Barcelona have one hand on the league trophy after beating Real Madrid 4-3 in a thrilling Clasico at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys.
Madrid took a quickfire 2-0 lead through two Kylian Mbappe goals, the first from the penalty spot in the fifth minute following a foul from goalkeeper Wojciech Szcesney, the second a cool finish in the 14th minute after the Frenchman perfectly timed a run in behind — a stark contrast to his eight offsides in October’s 4-0 defeat at the Bernabeu.
But Barca responded excellently. Eric Garcia stooped to score a header from a corner in the 19th minute before Lamine Yamal drew the sides level with a trademark curling effort in the 32nd minute. Raphinha scored two minutes later following a mix-up between Mbappe and Dani Ceballos and the Brazilian added another just before half-time to make it 16 goals for Barca against their arch-rivals this season — the most Madrid have shipped to a team in a single season.
Mbappe pulled a goal back in the 70th minute for his hat-trick and Fermin Lopez’s late strike for Barca was ruled out for a handball, but Madrid failed to find an equaliser. Barca had made sure of a win that puts them seven points clear at the top of La Liga with three games to go.
Here, our writers analyse the key talking points.
Where does this leave the title race?
After all the chaos and mayhem, this victory meant Barcelona took a huge step closer to winning La Liga.
Before the Clasico, Madrid had hoped that a victory at Montjuic would drag them back into the title race, especially as Carlo Ancelotti’s team appear to have an easier run-in. Barca had suffered a bitter Champions League semi-final exit to Inter in midweek, too.
But any idea of Madrid retaining the Spanish league title looks like a pipe dream now.
Hansi Flick’s team have moved to 82 points and have a seven-point advantage over second-placed Madrid, with both teams having three more games remaining.
Two Clasico victories in La Liga mean Barca also have the ‘head-to-head’ advantage, which counts as the first tie-breaker between teams level on points in Spain, plus a far superior goal difference (+24) to Madrid.
Barca could clinch the trophy as soon as Thursday night, when they play at their city neighbours, Espanyol. A victory for Flick’s side would be enough to finish the job, regardless of Madrid’s result when they take on Real Mallorca at the Bernabeu on Wednesday evening.
Any slip for Barca at Espanyol, along with a Madrid victory over Mallorca, would prolong the drama at least into the penultimate set of fixtures next weekend.
But after another Clasico victory, it appears to be a case of when, not if, Barca secure this season’s title.
Barcelona’s remaining fixtures
Espanyol (away), Thursday 8.30pm UK, 3.30pm ET
Villarreal (home), Sunday 6pm UK, 1pm ET
Athletic Club (away), Sunday, May 25, TBC
Real Madrid’s remaining fixtures
Real Mallorca (home), Wednesday 8.30pm UK, 3.30pm ET
Sevilla (away), Sunday 6pm UK, 1pm ET
Real Sociedad (home), Sunday May 25, TBC
Dermot Corrigan
Raphinha and Yamal are in relentless form
Barcelona have been the best side in Spain by a distance this season — organised, intense, innovative, a well-oiled machine sparked into life by Flick’s careful planning. But there are two players at the top of this team who convert that collective effort into pure footballing thrill.
Raphinha is relentless, racking up 34 goals and 22 assists this season. He put Barcelona into the lead with a classic run in behind and finish, before sweeping in their fourth after more excellent work to pounce on a mistake from right-back Lucas Vazquez.
No one combines hard running and technical quality quite like Raphinha, and he is selfless, too, darting around the pitch to create space for others. He dovetailed excellently with the similarly lively Ferran Torres, taking turns to test Madrid’s backpedalling defence. And Raphinha probably should have scored twice more, blazing over from point-blank range after meeting two curling crosses at full speed.
Yamal is simply unstoppable. Beguiling and silky on the ball, impossible to keep out of big games even with two defenders on his track. His goal — already a trademark finish — underlined his ludicrous talents. You know exactly what the 17-year-old is going to do, but keeping it out, even for Courtois, is a different matter altogether.
