On Monday in the Camp Nou stadium, Barcelona routed Madrid, 5-0.
It was, first and foremost, a performance of all that is decent in the global game. It was soccer made simple, but artistry so thrilling, for 98,000 fans in the stadium and hundreds of millions viewing via television around the world.
Maybe the game can be played more brilliantly than Barça did it on Monday.
But I very much doubt it.
To see 11 men as gifted as Barcelona’s dominate 90 minutes as comprehensively as they did against Madrid can leave only one regret: It was so one-sided that Real was reduced to chasing lost causes until, long before the end, they lost the will even to fight for the ball.
Real lost composure, too, with seven yellow cards and one red one.
And even under teeming skies, it is a fair bet the fan who paid 500 euros, or about $655, for a black-market ticket thought it worth the price. David Villa scored twice in his first Clásico. Xavi Hernández, Pedro Rodríguez and a substitute called Jeffrén Suárez got the others.
Suárez is a Venezuelan. But like Lionel Messi, he came through the Barcelona academy, La Masia. Like nine of the starting eleven, he is a product of the Barcelona school that not only imbues a winning way into the boys, but a style of passing and movement and creativity so distinctive you could spot a Barça player in silhouette.
Statistics are usually the poor man’s guide to performance, yet on this occasion they spoke volumes. Barcelona attempted 684 passes and were successful in 89 percent of them. Real Madrid tried 331 passes, of which 74 percent found the intended player.
Those are bare numbers, but almost incomparable ones given the quality of the opposition and the tenacity of the fray.
But there was more to it than accuracy. There was Barcelona’s great desire to work for the openings, to run off the ball, to run intuitively into positions to give it and receive it back.
There was also the improvisation. Messi did not score for the first time in 10 matches. He struck a post, and he was creatively involved in three of the five goals. He darted wide, he withdrew himself deep so that others could exploit space.
And when others include Andrés Iniesta and Xavi, you might be looking at the best Spain has produced for many a year. They conjured the opening goal between them. Iniesta made the pass, and Xavi, a midfielder moving like a central striker, controlled the ball with his heel, flicked it up, and lobbed it gently beyond the reach of goalie Iker Casillas.
Casillas was his World Cup captain, his close ally. But Casillas was a forlorn figure as the shots peppered his net. Others who enjoyed such a rewarding summer together in Johannesburg, Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos of Madrid, were guilty of some pretty rough fouls, largely targeting Messi.
But neither fair nor foul tactics could stop the tide of Barcelona’s momentum. The imported stars of Real, who cost three times what Barça has spent in transfer payments, had arrived with the rhetoric of champions.
They departed somewhat chastised.
Madrid’s superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo, barely showed his class, and often showed petulance. He had chosen in the buildup to mock Barcelona, which had won its previous Liga game, 8-0. It didn’t, he said, impress him. If Barça could score eight against Real, that would impress him.
Barcelona very nearly did just that. The gulf was wide enough that the home crowd was shouting ‘‘olé’’ with every passing moment.
There are two ways of developing a top team: Build it like Barça, or buy it like Real. On Monday’s evidence, Barcelona is way ahead on talent and teamwork.
It looked like a humiliation, but Madrid coach José Mourinho would not accept the word.
‘‘Humiliation?’’ he answered back to journalists. ‘‘No. It’s easy to deal with this loss. One team played to their potential tonight and the other played very badly. The championship will still be very close at the end.’’ Mourinho did make some salient points. Barcelona, he said, is the finished article, the result of many years of work. His Madrid was a work in progress.
‘‘There’s nothing more to be done today,’’ he concluded. ‘‘But from tomorrow, we have to do a great deal. We have to show character for Saturday’s match in the Bernabeu against Valencia.’’ And then he, and his chastened team, were gone. What remained, because Catalans never sleep after beating Madrid, was the discussion in all the bars and all the cafes down Las Ramblas.
Is this the best Barça ever? The comparison has to be the Dream Team that under Johan Cruyff’s management won four successive Spanish league titles at the start of the 1990s, and the European Cup.
That team had Pep Guardiola, today’s coach, in its midfield. It had Gheorghe Hagi, Hristo Stoichkov, Michael Laudrup, Romário and Ronald Koeman.
And since Koeman was there, watching on Monday, television announcers could not resist asking him to kick off the debate. How do the boys of 2010 compare to the team of 1994? ‘‘We had in our team very, very good players,’’ replied Koeman. ‘‘You should not compare, because everything is faster today. Incredible speed. But yeah, this Barcelona is better — much better.’’
The aspect the world can admire, and perhaps envy, is that it is all in-house. The Barcelona stars of today were the academy kids of yesterday, and the stars of tomorrow are already in the system. Olé.
