\u201cThey can’t handle us this season\u201d<\/p>Lamine Yamal<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n Yamal said it two weeks ago, after winning the Cup final. And once again, he was right, as Madrid collapsed after leading by two goals in the Catalan sun. Bar\u00e7a has now won four victories in four Cl\u00e1sicos this season. They haven’t secured the third trophy yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Few will argue that they are deserving champions. Except for a run of four defeats in seven games in November and December, they have been the best team in Spain throughout the season.<\/p>\n\n\n It is important to remember that Real Madrid faced this match without their starting defense: Dani Carvajal, \u00c9der Milit\u00e3o, Antonio R\u00fcdiger, and Ferland Mendy. In their place, two full-backs, Lucas V\u00e1zquez and Fran Garc\u00eda, who have been repeatedly exposed this season, played alongside Tchouameni and Ra\u00fal Asencio.<\/p>\n\n The way Barcelona dismantled Madrid in the second half of the first half, seeming able to score almost at will, was a sight to behold.<\/p>\n\n A defining moment of defensive fragility was when V\u00e1zquez gave the ball away to Raphinha in the 45th minute. The Brazilian, as ruthless as few in LaLiga this season, did not hesitate, exchanged passes with Ferran Torres and made it 4-2.<\/p>\n\n\n V\u00e1zquez put his hands to his head. As an experienced player, he knew that, after a dream start, the match was about to be lost, and with it, the league title.<\/p>\n\n For Madrid, there was a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu: it wasn’t the first time Barcelona had outplayed them to score four goals in quick succession this season. In fact, it has happened three times in four Cl\u00e1sicos this season.<\/p>\n\n Bar\u00e7a did it in the second half at the Santiago Bernab\u00e9u in October, scoring four goals in half an hour. They repeated it in the first half of the Super Cup final in Jeddah, with four goals in 33 minutes. And they did it here, in Montju\u00efc, with four goals in 26 minutes.<\/p>\n\n These streaks should be epic, iconic. The fact that it has happened three times this season says it all about the offensive prowess of this Barcelona team and the alarming defensive weakness of Madrid.<\/p>\n\n\n Just relax and enjoy this Bar\u00e7a. Too often this season, the analysis has focused on their advanced defensive line. How many times have we heard “They’ll fall apart when it really matters” or some variation of that sentiment?<\/p>\n\n Well, it’s May, and Bar\u00e7a is about to secure a domestic treble and has improved in Europe.<\/p>\n\n Also, Flick doesn’t care. He knows his Bar\u00e7a team will concede goals with their way of playing. They take risks and sometimes will be overwhelmed, but the positives have outweighed the negatives this season.<\/p>\n\n Four matches have featured candidates for the team of the season in the last two weeks: the Copa final against Madrid, the two matches against Inter, and this great Cl\u00e1sico match on Sunday, which did not yield from the moment Mbapp\u00e9 opened the scoring until L\u00f3pez’s late effort was disallowed in stoppage time.<\/p>\n\n\n Bar\u00e7a has come back from two goals down on several occasions: against Benfica in the Champions League, against Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid twice, against Inter twice (before finally losing), even against Celta de Vigo two weeks ago in LaLiga and now against Madrid. That is due, in part, to their advanced defensive line and their high press. There haven’t been many more entertaining teams to watch in Europe this millennium.<\/p>\n\n In Yamal, they have a player you can’t take your eyes off. If he’s not the best player in the world yet, he’s undoubtedly the best to watch. His goal against Madrid was sublime. He would have also had a hat-trick of assists, if it weren’t for Raphinha’s lack of accuracy, who still managed to score two more goals to bring his season’s tally to 34 in all competitions.<\/p>\n\n Of course, there are flaws. Even here, it was clear that they hadn’t learned the lesson against Inter. Mu\u00f1oz sent the ball over the crossbar and Wojciech Szcz\u0119sny saved against Mbapp\u00e9, who also had a goal disallowed for offside. There have also been too many individual errors in recent weeks, but that’s something Flick will have to work on during the summer. If he can correct that aspect of his team’s game, without losing their offensive potential, they will be even stronger next season.<\/p>\n\n\n “They are numbers. The most important thing is to win trophies. Scoring goals is important, but if we don’t win trophies, it’s not worth it.”<\/p>Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n That’s what Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 said in March. And here we are two months later, and Real Madrid are out of the Champions League, lost the Copa del Rey final and, almost certainly, out of the LaLiga title race, after this wild afternoon at Montju\u00efc left Madrid seven points behind Barcelona with three games to play.<\/p>\n\n Mbapp\u00e9 has scored 39 goals in all competitions this season. It’s an impressive total, breaking club records, almost flawless. But, unless what Madrid does in this summer’s Club World Cup is counted, he will end the 2024-25 season without a major trophy.<\/p>\n\n He scored when the team won the UEFA Super Cup, scored again when they won the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, and scored in the final defeats in the Super Cup and the Copa del Rey. In the Champions League, the highlight was a hat-trick in Madrid’s tie with Manchester City. And in what was effectively a LaLiga “final” here, he scored another hat-trick, and could have added a fourth in added time to change the result, only to be denied by offside.<\/p>\n\n Mbapp\u00e9’s numbers are good, and his performance in this last Cl\u00e1sico of the season was excellent, his movement and clinical finishing punished Barcelona’s infamous advanced defensive line. But, by Mbapp\u00e9’s own admission, that is not enough.<\/p>\n\n He spent too much time at Paris Saint-Germain scoring many goals without winning the Champions League, which his talent and status as a player demand. He arrived at Madrid to change that. And so, his season, regardless of those 39+ goals, will be widely seen as a disappointment, perhaps even by himself.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a vibrant Cl\u00e1sico, Barcelona staged an epic comeback against Real Madrid, going from being 0-2 down to winning 4-3 on Sunday. This triumph takes a giant step towards winning the LaLiga title. Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 put Madrid ahead from the penalty spot in the fifth minute and extended the lead shortly after, generating hope in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[156,158,253,254],"class_list":{"0":"post-5275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-laliga","10":"tag-mbappe","11":"tag-real-madrid"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Real Madrid’s defense, exposed by a superior Bar\u00e7a<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fmedia%2Fmotion%2F2025%2F0511%2Fss_20250511_105412325_2856235749%2Fss_20250511_105412325_2856235749.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Enjoy Bar\u00e7a, without worrying about the defensive line<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fmedia%2Fmotion%2F2025%2F0511%2Fss_20250511_115438049_2856304%2Fss_20250511_115438049_2856304.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
More goals for Mbapp\u00e9, but without major trophies to show<\/h2>\n\n\n