Of the 16 goals Barcelona have put past Madrid this season, Raphinha and Yamal have scored or assisted 11. They will surely now win the title and have two special players to thank for that.
Thom Harris
Mbappe’s historic hat-trick
Within three minutes, Mbappe latched onto a mistake by Pau Cubarsi (playing him onside) and was then taken out by Szczesny for a penalty. The Frenchman picked himself up and emphatically slammed in the spot kick for 1-0.
Mbappe’s day soon got even better when Vinicius Junior sent him racing behind Cubarsi again, and he finished calmly past Szczesny for 2-0, with the officials not accepting Barca’s pleas that Yamal had been fouled a few seconds earlier. Madrid looked to be roaring right back into La Liga’s title race due to the exploits of their newest galactico.
From there, the day went quickly downhill for Mbappe and Madrid. With the game back at 2-2, Mbappe received the ball near halfway, but collided with his team-mate Ceballos to present possession to Barca playmaker Pedri, who immediately assisted Raphinha to make it 3-2.
Mbappe appeared to have a chance to pull Madrid back into the game just before half-time, when he tumbled over Frenkie de Jong’s challenge and referee Alejandro Hernandez Hernandez pointed to the spot again. But the VAR spotted Jude Bellingham had been offside earlier in the move, so officials did not have to rule on whether Mbappe had dived when De Jong challenged him.
Seconds later, Raphinha had his second goal of the game and it was 4-2 to Barca. Quite incredibly, the first half still had time for Mbappe to race clear yet again and fire past Szczesny. But he was half a metre offside and Madrid were still two goals down in the game.
Mbappe kept at it in the second half and got his reward when Modric sent through Vinicius Jr, who unselfishly gave his strike partner a simple finish to make it 4-3. That meant a hat-trick for Mbappe, taking him to 38 goals in 53 games this term and beating the record for a player in his first season at Madrid. He had also moved ahead of Barca’s Robert Lewandowski as La Liga’s top scorer this season, with 27 in the competition.
There was still time for even more drama in stoppage time. Mbappe was again through on his own, but Szczesny denied him. The ball ended up in the Barca net from the resulting corner after Aurelien Tchouameni’s header, but an offside Mbappe had obstructed the Barca goalkeeper’s attempts to reach the ball.
The hat-trick was just the third ever by a Madrid player in an away Clasico — following Ferenc Puskas in January 1963 and Karim Benzema in April 2023. But it did not have the desired outcome for Mbappe, the only player to score a hat-trick while being on the losing side in a World Cup final. He has five goals in his four Clasicos, but has lost them all. His first season at Madrid has ended in a collective failure.
Dermot Corrigan
Madrid’s tactical tweaks not enough to avoid fourth straight Clasico defeat
Ancelotti made a raft of tactical changes as he tried to avoid a fourth Clasico defeat of the season, but this quickly turned into an all-too-familiar Madrid performance, defined by moments of brilliance in attack and errors in defence.
Madrid’s 4-4-2 defensive shape was far too passive in previous meetings between the two sides. Barca found it easy to break the first defensive line and find space in midfield. Ancelotti’s team sat deeper at Montjuic, blocking out the space in a situational back five, with Federico Valverde aggressively man-marking Dani Olmo or Raphinha to help the team maintain pressure in midfield.
For a while, it looked to be working, with the Uruguayan playing a part in dispossessing Yamal in the build-up to Madrid’s second goal, but Barca’s relentless pressure eventually told.
Madrid also trialled a novel approach to build-up, where Valverde would take goal kicks from ’keeper Thibaut Courtois and launch the ball into the opposite half, with Mbappe stood on the edge of the opposition penalty area. It was something Manchester City trialled with the remarkable kicking power of Ederson, looking to find Sergio Aguero, who could not be offside from a goal kick.
