When a match is already dubbed El Clasico, where to go for the superlatives? El Magnifico? El Supremo? Nothing seems to do it justice.
Suffice to say that, even by the mighty standards of European football’s greatest domestic fixture, this was, well, a classic. It had everything including, ultimately, a winner.
Barcelona took the team award, Lionel Messi, with a hat-trick, the individual. There is now one point separating these clubs plus the one at the top of the table, Atletico Madrid, making this season’s La Liga a bit of a Clasico, too. These games always have the Messi-Ronaldo sub-plot, and there was no doubting the victor in that contest.
The muted noise that greeted Messi’s three goals came against a backdrop of records shattering. He is now the second highest scorer in La Liga history, overtaking Hugo Sanchez, and the highest scorer in El Clasico fixtures, usurping Alfredo Di Stefano.
To do that at the Bernabeu must have been doubly sweet. There has been a lot of talk of Barcelona on the slide of late, but it seems to have been overstated. Messi was injured, that was all. This was his second consecutive hat-trick. Tiki-taka is not dead yet.
Any downside on such a remarkable night? Only that, like much great art, the second half of the piece could not quite live up to the pure creative fury of the first.
The opening 45 minutes ended 2-2 and contained some of the finest football of the season in open play. The match concluded 4-3 to visiting Barcelona and the final three goals were penalties.
Watch the highlights above, and you’d agree with me that was indeed el-clasico.
