Barcelona snap Real Madrid’s five-game El Clasico winning streak
Heading into El Clasico between Barcelona and Real Madrid, the only thing these two sides were playing for was pride.
The Catalans objective this season is to finish in Champions League places as Real Madrid are running away with LaLiga.
A Barcelona win was on the cards but what we saw on the pitch was something else. Even the most staunch Catalan support was not expecting to win El Clasico 4-0 and completely wipe Real Madrid off the pitch.
But that is exactly what happened. A brace by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and goals by Ronald Araujo and Ferran Torres sealed a win for Barcelona and Xavi Hernandez, which unsurprisingly caused comparisons to Pep Guardiola and the 6-2 win he got in his first away trip to the Santiago Bernabeu.
Here are three takeaways from Barcelona’s first El Clasico victory in nearly two years.
The streak is over
Barcelona came into the match without a win in El Clasico since 2019. Since then, Real Madrid had won five straight. However, there were signs the Catalans weren’t far off.
They took Madrid to extra time in the 3-2 loss in the semifinals of the Spanish Super Cup.
Not only did Barcelona break the skid, they did so in emphatic fashion. The 4-0 scoreline actually flattered Real Madrid as this could have been a worse defeat than the 5-0 loss at the Camp Nou back in the 2011-2012 season.
Busquets: "In the last Clásico we played under Xavi we also had control and possession but they did much more damage to us on the counterattack and today we controlled it very well."
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) March 20, 2022
The important thing is Barcelona created enough chances to score four times and still have the luxury to miss almost as much and come out with a comfortable win.
It was the type of win they needed and one that they might have missed out on had they not made the change in manager. The fact of the matter is Xavi has vastly improved a Barcelona side that looked rudderless under Ronald Koeman.