‘Barcelona are back’: The night that felt like a new era

Real Madrid had walked out to a banner marking their 120th anniversary, but were sent cowering by a Barcelona playing – and celebrating – like it was 2009.

This supreme performance didn’t get to the mythical 5-0, that most storied of Clasico results, but that is someway fitting as it symbolises this team have more levels to go. The future has changed.

Rarely have teams that are clearly works in progress been so complete. Rarely have runaway league leaders been given such a beating at home. It was easy to forget the league table says Madrid are the better team, still by a massive 12 points, and the wonder is how this virtually inevitable title victory will be remembered. It will always have the stain of this 4-0. It may well see Carlo Ancelotti sacked. Xavi is just beginning.

From early on in this game at a renovated Bernabeu, it had the feel of a landmark match. It was that much of a statement. Gerard Pique then went and said the words everyone was thinking. “Barcelona are back.”

That may feel hasty, and there will no doubt be discussion over the level of this squad compared to Europe’s true elite right now, but what was so impressive about it was the nature of the performance. It was pure Barcelona, and then some. There was much more to it than this being a poor Madrid without Karim Benzema.

The truth is that Carlo Ancelotti’s side weren’t allowed play, let alone play badly. Barcelona just gave them no space, penning them back for long periods.

That recalled Pep Guardiola’s famous 6-2 win here back in May 2009, and comes from similar approaches. One of the great Catalan’s first steps on taking over in 2008 was to drastically increase the intensity of a squad that had been allowed to become lethargic, and it is exactly what Xavi has followed, albeit with the most modern of fitness approaches.

Training has been moved forward and is so sharp, a long way from the days when the clique of players around Lionel Messi basically dictated the nature of sessions. Xavi has instead devised a sophisticated system with his fitness coach and long-time friend, Ivan Torres. The results were all too visible here, seeing so many moments when Madrid were just hounded into submission. Gavi, who came on with 19 minutes to go, won more duels – with five – than any of Ancelotti’s players.

Madrid simply didn’t have the time to play. Barca were that dominant. They were also that in command.

There were even longer spells, particularly in the first half, where they just took control of the ball and made the pitch their own, evoking memories of that most famous of 5-0s from November 2010. That Barcelona did it in the Bernabeu was all the more impressive, the stadium stunned into almost total silence as early as the 38th minute. That was after Ronald Araujo headed in the second, just nine minutes after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had plundered the first.

The game already felt finished as a contest by that point, but that was made clear just 30 seconds into the second half, with the goal that was probably the pick of the game. From another pulsating attack, Aubeyang suddenly opened up Thibaut Courtois’ box with a deft flick, and there was Ferran Torres to smash the ball into the roof of the net.

It was magnificent. It was too much for some Madrid fans. Many began streaming out as early as the 51st minute, after Aubameyang scored a goal that was all the more humiliating for its self-indulgent manner. Put through, the Gabonese just impudently lifted it over Courtois.

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It was another of many moments when Barcelona seemed to completely expose Madrid, getting so many players in behind and leaving Courtois screaming at a defence who had just desperately avoided another goal. It really could have been 7-0 or 8-0 and wouldn’t have been unjustified. The expectation of Xavi, however, was fully justified.

As well as a more intense Barca, he has also created a more intelligent Barca. The former midfielder naturally watched the team every week when working in Qatar, and a huge mental dossier of where and how every player could improve. He duly gave each of them specific sessions on taking the job, and the result is this: a rout of a 4-0 win, a first Clasico victory in six, a fifth win in a row in the league and – most of all – a truly convincing display.

It has some of the same feelings as Guardiola’s initial run in 2008-09 after two poor opening defeats, but only to a certain extent. The squad is obviously nowhere near as good. More work is required. That these players are producing this is only to Xavi’s credit, though.

It’s not just how young talents like Gabi and Pedri have gone up a level, either. It’s how so many players that had looked in some kind of chronic decline have been reborn. Gerard Pique was back looking like one of the best defenders in the world. Sergio Busquets was back looking the best defensive midfielder in the world. Frenkie De Jong was taking control in the manner so many expected. Ousmane Dembele was the player everyone thought he could be, creating that tone-setting first goal with a scorching run out wide. Aubameyang was then the forward that does feel worth all that money, and some of the trouble. Barca aren’t seeing any of those issues, though. They’re seeing a truly happy player, willing to work and lead the press, and then playing with a confidence that means he finishes like that. It all just looks so revitalised.

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It made Madrid look even more stale, like they need even more work. That’s what some of this was, too. It was old football against new football, stale ideas against modern ideas. Florentino Perez had been giving thought to sacking Ancelotti at the end of the season, until that comeback against Paris Saint-Germain, but this will surely cause re-assessment. Certainly, that victory over the French side now feels like it was more about PSG’s failings than Madrid’s qualities. They should be fearful of Chelsea in the quarter-finals.

Should they be fearful of what’s next in the league?

Xavi said this win “can change the dynamic of the present and future” and he was clearly referencing the development of his own team, but could it end up referring to this run-in? It doesn’t feel impossible that Madrid could implode after something as chastening as this. Pablo Zabaleta was working on the game as a pundit and pointed to how Manchester City came back from similar in 2011-12. A lot still has to happen for that, of course.

For now, and despite the hope of that “present and future”, Xavi was asked to look back to the past. Not to Guardiola’s period, this time, but even further back. The Barcelona coach was asked whether the win actually reminded him of 2004. That was when the club claimed a significant 2-1 win at the Bernabeu after a period of painful rebuild every bit as torrid as the last year, to bring the start of their greatest glory era. Xavi accepted some similarities – but made the point that the team should accept nothing yet.

“It reminded of the 1-2 of 2004 a little, but there is work to be done,” he said. “This is not a trophy. We have to work with solidarity. There’s a long way to go. We still have goals of the season to achieve. We have to continue.”

This game certainly continued a distinguished line, but may well represent the true start of something now. For all the understandable recalls, it isn’t 2004, or 2009 or 2011 or 2015. It’s also no longer the horrors of 2021. It’s a much brighter future. It was just, in the words of Xavi himself, “one spectacular display”.