El Clasico: 3 reasons why Real Madrid lost 5-1 to Barcelona
It was an enthralling encounter as Barcelona took apart Julen Lopetegui's Real Madrid at the Camp Nou, and Barcelona just proved too much for Los Blancos to handle. Thibaut Courtois saved it from being a cricket score as Barcelona won 5-1 on the night.
Real were utterly embarrassed and outplayed on the night, and except for a bright start to the second half, it was pretty much Barcelona cutting through Real Madrid at will and it was a historical result.
Jordi Alba collected a beautiful pass from Ivan Rakitic in the 11th minute to set up Phillipe Coutinho to get the party started, and the first half was completely dominated by Barcelona as they were creating chances at will and could have made it 4-0 had they been more clinical with their finishing.
Varane made a silly foul in the box in the 30th minute, and VAR was brought into action to correctly give a penalty for the foul on Suarez, who happily dispatched the resulting penalty into the net.
Real took off Varane at halftime for Lucas Vasquez who definitely helped in taking the game to Barcelona, who were in tatters at the back, and it did not take long for Real to pull one back through Marcelo in the 50th minute, and they kept up the pressure as Modric hit the post a few minutes later which could've made it 2-2 and could have drastically changed how the game turned out to be.
Barcelona brought on Nelson Semedo for Rafinha and Ousmane Dembele for Coutinho. The changes turned the tide of the game and in the last 15 minutes Barcelona hit the post once and scored twice through Luis Suarez and once through Arturo Vidal.
Suarez's hattrick made the evening absolutely humiliating for the men in white sending them to 9th on the table after 10 games into the season with just 14 points to their name. Here are three reasons why Real Madrid lost to Barcelona.
#1 The first half was lackadaisical
Barcelona was at home with the backing of 90,000+ fans and they were passing with a purpose to cut through the fragile Real Madrid backline who were leaving too many gaps to be exploited by the forwards, which they duly did. However, Real Madrid was absolutely lacking any intent to even try and press Barcelona and make them even slightly uncomfortable in possession.
They were lucky to have not lost the game in the first half as Courtois made a couple of key saves and Barca players fluffed more than one chance to score and put the game beyond our reach. Real were lucky Lionel Messi missed the game, or it could have been an absolute landslide of a football match.