on the Frenchman, who took the chain out of Nacho, left back due to Ferland Mendy’s injury, and captain for his blade of services. Dembélé, who has many more records than Adama Traoré, danced with the fluidity of the ambidextrous, forward, backward, on this side, no, on the other, center into the area and a headed goal by Aubameyang, more lively than the two central defenders of Madrid, half perplexed already at that point. Dembélé danced again, won a corner, took it out and Araujo, who had already anesthetized Vinicius, headed it 0-2.
Barça continued to control through the center and threatened the Frenchman they had wanted to get rid of on the wingers and with Ferran on the other side. Also with Piqué’s deep shipments in search of runs behind De Jong’s defense. Madrid was sound and Modric left his place in the lead and tried to help from behind. The embarrassment continued, the break came and Ancelotti tried to shake things up from the board: he removed Carvajal and Kroos, put in Camavinga and Mariano, left a defense of three, and Barcelona scored another two goals in five minutes, the uncovering of the Ferran-Aubameyang connection. And he continued, and continued for the fifth, which he touched a few times, while Madrid tried to wake up from the nightmare, but without fully understanding how he had got there, to that destruction that revives Barça. Although Madrid retains nine points over Sevilla and twelve over the azulgrana, with one less game.
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