Real Madrid beat rivals Barcelona 2-1 at home in a wet and wild Clasico on Saturday evening to stretch their winning run to six games in all competitions. Zinedine Zidane’s side also moved top of La Liga for the first time in three months. That Zidane, he has impeccable timing.
The evergreen Karim Benzema put the champions in charge at the Alfredo di Stefano stadium with a cute back-heel in the 14th minute while a deflected Toni Kroos free-kick doubled their lead in the 28th.
As the rain fell in torrents, Barca hit back on the hour mark with a goal from Oscar Mingueza, and then had a huge penalty appeal waved away when Martin Braithwaite was felled by Ferland Mendy.
But overall, Real deserved the victory, which puts huge pressure on long-time Liga pace-setters Atletico Madrid. Atleti will regain the lead if they win or draw against Real Betis later today.
“This is a huge win for us, you could say that it was as important as a final but we’ll have to keep on fighting for a while yet,” said Real defender Nacho.
“We were excellent on the counter-attack, we knew they would want the ball and could do us damage with it but we got a two-goal advantage which put us in a very strong position.”
Man of the match: Luka Modric (Real)
Match highlights: