Stats: Cristiano Ronaldo becomes the third all time highest scorer in El Clasicos
Barcelona’s incredible run came to end last night thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo’s late winner for Real Madrid. The match was preceded by a wonderful tribute to Johan Cruyff, which included an emotional ‘Thank you’ video followed by a minute’s silence.
Gerard Pique gave Barcelona the lead in the second half through a powerful header but Benzema’s acrobatic finish leveled things up. And Ronaldo gave his team the three points after his 85th minute strike landed in the back of the net. Here are the best stats from the game.
Barcelona
Unbeaten run ended
39- Probably the most significant stat of them all is Barcelona’s unbeaten record coming to an end at the hands of their greatest rivals. The Catalan’s 39-match unbeaten streak came to an end yesterday as they fell just four games short of Juventus’ record of 43 without defeat in all competitions
This was the first defeat for Barca this season since their 2-1 loss to Sevilla on the 3rd of October last year! But it is now the best unbeaten run by a La Liga team in history beating the previous record of 34 games set by Real Madrid in 1988/89 quite comfortably.
This was also Barcelona’s first home loss since previously losing to Malaga in February of last season!
Will history repeat itself?
Despite the loss, Barcelona are still 7 points clear of Madrid and 6 points ahead of Atletico Madrid. They are still fancied to win the title with only seven games left to play in the season. But if bad omens are anything to go by then the Catalans are unlikely to lift the trophy this year!
Barcelona have won the title only once in their entire history when they have lost at home to Real Madrid. That was in 1928-29 when they lost by the same scoreline of 2-1
Rare off day for MSN
100+ – Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have scored over 100 goals this season in all competitions and 69 in La Liga alone. Luis Suarez has the highest with 26 goals while Messi has 22 and Neymar 21.
3 – None of Barcelona’s three kings found the net yesterday and it's only the third time this has happened this season! Suarez is now three goals behind Ronaldo in the Pichichi race and will miss his next game though suspension.