No one, not even Barcelona, has seen this coming. In El Clasico on Sunday, Barça went to Real Madrid and eliminated and rivaled their rivals with a shocking 4-0 victory, while announcing their relevance. With ups and downs in the post-Lionel Messi era, the team seems to have hit its season highs and form under manager Xavi, stretching his unbeaten run to 12 games.
Barça scored twice in each half, and it was 4-0 before the hour, leaving the home side calm and surprised. Without Karim Benzema due to injury, Real were also without answers, did not produce on the few attacking opportunities they had while handling Barca’s quick and efficient pass.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice, while Ronald Araujo and Ferran Torres both added a goal as Barça rolled on to another comfortable victory.
Here is the winning goal:
The victory comes on the heels of Barça’s victory at Galatasaray on Thursday to advance to the Europa League quarter-finals, with the team once again showing its attacking efficiency on the road.
Here are three takeaways from the game:
Real looked predictable without Benzema
Real ended up with a series of shots, 14 to be exact, but none of them were all that great. They produced an xG of just 0.85, one of their worst outings of the season and the lowest since the historically poor 1-0 loss to PSG in their Champions League round of 16 first leg last month. Real came into the game with an average xG of over 2.0 in their last five games, but here they rarely looked like a threat.
Without Benzema in ninth place, Real relied on the speed of Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo. Everyone had a decent opportunity to attack in the middle, even their wing attacks ended up centrally. Marc-Andre Ter Stegen was the scorer.
The Barca attack is on absolute fire
Holy smoke. Barca’s attack is just sensational at the moment, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang showing up. They have scored four goals in five different games in the last month, and they have only been goalless once since early December.
They were tireless in this, quickly playing the ball forward and were as synchronized as they had been in a while, which many say since they were in sensational form.
For Aubameyang, these are nine goals and 11 games for his new club. A decent January signature …
It is not the Messi days, but Barça is back
It will take some time until it feels like the golden days of the Messi era. And I do not remember his last few seasons where the team was pretty poor, but the future was not brighter for a while. Auba was fantastic, Ferran fits in well, they have so many young talents, and even more will come.
Xavi knows what it’s like to have Barça at the top, and they are trending in the right direction after just a few months of leading the team with him. That’s not to say they’ll be fighting for the Champions League next season, but I’ll tell you I would not be so surprised if they continue. The game was there, the confidence was there, and the faith was there. I’m just saying that Barca is back … and Gerard Pique also agrees.
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