Man what a match that was! Though I felt upset at how some of our players played, I know this league is far from finished. 10 more games = 10 more opportunities.

There are a few things that I need to say about this match. Before, I had some theories that today became facts.

1- Modric is the engine to our team, and NOT Di Maria. I always enjoy a player who is more about the fundamentals of the game rather than just skill, and Modric is one of those guys. Know that he's back, I feel that the team is more stable thanks to his football IQ.

2- Messi is the greatest in the world. To me, I think that the best player to ever touch a football is Zidan, but that will surely change once Messi hangs his boots.

3- Ronaldo feeds off of criticism and hate. Unlike myself (lol) and many others, Ronaldo seems to perform better when he is challenged. Every time he touched the ball Barcelona fans booed his ass.

Performance rating:

-Jérémy Mathieu 8/10: Good work on D
Ronaldo 9/10: He hustled and scored.. good effort
Messi/ Marcelo 9.5/10: Pretty obvious

Good game overall. We came so close but we didn't have any luck. The better team lost today. As for the score line, I'm not that upset. For a while I had a feeling that we would lose (because of our hideous form, and how Luis Enrique managed to take the team from zero to hero lately). As a huge fan of Los Blancos, I would like to congratulate Barcelona's win. No excuses. We had our chances and we did not execute properly. On the other hand, Barcelona made something out of nothing and blow us out of the water.

bravo's performance was also great.

Sure, he did have great saves. Especially the one against Big Benz

cristiano was also unlucky he hit the post.

Messi is great, but man be honest he has made an assist and created a couple of chances, not even ronaldo deserved those ratings, ronaldo was better in the 1' and messi in the second.

Madrid: Modric than marcelo and benz. these three made the massive impact

Barca: pique, alba and bravo, suarez also played a decent game.

These are the players that played for the win and heart the rest were just playing, our defence in the second half was poor aside of carvajal and varane.

Things I learned is that Varane is perfect against barca, way better
than pepe. Benzema undergoes drugs whenever a classico comes up (he was
phenomenal). Bale cant beat alba by using pace only, he really needs to
improvise more. Suarez is a beast!! But i expected more from CR7 and
LM10, Ronaldo was great in the first half, Messi was great in the
second. This shows the reflection of the performance. When the ace
rises, the team dominates

PIQUE was the MOTM for me. He was on point with every challenge, his positioning was top class. PIQUE IS BACK. we don't need no cb.

If i had to pick 3 players from Madrid : The first one is Marcelo, best Madrid player for a while now, he does more than just play in his position, he is worth 2 players, then Modric obvious, then Benzema.

The game played again on details, Ronaldo hit the bar, Barça scores from set piece, Neymar looses a golden chance of 2-0, counter attack Madrid equalizer, then equilibrated game until Suarez goal.

Very open game, the best Football quality you can watch at the moment, haters will hate, Suarez for the glory and awarded for his hardwork, Messi sacrified himself for the team.

No team dominated the other, doesnt feel any superiority nor inferiority in the teams level in the build up ( counter attacks asside ).

Barça lost some of team chemistry and Ball control, won a solid defense and their main weakness became its strenght, Luis Enrique work has surprisingly paid, this Barça looks more to Reijkard one more to Guardiola, less artistic and more pragmatic...

I dont care for the moment, we are in silverware urgency, still one of the most entertaining Football in the world, Iniesta, Neymar and Bale are the flops...

For me; Benzema and Marcelo was the best performers for Real Madrid and Mathieu was the man of the match. Neymar (in the first half) and Bale were the disappointments.

The only complain i have about the game was the ref. He was very inconsistent handing out yellows for every little thing. Other than that the side lines where perfect calling out the very close off sides of Ronaldo on Bale's goal.

Good: Pique, Mascherano, Messi, Suarez, Alba, Bravo, Mathieu
Benzema, Ronaldo (except for his terrible dive rightly punished), Ramos, Modric, Marcelo, Casillas, Carvajal.

Bad: Neymar, Iniesta
Bale, Isco

I felt each substitution was made directly to respond to the other team and didnt really undertand why bring in Silva when your team is trying to push for a goal.

^ Injury or tiredness...

Also, great to see a positive post after a classico. This forum needs a positive change. This season La Liga is great, Valenica up on 3rd 1 point ahead of Atletico and 4 from Real.

Be humble in defeat and even more so in victory.

