Goals. Was Sunday’s 4-3 Clasico going to ever be any different? Hansi Flick’s side have beaten Real Madrid in all four times that that teams have met this season – with an astonishing 23 goals scored in the games and four more ruled out.
Seven points clear of their greatest rivals, Barcelona are two points from becoming Spanish champions and have already beaten Madrid in both the Spanish Super Cup and Copa del Rey finals to complete the four straight wins.
The Clasico scorelines this season have been extraordinary: 4-0 in the Bernabeu, 5-2 in Jeddah in the Super Cup, 3-2 in extra time in Seville in the Copa del Rey and now 4-3 in the home league fixture.
Barcelona’s brilliant young side have now scored 95 league goals, 23 more than the next highest scoring team - Real Madrid.
In the Champions League group stage, Barca’s 28 goals in just eight games were far more than any of the other 35 teams. Barca’s six Champions League group stage games saw 26 goals – well above the average of other teams.
Goals have been the hallmark of Barcelona’s season as much as wins, but also the way the team come back in match – the remontadas.
Twice in the last two weeks, Barcelona went 2-0 behind to Inter Milan. Twice, Barcelona drew level and went ahead – before drawing 3-3 and losing 4-3 in the second leg in two of the greatest Champions League semi-finals.
Yet Barca also concede. The La Liga leaders don’t have the best defence in their domestic league – Atletico Madrid, Villarreal and 13th placed Getafe have conceded fewer than Barca’s goal per game average.
Flick’s side conceded 13 goals in eight Champions League group games – more than any other team in the top 18 of the 36 team group.
As the season comes to an end, the number of goals that Barcelona score – and concede – has increased. Jules Kounde’s absence in recent weeks hasn’t helped. He’s not an offensive right back in the way Daniel Alves was, more a player with the mentality of a third central defender.
Alejandro Balde, the other usual full-back, is the one who goes up and down non-stop, but in recent games Barca have played Gerard Martin, who, while industrious, is not yet a left-back of Barcelona quality.
As Inter Milan showed, teams are starting to work out how Barcelona play – which is without a holding midfielder. Both Frenkie de Jong and Pedri are amazing on the ball, but they don’t win the second balls.
Centre-back Pau Cubarsi is supremely talented, but he’s 18 and still learning. His usual partner Inigo Martinez is 33 and a top performer, but there are faster central defenders.
Ronald Araujo, 26, has been a defensive star of recent seasons but he’s been injured and out of form, his confidence not what it was and he was involved more than he would like in Inter’s own comeback in Milan.
Central-defender Andreas Christensen, 29 has been injured too. He came on for 33 minutes against Madrid on Sunday for only his third league appearance of the season, but by that time the Catalans had already done what they usually do - leak goals.
When Real Madrid went 2-0 up inside 14 minutes on Sunday afternoon, the fans were shocked, more so after the midweek defeat in San Siro. Kylian Mbappe scored both, the first a penalty after a Pau Cubarsi error, and there would be more to come from him.
Had the scoreline stayed like that, Carlo Ancelotti’s side would have moved within a point of Barca with three La Liga games to play.
That’s three tough games for the Catalans away to neighbours Espanyol on Thursday, home to a Villarreal side needing a win for a Champions League place and away to Athletic Club needing the same.
Yet those fans – all but 400 Madrid fans in the 50,319 crowd for what’s likely to be the penultimate game of Barcelona’s two-year stay at Montjuic - also know their thrilling young team, the talent within it and their indomitable spirit.
Two down, Barcelona scored four goals in 26 first half minutes, the first a header from Erik Garcia on 19 minutes, then Lamine Yamal curled a shot in after 32, a beautiful strike.
Fans were still celebrating and roaring “Yamal” as the PA announcer shouted “Gol de Lamine” several times when Raphinha got the first of two goals in 11 minutes, his second was his fifth goal against Madrid this season.
Striker Ferran Torres, the home side’s best player, assisted three of Barcelona’s first half goals in the May sunshine.
Mbappe thought he’d bagged a hat-trick with a goal in the eighth minute of the first half stoppage time, but the effort was flagged for off-side. Yamal was also denied by the off-side flag after the break, but Mbappe did get his hat-trick – and became only the fourth player to do so in the clasico this century – with an easy finish after being set up by Vinicius Junior on 70.
It was the latest crazy Barcelona game, full of incident and excitement and world class football. Raphinha should have had a hat-trick himself but put the orange ball wide from close range.
Mbappe missed another sitter, Aurelien Tchouameni saw a header disallowed while Victor Munoz missed a fine chance. Madrid’s Catalan forward, 21, was abused so much on social media that he had to disable comments.
At the other end as the game drew to a close, Fermin Lopez’s curling shot in the 84th minute started vast celebrations, but it was another ‘goal’ where VAR got involved and spotted a hand ball in the build-up.
"I hadn’t noticed the handball,” said the forward. “It’s rightly disallowed, it was a nice goal, but that’s it. We don’t give up until the end.”
Not everyone inside Barcelona will be as objective when talking about refereeing decision from this game. The subject of referees crops up far more in Spain than in rival leagues, with conspiracies aplenty.
Mbappe thought he had scored in time added on. Once again, an effort was ruled out for being off-side and 4-3 it stayed.
“It’s fantastic the mentality we have to come back from 2-0,” said a delighted Hansi Flick, who is set to win a treble in his first season as coach in Spain.
“I am going to have to check my heart. It would be easy to say that the tactic is to score four if they score three. We have to improve a lot defensively. When we press, it is fine. But this can get complicated when we make mistakes.”
Ancelotti, who will join Brazil as their first overseas manager, was keen to point out that his side had five defenders missing, adding “Don’t forget that” to journalists. True, but Barcelona have been missing too many of their own.
Ancelotti, who is likely to be replaced by former Madrid midfielder and current Bayer Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso, will be remembered as a hugely successful Madrid coach, but not this season in the four Clasicos.
Barcelona will continue to thrill and should improve, but they need to stop conceding so many goals. Having to score four to ensure they win a game is unsustainable.
