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Defending champions, FC Barcelona retained their league title in dream circumstances on Sunday night by comprehensively overwhelming their fierce rivals, Real Madrid in El Clasico on home soil.
La Liga’s runaway leaders only needed a point from the showdown at Spotify Camp Nou and would have expected a stern contest against their old foes, but in truth this was a routine victory over a Madrid side in disarray after a week of chaos behind the scenes.
On this Sunday night encounter, Vinicius Jr went missing, even as Real Madrid turned in a spirited yet ineffective performance against Barcelona, losing 2-0 and watching their rivals lift the league trophy in the process.
On all fronts, Los Blancos were outplayed throughout, and never recovered from an early deficit in a game that more or less summed up the massive gulf in quality between both teams
The Catalan clubside got the hard work done in the first half, racing into a two-goal lead inside 20 minutes.
It was Marcus Rashford who kick-started the Madrid’s demolition process when he stepped up in the ninth minute to crash a sublime free-kick across Thibault Courtois and into the top corner,
In the 18th minute, Ferran Torres doubled the lead when he latched onto Dani Olmo’s glorious flick and finished coolly inside the box. Again, Rashford then came within Courtois’ fingertips of adding a third before half-time.
Clearly showing a club in crisis after a dressing room bust-up between team-mates Aurelien Tchouameni and Fede Valverde and another trophy-less season, Madrid never looked like mounting a fightback, although Jude Bellingham did have a goal ruled out for a clear offside after the break.
On a cruise, Barca were the only team who looked likely to score again, with Courtois making good stops from Ferran and his replacement Robert Lewandowski in the second period.
The comfortable 2-0 win in El Clasico means Barcelona have opened up an unassailable 14-point lead over their rivals to get their hands on the trophy once again.
Kudos to Manager Hansi Flick who deserves huge credit for even being on the touchline after his father passed away overnight.
That makes the capture of back-to-back La Liga titles all the more poignant for the German tactician, and in such a huge fixture, too.