Yeah its the game circumstances that defines the post games issues, when they had someone like Mourinho with his minds game before the game, insulting before acting like a p**k in the game and whining after the game, that was quite hard to stay cold for both sides...
When controversy was king, the fight continued in social media. Now we saw 2 healthy Clasicos lately with incredible gameplay quality and few controversies, so i wouldnt have acted bad even if Barça lost, and Barça could have lost if Madrid scored at the end of first half...

Absolutely, Raimondo. No matter what the outcome of the match is, or what happened in the match, I always try to look at the positive side. Being a fan of a football club must make you realize that you win some and you lose some.
As members of this forum, we must say yes to passion, and no to ignorance :)

I wont make Isco on flop list, despite not having a big impact on the game, he had a big defensive duty individual marking Messi with Marcelo zonal marking, it has shutted Messi down considerably, but took energy from him.
He could have scored on his own in a short corner played by Madrid if he lifted more his ball, he and Rakitic were average but both far from flopping.

It was a great match! El Clasico is the best match in European football. Forget Inter vs Milan, or Arsenal vs Chelsea, or City vs UTD. Real Madrid vs Barcelona is ALWAYS a great, intense, and suspenseful game! Saddened by the scoreline, as I feel Madrid deserved a bit more, but thats football and Barcelona were great.

I can only get positive feedback from this match though. Madrid played great, dominating the first half of the game against Barcelona in their own back yard. Real is far from their best form, yet they gave a tough battle to a Barcelona who's arguably in their best form this season, so pretty happy with that.

Modric. He is the lungs of the team, he's such a good and crucial player for this team so I'm glad he's back.

Hopefully Madrid will only improve, and with James due to come back soon, hopefully we can beat Atleti in their own ground.

Anyways, great match and congratulations to Barcelona!

PS: Why did Mascherano act like he had been hit in the face? No need for that in a game like this, just brings a bad image to Barcelona and the match it self...

Mathieu, Bravo, Messi, Benzema, Ronaldo, Modric... Great perfomance by both teams!

I disagree with the RM supporters here. Barcelona was much better over the course of 90 minutes, the only dominant phase from Real Madrid was from minute 30 to minute 45. If it wasn't for Neymar's poor finishing and the inability to finish a counter properly in the second half, Barcelona would have killed the game half an hour before the final whistle. Neymar and Suarez were really unfocused in the second half, losing a lot of balls and playing bad passes. They don't really seem to have the best chemistry between each other, especially Neymar tends to be really selfish if he's in a 2 v 1 situation with Suarez, he never passes as if he didn't want Suarez to score.

For me, the best players in a RM kit were Marcelo, Modric, Benzema and Isco (he made a briliant job marking Messi and basically took him out of the game. Did you notice that Messi had a lot more touches when Isco was subsituted? However, playing Messi's watchdog cost him a lot of energy, therefore he didn't really have an attacking impact on the game). On the opposite side, the best players were Mascherano (won a lot of balls and bossed the midfield overall) and Jordi Alba (provided an attacking threat and completely shut down Bale, who was the worst player on the pitch imo). Messi and Ronaldo didn't impress me particularly.

However, there's one more thing that needs to be addressed..

Some intresting facts:

In last 14 El Clasicos Barcelona won 9 times, Real won 3 times and 2 times teams played draw.

Barcelona never won 18 wins in 20 matches of calendar year. The record.

Barcelona's possesion was lowest in season - 52.36%

With 13 assists in El Clasico matches, Messi became player with most assists in 21. century El Clasico.

Real had 6, and Barca had 5 yellow cards - for both teams record in this season.

In two Clasicos, Suarez made goal and assist.

Both Barca and Real conceded at least one goal in last 18 El Clasicos.

Ronaldo matched Raul's 15 goals in El Clasico derbies. Di Stefano has 18 and Messi 21.

Even tho we lost i am not even abit mad. Was a great game, open both on the offense and defense i would have been very very happy with a draw but i gotta say the game could have been much more fun If bale played abit better. He was bad for the bale that i know but atleast he was better then last games. I just think both barca and real need better bench players. Silva for me is very good sub he needs time to be a great card ancelloti can use. I think we need to bring someone young and can rotate with Kross James Modric and start playing isco with bale to fight for a spot im thinking (not going to happen) but veratti along with a striker we would have more depth. Veratti and someone like lacazeti would make us be really strong for the future.