The first El Clasico of the 2024/25 season was the most awaited and exciting fixture between both sides for a long time now. It won’t be unfair to say that since the Messi-Ronaldo era, this legendary fixture has lost a bit of its bite. But this time around, it promised to be a great fixture. And it delivered on that promise as FC Barcelona thrashed their eternal rivals Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu to now move 6 points clear in the La Liga leaderboard.
The lead-up to this particular Clasico was something straight out of a Hollywood thriller. Los Blancos were on a 42-unbeaten streak in La Liga since September last year while the Blaugrana were playing like the most in-form team in Europe. While Real Madrid was struggling for form in some instances this year, they still had a Galacticos-level squad with new additions like Kylian Mbappe. On the other hand, under their new manager Hansi Flick, FC Barcelona had been playing scintillating football with the youngest squad in La Liga flexing the muscle of La Masia.
Madrid could have extended their streak to 43 games unbeaten and in doing so they would have tied the all-time La Liga record which is held by FC Barcelona. But in the 4-0 drubbing that ensued at the Bernabeu last night, Barca ended Real’s streak to keep their name on top in the history books.
Lewandowski and Raphinha, Hansi Flick’s Rejuvenations at Barcelona
Like so often this season, it was FC Barcelona’s front three who did the job for the Blaugrana. Lewandowski opened the scoring for Barcelona with a wonderfully placed bottom-corner strike after getting a beautiful through-ball assist from Marc Casado. 2 minutes later, Lewandowski found himself free of any Madrid pressure in the box and placed a header off a Balde cross past Lunin in the Madrid goal.
Later in the match, Raphinha scored Barca’s 4th goal after a wonderful run going up against Vazquez to chip the goalkeeper and settle the game for Barcelona. This was after the inform Brazilian had set up Lamine Yamal with an assist for the 3rd FC Barcelona goal.
What’s so special about FC Barcelona’s Defensive Line under Hansi Flick
8 times. That’s the number of times the so called “Best player in the world”, Kylian Mbappe was caught offside by the Blaugrana’s defensive line. Hansi Flick’s idea of defense doesn’t start once the opposition have the possession. It starts much before that. The defensive compactness, along with the communication amongst the defenders and the incredibly high backline ensure that there is no easy way to go past the Catalonian defence.
Hansi Flick’s high Backline is something that:
- Everyone Knows It
- Everyone Sees It
- Everyone Wants It
- But Once You Have It, You have already conceded 4 goals
That’s what happened with Bayern Munich, and that’s what has happened with Real Madrid. Football Pundits and Experts argued that Hansi Flick was playing a dangerous game and against teams like Madrid who have pacy forwards, this high backline will surely get exposed. But what happened instead was 12 offisides in the 90 minutes for Madrid. Now, in 14 matches across competitions, FC Barcelona have drawn 76 offsides in total. That’s more than twice than Brighton who are in second place with 35 offside drawn.
This tells you that the Highline is no fluke or joke. Instead it is a well perfected mechanism which has kept two of the most attacking teams at bay, first Bayern then Real Madrid.
With the 4-0 result against Madrid putting FC Barcelona 6 points clear, is it the La Liga race done and dusted? Or will Madrid pick up the pace anytime soon?
