Life is good lived on the edge. Barcelona played the clásico atop a high-wire, a fearless plan executed with perfect precision, and finished at the top of the table, six points clear. Three days after scoring four against Bayern Munich to exorcise European ghosts, Hansi Flick’s team came to the Santiago Bernabéu and scored four more, their wonderful week complete. Robert Lewandowski, at 36, got two; then Lamine Yamal, 19 years his junior, became the youngest ever to score in this fixture; before Raphinha lifted in the last, history written.
The risk Barcelona supposedly ran was the one that undid Madrid, players in blue and red streaming into the space behind that line of white, Carlo Ancelotti’s team sliced apart by a team that started with six under-21s. “There are games in Germany they call clásicos but it’s not the same,” Flick had said, and he was right. And yet even the real one isn’t always quite like this; what the German described as “the start of a journey” was as good as it gets. It also ended Madrid’s unbeaten run at 42, conserving a record for his new club.
Kylian Mbappé’s was not: he had three shots without scoring, chances wasted, his big moment missed, and that’s just the ones that counted in the stats: repeatedly caught in an expertly laid trap, there were many more that did not, including the two times he “scored”.
That so much attention had been on Flick’s offside trap was justified; less justified was that it had been considered reckless rather than genius, his philosophy a central feature of this clásico and Barcelona’s success. The team that apply the highest line in Europe, forcing more than twice the offsides of anyone on the continent, did it again.
That speaks to the coordination, bravery too; it also comes with risks, especially against forwards as fast as Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior, and that was played out immediately, Mbappé dashing clear after just 85 seconds. The position was perfect: coming in off the left, he opened up his body, dropped his shoulder and pulled the shot to the near post. The ball rippled the outside of the net and replays suggested he was offside anyway, a storyline developing early, supporters soon losing count.
When Mbappé floated over Iñaki Peña from way out; when Peña ade an astonishing save, clawing off the line; when Vinícius fired over and then hit the side-netting, the moves had something in common: each time Madrid raced into space and each time the flag went up, usually once the move concluded. Madrid had been caught offside six times inside half an hour of an enjoyable, wildly open game. By the end, that figure was 12.
It wasn’t entirely one way, either: an outrageous back-heeled assist from Lewandowski sent Lamine Yamal clean through but he scuffed the shot – he might have been offside too – Raphinha fired high, Iñigo Martínez headed over and Andriy Lunin saved from Pedri.
And then, on 30 minutes Mbappé scored, dashing through to lift it int the net. VAR called him offside, though; it was the fifth time he had been caught. Instead, it was Barcelona who found a way through into the space beyond to open the scoring. Madrid’s line was broken by Ferland Mendy – it’s not so easy, see? – and Lewandowski was ready, arching and timing his run the way Mbappé had not, to curl in a superb low finish.
Two minutes later, Lewandowski scored again, heading in Alejandro Balde’s cross. He should have a had a hat-trick too when they again cut through Madrid. Twice, in fact: the first, handed an open goal by Raphinha, was an astonishing miss, the shot hitting the post; the second, set up by Lamine Yamal, was then fired over.
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Between those, Mbappé escaped through the middle. Onside this time, he was denied by Peña. Soon after he dashed clear again but, knowing that he was offside, his shot lacked conviction. Madrid were in pieces, lacking in a plan. A mad, open game would have suited them but Barcelona weren’t prepared to give it to them; instead, they took advantage of Madrid’s search for it, one long ball seeing Raphinha sprint into space and lay on into the path of Lamine Yamal to smash into the roof of the net and another allowing him to lift over Peña to end it.
There was just time for Mbappé to run free once more. The shot was saved and the flag was up, of course.
