7 minute read time//Aaron Procter
Last Sunday we saw the 256th edition of the El Classico, the famous matchup of the 2 giants of not just Spanish but World football come up head-to-head. We had some fantastic performers and some not so good, some lovely football, and a lot of exciting moments. In this match report you will find individual player reviews, MOTM winner, and an overall analysis on both teams performance.
Mbappe at the double
image above is AI generated image of Kylian Mbappe.
With the 256th El Classico being played yesterday at the time of writing, it wasn’t short of fantastic moments, great moments, and the absolute main event performance Real Madrid and Barcelona never fail to put on. Real Madrid won the game 2-1 and there’s one man the Madridistas can thank for that. That man is their one and only French maestro Kylian Mbappe, who scored both of Real Madrid’s goals yesterday at the Camp Noue. He was in the right place at the right time for both his goals, the first coming from a poor defensive clearance from Barcelona defender Gerard Martin. The Spanish centre half went to clear the ball after a low cross from Diomande, but sent it straight into Mbappes path who only had to be exactly where he was for the ball to bounce of the Frenchman and find itself in the back of the league leaders net.
Mbappes second of the night was a finish off from a lovely team goal by Real Madrid, starting with a mesmerising piece of trickery from Englishman Jude Bellingham to send Camavinga running who tapped the ball round Cubarsi to square it back across goal to Kylian Mbappe who was there to simply tap it into an empty Barcelona net, a lovely team goal finished of by a cool finish from their French talisman.
Other than his 2 goals I didn’t think Mbappe had his most influential game having only 36 touches all game that is the third lowest out of all the starting XI for both teams just having more than teammate Bernardo Silva (34) and Barcelona goalkeeper Garcia (32). He also only completed 1 out of his 4 attempted dribbles, however he did make some good runs in behind Barcelona’s high line, one of these he would have been through on goal if Jude Bellingham had played him in. So despite not having the most influence in the game his 2 goals won the game and that’s the most important thing so therefore he is my MOTM.
Not Lamine’s day
Lamine Yamal is a young sensation for both Barcelona and Spain, at 19 he’s won nearly all he can including a World Cup and Euros with Spain, 3 La Liga titles, 2 Supercopa trophies, and one Copa Del Ray title. The only club title he is of course missing is the UEFA Champions League however I’m sure it won’t be too long until he wins that as well. Alongside the most prestigious individual award in Football the Ballon d’Or coming up just short to current holder Ousmane Dembele. However that could change tonight if he wins it. Despite his pure talent and magic, yesterday was not his day in his 10th El Classico appearance. He couldn’t quite produce the same amount of magic he has done in previous big games, this could have been down to the fact it just simply wasn’t his day but also the fantastic defensive display of his Spanish teammate Marc Cucurella. Despite not having the greatest game Lamine still recorded the joint most dribbles during the game with 4 dribbles complete. However that is out of 9 attempted so with only a 44% dribble success rate that isn’t up to normal Lamine standards. Saying that every time he was on the ball no matter where he was on the pitch it felt like he was going to produce a moment of magic.
He had one big chance missed when Fermin had his pass deflect straight through to Lamine who was one on one Infront of goal and he blazed it wide, which was a shock to everyone. It was a very poor miss that could have changed the way the game was played out if he had taken that chance. He did however come close on a few occasions including a nice shot from outside the box that was very close to finding it’s way into the bottom corner.
It seemed the large thorn in Lamine’s side was Cucurella, who didn’t give the winger time to breath, he was marking Lamine tightly the whole game, even one phase of play where he had tracked Lamine a good 20 yards all the way from his left side of defence to the right where he stopped a left footed shot from Lamine on the right side of Real Madrid’s box. So it was a mix of not being Lamine Yamal’s day or Marc Cucurella putting up a very good defensive display.
Great wall of Cucurella
Speaking merely moments ago about reasons Lamine didn’t have his best game one of the main talking points was Real Madrid’s summer signing Marc Cucurella who was outstanding against Barcelona. He registered a 7.4 FotMob match rating as he put up a fantastic defensive performance against Barcelona.
He was clearly instructed by Jose Mourinho to stick to Lamine like super glue and that’s what the Spanish left back did the whole game, and he carried out that task very very well. He hardly gave Yamal time to breathe, the second the ball was coming over the Lamine, Cucurella was there to clear it away or not allow Lamine to have any time or space. He managed to keep the teenage sensation as quite as possible, this really damaged Barcelona’s attacking threat.
Some of his key defensive statistics include, the second highest amount of defensive contributions with 12 behind teammate Dean Huijsen with 16, 3 tackles, 1 block, 5 clearances, 2 headed clearances, 3 interceptions and 6 recoveries. He was dribbled past once however that is completely drowned out by the fantastic defensive display by the Spanish World Cup winner.
Jose Mourinho masterclass
After returning to Real Madrid for his second time at the wheel, this was the first El Classico for the Special one in 13 years, and what a return to the famous fixture he had. He played his perfect style of football, with Real Madrid not having empty possession of the ball and relying on mostly counter attacks to break down Barcelona’s high defensive line under Hansi Flick. Having only 38% possession his team worked on keeping Barcelona out rather than constantly trying to break them down. This is Jose Mourinho’s perfect style of football, not flashy, not relying on entertainment, but grinding out results in games like this where it feels crazy to say but Real Madrid came in as the underdogs. He deployed his park the bus style of defensive football perfectly last night, after Mbappe got the lucky deflection putting Madrid 1-0 up, Jose got his men to sit back a bit more, yes they were still creating but more focused on defending, and that was even more evident during the second half when Barcelona had a lot of the ball and were spending the majority of the time in and around Real Madrid’s final third and box. Now of course eventually Barcelona broke the Madrid wall with a lovely bit of football from Pedri and a nice finish from Barcelona captain Raphinha. However the special one’s men stayed calm and continued to stay compact and defensive then when Barcelona overcommitted Jude Bellingham got the ball played it to Camavinga who took frontal charge on a counterattack that finished with Mbappe scoring the winning goal. So, Jose Mourinho deployed his mid-block, defensive park the bus, counter attacking football to exploit Barcelona when they overcommit in attack and that’s exactly what Real Madrid did and it lead to them winning them the game.
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