Barcelona’s incredible run came to end last night thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo’s late winner for Real Madrid. The match was preceded by a wonderful tribute to Johan Cruyff, which included an emotional ‘Thank you’ video followed by a minute’s silence.
Gerard Pique gave Barcelona the lead in the second half through a powerful header but Benzema’s acrobatic finish leveled things up. And Ronaldo gave his team the three points after his 85th minute strike landed in the back of the net. Here are the best stats from the game.
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Barcelona
Unbeaten run ended
39- Probably the most significant stat of them all is Barcelona’s unbeaten record coming to an end at the hands of their greatest rivals. The Catalan’s 39-match unbeaten streak came to an end yesterday as they fell just four games short of Juventus’ record of 43 without defeat in all competitions
This was the first defeat for Barca this season since their 2-1 loss to Sevilla on the 3rd of October last year! But it is now the best unbeaten run by a La Liga team in history beating the previous record of 34 games set by Real Madrid in 1988/89 quite comfortably.
This was also Barcelona’s first home loss since previously losing to Malaga in February of last season!
Will history repeat itself?
Despite the loss, Barcelona are still 7 points clear of Madrid and 6 points ahead of Atletico Madrid. They are still fancied to win the title with only seven games left to play in the season. But if bad omens are anything to go by then the Catalans are unlikely to lift the trophy this year!
Barcelona have won the title only once in their entire history when they have lost at home to Real Madrid. That was in 1928-29 when they lost by the same scoreline of 2-1
Rare off day for MSN
100+ – Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have scored over 100 goals this season in all competitions and 69 in La Liga alone. Luis Suarez has the highest with 26 goals while Messi has 22 and Neymar 21.
3 – None of Barcelona’s three kings found the net yesterday and it's only the third time this has happened this season! Suarez is now three goals behind Ronaldo in the Pichichi race and will miss his next game though suspension.
Real Madrid
Debut success
Zinedine Zidane has played his fair share of Clasicos during his time as a Real Madrid player. And yesterday he ended an unwanted managerial record for the club by becoming the first manager since Bernd Schuster back in 2007/08 to avoid defeat in their debut Clasico.
3 - Zidane also joined an elite list of three men in El Clasico history yesterday. He becomes only the third person to have won a match at Camp Nou both as a Real Madrid player and manager. The previous two being Vincente Del Bosque and Alfredo Di Stefano
Ramos just loves red cards
Real might have got their victory but the club’s poor disciplinary record in Clasicos continued. The club went down to 10 men after Sergio Ramos was sent off for a second bookable offense after a nasty challenge on Luis Suarez while the scores were still level
With that Red card he earned a few records that he wouldn’t have wanted as a Real Madrid player:
This was Ramos’ 21st career red card and his 16th in La Liga. Pablo Alfaro holds the record for the highest number of Red Cards for professional Spanish footballer with 27. Ramos is now only 7 Reds away from breaking that record.
12 – The Real Madrid captain got away with several tackles in the game after being booked early on but couldn’t escape the sending off which makes him the player with the highest red cards in La Liga since he joined the club.
4 – It seems the player has continued his mean streak against the Catalans after being sent off the most number of times against Barcelona as compared to any other team
Rare comeback win
Real Madrid have now managed to win their 93rd Clasico. They somewhat avenged their 4-0 defeat at the Bernabeu last year by making it only their 2nd El Clasico win in the last 6 meetings between the two clubs
232 – In total the two have played 232 matches in their history with the record now standing at 93 Real Madrid wins, 91 Barcelona wins and 48 draws.
Real Madrid have a poor record in Clasicos at the Camp Nou when they concede the opening goal. But yesterday they defied the odds by beating Barca after trailing early in the second half.
The last time they managed to achieve a comeback at Barcelona win was on the 28th February 1965. After trailing at half-time Madrid fought back to win the game after a 70th-minute winner from Fernando Serena
Ronaldo scores when he wants
Ronaldo is on course to retain his title as top scorer in Europe this term. He now has 29 goals this season level with Gonzalo Higuain of Napoli and one behind Jonas of Benfica in the race for the Pichichi.
10 – He also improved his scoring record in Clasicos after yesterday's winner. The Portuguese forward now has 10 away goals in the famous derby only a goal behind the highest ever record for a Madrid player of 11 set by another Madrid great Francisco Gento. But Messi still has the most away goals with 12.
16 – Lionel Messi holds the record for the most number of goals in Clasicos with 21 but has failed to make his mark this season. Ronaldo, on the other hand is edging closer to his rival’s tally after scoring his 16th goal in a Clasico last night surpassing the great Raul who has 15. He is still 2 behind another legend Alfredo Di Stefano
13 – After a slow start to the season for Ronaldo he now has 13 goals in the last 10 games for Los Blancos and looks the most likely to finish as top scorer in Spain and in Europe this season
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