Still, Barcelona would score two minutes after the spectacular stop when Madrid defender Pepe lost Gerard Pique on a free kick, allowing Barça to take a 1-0 lead in the second half.
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Madrid’s first win at Camp Nou since 2013 also ended Barcelona’s Spanish record unbeaten streak at 39 games across all competitions.
Barcelona and Real Madrid coaches Luis Enrique and Zinedine Zidane named their star front threes respectively for the Clasico between the Spanish giants on Saturday. To win here is an enormous prize for all the players. And just before we play in Champions League in Germany.. “We have to shake it off and recover for the Champions League, which will be a demanding match”. Real Madrid beat their arch-rivals in El Clasico thanks to goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, and the French manager was pleased with his players’ performance. “We managed to hurt them with our counter-attacks”.
The jeers and whistles became louder after the break when Ramos, booked in the first half for dissent, was twice fortunate to avoid a second yellow card, and in an otherwise cagey game, it was fitting the breakthrough came from a set piece.
If I knew that we’d win with one less man, I’d have got sent off sooner!
Atletico Madrid were the big gainers of the night after they romped to a 5-1 victory over Real Betis earlier and cut the lead to just six points.
Zidane insisted that his side made a terrible start but somehow managed to end well against the hosts.
“When I see a team that’s united and all together, with everyone fighting for their team-mates and for their coach, there’s nothing better. There’s still the Champions League as well”, he added in reference to Wednesday’s quarter-final first leg against VfL Wolfsburg.
“If you have many players ahead of the ball, then you can suffer in transitions”, he said. Ramos was lucky to still be on the pitch at half-time after committing several bookable offences, and it took the official until the 84th minute to show the Spain worldwide the red card.
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Bale appeared to have scored a perfectly-legitimate goal when he outjumped Jordi Alba to head the ball past Claudio Bravo before Cristiano Ronaldo’s victor, but referee Alejandro Hernandez Hernandez had other ideas as he adjudged the forward to have pushed the left-back.
