Barcelona then doubled its lead 18 minutes later when Iniesta moved uncontested through Real Madrid’s defense and found Neymar, who fired a shot under the arm of goalkeeper Keylor Navas from close range.
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Luis Suarez and Neymar had Barca 2-0 up at the break, with Blaugrana captain Andres Iniesta making it three just after half-time, and substitute Lionel Messi being involved as Suarez wrapped up the scoring late on.
On Messi’s return, he added: “It was a relatively easy decision to leave Messi on the bench to start the game”.
Rather than give his coaches a free hand, Perez is believed to instruct them to deploy Real’s marquee signings instead of players who may be in better form or better suited to a particular match scenario.
Barcelona boss Luis Enrique says their 4-0 away win against Real Madrid in El Clasico will “go down in history”. “It was a memorable game”.
Zidane, who served as assistant to former Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti last season, now coaches Real Madrid’s B team – the Castilla, and is widely seen as Los Blancos’ future manager, which is likely to happen sooner rather than later.
Perez faced the media on Monday evening to clarify the position surrounding his manager, after earlier holding a board meeting, and he said: “We analysed the sporting situation and I want to inform you that our coach Rafa Benitez has our full support and our full confidence”.
“The business plan is brilliant – they’re very, very rich. The football plan is very poor, and under Florentino Perez they have won one league in seven years, which suggests that his idea of putting big names on the pitch does not work”.
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“We created a lot of chances after the first goal”. I think we have been at a higher level and we generated superiority in the areas we wanted. “That win has certainly helped us focus on what we need to do in that regard”. “The thing I’m concerned about the most is recovering the team’s spirit”, he said. The team has already secured a spot in the knockout stage of the tournament but is fighting Paris Saint-Germain for the top spot in its group.
