It wasn’t their most dominant display on the stats sheet – but on the scoreboard, Barcelona continued to show their superiority over Real Madrid on the road with another huge victory.
La Blaugarana were clinical at the Santiago Bernabeu as they raced away with a 3-0 victory led in particular by their Uruguayan talisman Luis Suarez, who once again feasted on Madrid’s defence to send them into a sixth straight Copa Del Rey final.
What makes this result significant is Barcelona’s stranglehold on El Clasico as of late making it four successive wins in Madrid but also eight straight in all clashes between the two.
Suarez was the man of the moment and his second half brilliance made it ten goals against Madrid since he moved across from Liverpool.
His sheer confidence on the road was on show with his Paneka penalty to make it a three-goal lead and rub further salt in the wound of their rivals, who were punished for not taking their early chances.
width=300
height=250
type=”adsense”
data-ad-client=”ca-pub-3484850642769722″
data-ad-slot=”2036872107″
Barca find themselves seven points clear of second placed Atletico Madrid in La Liga with thirteen games to go and in another cup final where they will face Valencia or Real Betis.
Ernesto Valverde’s fantastic run as Barcelona manager is looking quite promising as they close in on at least one more trophy this season with their hopes of a treble still well and truly kicking heading into an important round of 16 second leg against Lyon.
However, Real Madrid have another crack at their old rivals when they meet again this Sunday at the Bernabeu where they will look to try and right the wrongs of last night’s result.
Real Madrid under Santiago Solari have been extremely inconsistent and there are still questions remaining about his longevity beyond this season.
A win in El Clasico would at least silence some of Solari’s critics but would keep their slimmest of title hopes alive and cut the gap behind the table toppers to six points.
For Madrid, it isn’t that they played poorly at all this morning, but the problems up top are quite stark after scoring at least 90 or more goals each season when Cristiano Ronaldo was at the club and only didn’t reach the tonne last season.
Their lack of replacement for the Portugese superstar since his move to Juventus has seen their goal tally fall of dramatically and after 25 games this season only find themselves with 43 this season.
The likes of Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale have only scored 18 between them in the league has shown that they have been unable to fill the monumental goal-scoring gap up top and this morning their lack of clinical forward came back to bite them.
Real Madrid would have to look in this off-season for someone to try and fill the gap left by Ronaldo or at least someone who can at least score the 20-goal mark consistently.
A lot of questions continue to be raised about where Real Madrid are now but in particular – their attack is screaming out for at least one more quality attacking goal-scorer.
