Barcelona started the game brilliantly.
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In all honesty, the current Madrid team lacks creativity and drive and shouldn’t be regarded as Galaticos, they are a mediocre set of players who were lucky to escape with a 4-0 thrashing.
“I didn’t see a Real Madrid side on their knees, it’s just that we played at a higher level on every area of the pitch where we wanted to”.
“This victory tastes glorious because it is against our eternal rivals and, as well as the victory, it will be very hard for us to better this performance”, Luis Enrique said.
“Of course it hurts, it hurts a lot to lose like this”, said a chastened Benitez, who took over from Carlo Ancelotti at the end of last season.
El Clasico is one of the most covered matches: several media outlets if not all will have a build up to the game and discuss about a few of the best players out there.
“We need to get over this result and focus on the next match as soon as possible”, Benitez explained, per BBC Sport.
Barca has a slim three-point lead over Madrid in the La Liga standings, and another “El Clasico” win would give the Catalan club a huge advantage in its quest for back-to-back Spanish first division championships.
Unprecedented security measures were in place at the Bernabeu following the attacks in Paris last week, with almost 3,000 policemen and private security officers working to maintain public safety both inside and outside the 81,000-capacity venue.
If the Di Stefano transfer built the rivalry, and Cruyff’s intensified it, Luis Figo’s move – directly from Barcelona to Real Madrid for a world record fee – has come to typify it.
“You saw a team today on one side and on the other side you see a group of players playing for themselves and not being a team at the moment”.
In the 81st minute Karim Benzema had a header with a goal written on it from close range but was saved by Bravo.
Goals from Xavi and Pedro had the home side two up inside 18 minutes, and the second half was a procession of attractive football, with Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta orchestrating and David Villa finishing.
Neymar and Andres Iniesta with a stunning strike into the top corner were also on target for the Spanish and European champions and they could easily have added to their tally in the closing stages.
On Messi’s return, he added: “It was a relatively easy decision to leave Messi on the bench to start the game”.
More chances fell the way of Barcelona, but Munir missed his opportunity in the 87th minute.
It took Luis Suarez just 11 minutes to open the scoring. Replays showed that Neymar appeared to be slightly offside when he received Iniesta’s pass.
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James Rodriguez had Real’s only unsafe shot of the first half in the 28th minute before Iniesta slipped a pass through for Neymar to make it 2-0 five minutes before the break.
