How The Catalan Press Reacted To El Clasico

It should come as little surprise that the Catalan press were universally bowled over by FC Barcelona’s 4-0 win against bitter rivals Real Madrid in El Clasico at the Bernabeu on Sunday night.

In Sport, Lluis Mascaro said that Xavi’s Barca changed history with the triumph which snapped a five-game win streak for Los Blancos who had not been topped by the Catalans in three years.

Mascaro caused these “devastating” facts that spoke “volumes about the terrible sporting crisis that devastated the Blaugrana team”, which has been plummeted into around $1.5bn’s worth of debt.

“In the Champions League [the club] went from humiliation to humiliation” while in La Liga, Madrid “also imposed its superiority”.

But Barca gave Madrid a “historic” bath as the phrase goes in Spain when one has completely dominated and humbled their foe, akin to those that “Pep’s Barca did” when Xavi was still a player.

“The Blaugrana’s superiority was absolute,” Mascaro went on. “The Barcelona players dominated from the first minute, with a great offensive game and suffocating pressure that prevented Madrid’s counterattacks – the only weapon that Ancelotti had due to Benzema being out.

“Barca was Barca again,” he beamed, “with its inalienable style, becoming a steamroller against which Madrid could do nothing. The intensity with which the Blaugrana team was used left the Madridistas breathless, as they watched, stunned, as the goals fell one by one. Up to four. And there could have been more…”

Ruben Uria, also at Sport, claimed that Barca have “returned”. “Barca kidnapped the ball, made it their own, took Madrid by the hand and gave them a tremendous dance throughout the Bernabeu,” Uria said.

“A vintage one, one of those that leave their mark over the years. Something to remember. Barca went to Madrid with the idea of ​​looking the leader in the eye. They did much more than that. They humiliated them in their house. Barca was a great team. And Madrid, a meme. Confirmed: Barça has returned.”

Over at Mundo Deportivo, Santi Nolla noted how Barca “not only dealt a blow to La Liga after destroying Madrid at the Bernabeu but also visualized the change in level [it has made] to the world of football”.

“The football exhibition was total and from the first minute. Xavi was the great winner at the Bernabeu having provided the team with basic characteristics to be able to compete to the fullest while maintaining their [game] model,” Nolla further remarked, with the two keywords of the new Barca “intensity and pressure”.

Gemma Soler at the same paper quipped that Xavi ate three-time Champions League winner Carlo Ancelotti’s toast “from the start”, with Barca playing with both personality and style “like a giant” while “dwarfing a Real Madrid team that bordered on ridicule in front of their own fans”.

“The victories at Villarreal, Napoli, and against Atlético Madrid, showed that, two years later, Barca is capable of competing again and winning against important rivals.

“The certification that arrived yesterday in the best possible scenario, the lavish new stadium of the eternal rival, was [the only thing] missing,” she said, with the win a “huge match for Xavi’s new Barca, who compete again and win against the greats”.