It largely worked here — Madrid’s overturned penalty came as they forced Barcelona back with a Courtois punt, picked up the ball from a clearance, and found Bellingham in behind. But it was not sustainable to risk handing over possession so often, so Madrid tried to play out on occasion, which is where they were smothered by Barca’s high press.
The opening 15 minutes showed there was merit to Ancelotti’s attempted smash-and-grab approach with their clinical players at the sharp end of the pitch, but with so many key defensive players missing — from Antonio Rudiger to Dani Carvajal, Ferland Mendy to Eder Militao — Madrid simply could not withstand the defensive test. Set-piece issues, difficulty tracking runs in behind and individual mistakes on the ball came back to bite them.
Thom Harris
Refereeing controversy yet again
We have become used to plenty of debate over referees in Spain, particularly given Madrid’s vocal criticism of officials on their TV channel, and the first half of this contest was no different.
Before Yamal’s goal, Madrid complained that De Jong had handled the ball in the build-up, but referee Hernandez Hernandez waved away those protests.
Perhaps more surprising was Tchouameni not being sent off for his foul on Torres. The Frenchman was shown a yellow card for the below shove on Torres, but he appeared to be the last man before Courtois.
It was also a surprise to see Mbappe’s penalty call disallowed for a marginal offside by Jude Bellingham, rather than because of the striker’s clear dive.
Hernandez Hernandez went to the monitor in the 82nd minute to review Tchouameni’s apparent handball in the box when a penalty would surely have put Barca out of sight. Barca fans loudly criticised his decision not to give the spot kick but Tchouameni was extremely close to Torres when he struck the ball.
And when Lopez’s brilliant effort was ruled out for handball following a VAR review, it only underlined a chaotic Clasico at Montjuic.
Tomas Hill Lopez-Menchero
What did Flick and his players say?
Flick rejected suggestions that his team were champions already after this win.
“No. It’s football,” he told reporters. “(We) don’t know what will happen but we are in a good position.
“When you work for a club like Barcelona, you want to win titles. But this journey started last year. We have to improve a lot in defence. When we make mistakes and Madrid have fantastic offensive players, they know exactly how to make the transitions. It’s not easy to defend. Then the mistakes come and we have to learn from that, but with so many games, it’s not easy.
“I always try to be positive. After the match on Tuesday (against Inter) and seeing we were 2-0 behind again here… it was not easy but my team’s mentality is unbelievable. To see this is absolutely great.”
Yamal also highlighted the impact of Barca’s Champions League exit. “It was key to win this game,” he told Spanish broadcaster Movistar. “We wanted to do this for our fans after the Champions League game. I think that now they’ve forgotten about that, and we have too. We can enjoy ourselves now.
“As my mother told me, there’s a Champions League every year. We’ll keep going as long as we can to win it. It was very important to win this game, to get close to winning La Liga and we are all very happy.”
What did Ancelotti say?
“We had the opportunity to make it 4-4 twice,” Ancelotti told reporters. “It was a competitive, hard-fought and evenly matched game until the last minute. There is nothing to reproach my team for in commitment and attitude.
“In attack, we had very clear chances. We scored three and we could have scored two more. We defended better in the first 30 minutes. We mustn’t forget that there were five defenders missing.
“It’s the last Clasico of the season and now we have to finish the season well. There are three games left and we have to try to win all three.”
The Athletic reported last week that Ancelotti and Madrid had a verbal agreement over the terms of his departure. Asked whether the end to this season would tarnish the memory of Ancelotti’s second spell at the club, the Italian replied, “Everyone can make whatever assessment they want.”
What next for Barcelona?
Thursday, May 15: Espanyol (Away), La Liga, 8.30pm UK, 3.30pm ET
What next for Madrid?
Wednesday, May 14: Mallorca (Home), La Liga, 8.30pm UK, 3.30pm ET
(Top photo: Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
