Barcelona lost 2-1 to Real Madrid in El Clasico on Sunday night at Camp Nou on a bad night for Hansi Flick’s side. It’s a first league defeat for the Catalans and follows on from a midweek defeat to PSG in the Champions League.
Let’s see how the players fared:
Defence
Joan Garcia – 6.5
Was solid all game, excellent sweeper-keeping. However, made a mistake by unnecessarily charging down Camavinga on a tight angle leading to the second Real goal.
Joao Cancelo – 5
His defensive frailties showed again, he left a lot
of open space for the opposition wingers (even though he usually got across to cover) and contributed next to nothing going forward.
Gerard Martin – 2.5
Simply not a Barca-quality performance. He made far too many misplaced passes, very shaky defensively and a terrible clearance leading to the Real opener. Redeemed his rating a little with a successful 2v1 defence against Bellingham and Mbappe, but still poor across the 90 minutes including failing to score a wide-open header to make it 2-1.
Pau Cubarsi – 7
One of the few players that was good – ran around a lot to stop so many attacks (including one last-ditch tackle on Mbappe) and generally a mistake-free performance, although not exceptional.
Xavi Espart – 7
Was looking really good in his limited time before the injury, blocked Diomande well and linked up with Yamal, hope he’s fine.
Midfield
Pedri – 6
Extremely disappointing first half including so many poor passes but redeemed himself a little in the second with a more assured display and a nice disguised assist.
Rodri – 4
Provided no control whatever, barely marked Bellingham at all and generally was just invisible for large periods, interspersed with an occasional challenge but not a good day for him. In his defence, he was repeatedly fouled without any punishment.
Fermin Lopez – 6.5
Largely did well, worked hard and had a few good cross-field passes but no actual output.
Attack
Anthony Gordon – 5
Industrious as usual, won a lot of turnovers high up the field but his final third decision-making with the ball is baffling, almost never seems to pick out the right pass or shot once he does win it back.
Raphinha – 6
Good goal and pressed a lot but he tracked back much less than usual and looked like a shadow of his usual dynamic self.
Lamine Yamal – 5
Too selfish, rarely passed the ball when attacking and kept trying to be the hero by himself and his usual magical dribbling was ineffective. Worth noting that again, Cucurella got away with multiple card-worthy fouls on him and there was one nice attempted assist that Raphinha couldn’t quite connect with.
Substitutes and manager
Alejandro Balde – 7
Brought on early for Espart out of necessity- still needs to work on his final ball in attack but otherwise far better than Cancelo on the night, ran so much and locked Guler off for most of the game, and almost got an assist to De Jong late on.
Frenkie de Jong – 6
Close to scoring on his return to the side, provided much more control than the starting midfield but looked rusty and committed a few unnecessary fouls.
Karim Adeyemi – 5
Ran at Dumfries a lot but didn’t actually achieve a lot besides one over-hit cross
Gabriel Jesus – 4
Almost no involvement at all except the giveaway on the Real winner.
Hansi Flick – 4
His hand was largely forced while picking the starting XI due to the defensive injury crisis, but the team looked bereft of ideas and a method, there was just route-one hoofball instead of the usual efficient and smooth passing. Also waited far too long for the substitutions, the starters were exhausted by that time and the substitutes got no time to influence the game.
