El Clasico: Neymar, Luis Suarez nearly score third on lovely play

One thing that we don’t need to deliberate too much about Barcelona‘s 4-0 win over Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu is that it was an utterly humiliating affair for Los Blancos who started off poorly and hardly put up a fight against an inspired team put out by Luis Enrique. At the back, Luis Enrique’s men were solid defensively as they opened a six-point lead over their rivals at the top of the table.

Sergi Roberto burst through the heart of midfield and, as Sergio Ramos pushed up to close him down, he slipped the ball through to Suarez who bent a low shot past Navas and into the bottom corner.

In a game which Real needed to win but Barca could afford to draw Rafa Benitez, to his credit, went with an offensive line-up.

With 78 points to be played for before the end of the season, Barca’s current advantage over their historical rival is not decisive but this spectacular victory will give the Camp Nou giants a huge morale boost for the future.

More chances fell the way of Barcelona, but Munir missed his opportunity in the 87th minute. But Benitez kept him in the whole game.

In defense, Benitez’s strength, he opted for the young Raphael Varane over the experienced Pepe.

Kroos finished the game with a 94% pass completion rate. The distances are right between the players.

Messi wasn’t on the scoresheet, but the star forward intelligently connected with Neymar to play Suarez through on goal before the Uruguay worldwide chipped the ball past Navas once again to make it 4-0. At 23:06 (IST) Barcelona has already scored a goal and now the tally stands at 0-1 (Real Madrid vs Barcelona). Picked up a yellow card for a foul in the first-half and was subbed off for Isco after 55 minutes.

’27 Jeremy Mathieu (Mascherano) – 7/10: Coming on in place of the injured Mascherano on the 27 minute mark, the Frenchman was quickly called into action to shore up Barcelona’s defence. People are going to talk about Benitez and the tactics.

However, Barcelona secured the win with just over 35 minutes still to play when Iniesta broke from midfield and passed to Neymar, and the Brazilian’s backheeled return ball was smashed home by the skipper to stun the home crowd into silence once more.

Eventually, the hapless Marcelo made way for Dani Carvajal, and the only effective offensive player for Real the first half, James, was substituted for by Isco. Benitez had no further ideas.

Messi recovered from a left knee injury but started the clasico on bench because he was not yet 100 per cent fit physically. Now, that’s not to say Real Madrid is out of the title race. Barcelona scored the fourth goal in the 74th minute when Suarez found the net a second time.

Messi got in on the act when his pass was flicked-on by Neymar and Suarez took his time before chipping over a helpless Navas.

This victory will not be soon forgotten by Barcelona fans and Real Madrid will have to pick themselves up and not allow this heavy defeat to hurt them psychologically before their next game.