Barcelona left Real Madrid with a mountain to climb in the La Liga title race after securing a 3-0 El Clasico win at the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday.
Luis Suarez opened the scoring in the 54th minute before Dani Carvajal was sent off 10 minutes later for denying the visitors a goal with his hand.
Lionel Messi converted the resultant penalty and set up Aleix Vidal for the third in injury time to give the Catalans a 14-point lead over their rivals.
Here’s a look at three things learned from the encounter.
MESSI POSITIONING CREATED PROBLEMS
Zinedine Zidane decided to sacrifice Isco in order to deploy Mateo Kovacic to help keep tabs on Messi. Many have tried and failed to keep the Argentine quiet though and once again, the Barcelona star used his intelligence to work around Madrid’s strategy.
Despite playing as part of a two-man attack with Suarez, Messi drops into midfield to get on the ball, but on this occasion, he dropped even deeper than usual to shake off the attention from the Croatian and what it did was pull the Madrid midfielder out of position, allowing space for Barcelona to exploit.
That’s precisely what happened in the build up to the first goal. With Casemiro caught up the pitch, Kovacic had shadowed Messi all the way to the halfway line, leaving acres of space through the middle for Ivan Rakitic to run into.
He did just that, spread the ball to Sergi Roberto who then laid it on a plate for Suarez to finish.
Lionel Messi (L)
ZIDANE TO TURN ATTENTION TO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
After becoming the first team to secure back-to-back Champions League triumphs last season, Madrid may now have to gun for an unprecedented third straight win if Zidane is to remain in a job come the end of the season.
The bar is set audaciously high at Real Madrid and even though Zidane somehow managed to exceed expectations since taking over, no manager has immunity at the Bernabeu.
Barcelona’s 14-point lead over their rivals appears insurmountable, even though Madrid have a game in hand. It may be time for Zidane to turn his attention to the continental tournament if this season is going to end a success.
Zinedine Zidane
TER STEGEN PLAYED A HUGE ROLE
Barcelona scored three goals without reply but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Madrid had their chances, quite a few actually, and it’s a small miracle that they didn’t hit the back of the net – well, other than when Ronaldo headed in from an offside position.
Marc-Andre ter Stegen has been in top form this season and put in a great display again on Saturday. Some of the saves he pulled off were outstanding. He had no right to get his foot to a ferocious low drive from Ronaldo to deflect it wide of the post in the first half.
Gareth Bale came on in the closing stages and tested the German who was up to the task, denying the winger on two separate occasions.
Much has been said about Barcelona as a more compact and disciplined unit this season but Ter Stegen deserves every bit as much credit for their defensive record which is the best in the league.
Marc-Andre Ter Stegen (R) denies Ronaldo
