Just days on from thrashing Bayern Munich while barely breaking a sweat, Hansi Flick’s La Masia kids have run riot once again.
Speaking in David vs Goliath terms when discussing Barcelona against Real Madrid would typically be a rather outrageous stance to analyse a game from, but given the gap that has formed between the two in recent years, it’s actually pretty spot on.
Especially when you consider that this was an (almost) all-conquering Real side boosted by the signing of Kylian Mbappe hosting a fragile Barcelona side with no less than six young La Masia graduates in the starting XI.
The story that stole the headlines was a breathtaking Barcelona performance with Flick’s masterplan being an incredibly well-choreographed high line, which allowed Barcelona to frustrate their rivals before using press resistance and slick passing to decimate them in transition.
Raphinha’s performance was breathtaking and once again Marc Casado stood out in midfield, but it’s impossible to look past Yamal, who made it 3-0 in the 77th minute with a record-breaking finish.
Extraordinary as ever from the teenage freak, he needed only two touches to kill the game. One to take in a brilliant pass from Raphinha, and the second to fire the ball into the roof of the net beyond a helpless Andriy Lunin.
Seriously Andriy, thanks for coming, but don’t bother next time. Kid’s a complete anomaly.
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Yamal became the youngest goalscorer in the history of El Clasico with the goal and made it 3-0 on the night, but what we loved most was the newfound attitude after scoring.
While normally we’d expect a young player’s fearlessness to come out in how they play, the 17-year-old took it a step further and was sure to tip the Bernabeu to boiling point with his celebrations.
After smashing in the misery compiler in an eventual 4-0 thrashing, he ran to the corner flag mimicking Cristiano Ronaldo’s iconic ‘calma’ celebration, before cheekily breaking out into dance – the same dance Vinicius Junior usually pulls out after scoring.
As if being extraordinarily good at football at such a young age wasn’t enough, he’s now developed the sh*thouse gene too. You love to see it.
You have to go back to 2022 to find the last time La Blaugrana rocked up to the Santiago Bernabeu and beat Los Blancos in a league contest.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a brace and Sergio Busquets was patrolling the midfield in a 4-0 win, which tells you everything you need to know about the journey Barça have been on in the time since.
Even then, though, that felt cheap. Their capture of the 2022-23 La Liga title under Xavi papered over cracks and concealed the fact that they were still activating more economic levers than we’ve had hot dinners here at Planet Football.
So when Xavi was dismissed, a hard reset was needed once again. Flick has provided that in the most perfect way, tapping into exactly what makes Barcelona so special in the first place.
Winning is one thing, but winning in style, fuelled by La Masia, is another feeling entirely.
Yamal is central to restoring that feeling and firing them back to the top – even if he’s so young that he’s changing the colour of his braces to red and blue to mark the big occasion.
Sickening. We never stood a chance of making it pro, did we?
Barcelona now sit pretty atop of La Liga with 10 wins out of 11 and have already pulled a six-point gap on their El Clasico rivals with that huge away victory.
The Flick revolution is just beginning and Yamal is just warming up – wait until he learns the shush celebration.
By Mitch Wilks
