LaLiga: Bellingham’s late goal gives Real Madrid ‘Clasico’ win to leave title in their grasp
The win leaves Real Madrid 11 points clear of Barcelona with just six games.
The La Liga El Clasico between champions FC Barcelona and Real Madrid ended in a 2-2 draw despite the former being reduced to 10 men at the half-time here on Sunday.
Luis Suarez gave Barcelona the lead in the 10th minute, connecting across from Sergi Roberto from the right at the Camp Nou Stadium.
But third-placed Real Madrid took only four minutes to come up with the equaliser through a strike from Cristiano Ronaldo, who marked his 450th goal for the record European champions.
Advertisement
During the first-half injury time, Barcelona right-back Sergi Roberto appeared to throw a hand towards Madrid left-back Marcelo’s face in and was shown a red card.
Despite playing with a player short, Barcelona came out strongly in the second half, with Lionel Messi giving the Catalan outfit a 2-1 lead.
Madrid struggled to break through with talisman Ronaldo being substituted by Marco Asensio following an injury.
Real Madrid restored parity after a Toni Kroos’ through ball to Welsh forward Gareth Bale saw the latter come up with a powerful finish at the left post in the 72nd minute.
Four minutes later, Real thought they should have been awarded a penalty after Marcelo was brought down inside the box by Jordi Alba.
Afterwards neither side was able to score a winner as Barcelona settled for the draw in a game marred by controversies in front of nearly 97,000 crowd as they continued their unbeaten campaign.
“It’s tough playing down a man, especially against Madrid,” SuAirez said after the game, as reported by Barcelona website. “But the team did a spectacular job, physically.”
Real Madrid wasted the opportunity to cut the deficit to second-placed Atletico Madrid, who were stunned by Espanyol 0-2 earlier in the day. While Atletico have 75 points from 36 games, Real Madrid have 72 points from 35 matches.
“I would liked to have won. In a Clasico where there was nothing at stake, it was a great game. We both went out to play. We both played a great game and football is always the most important thing, more so than the controversies,” Real Madrid head coach Zinedine Zidane was quoted as saying by Marca.
“We played a good game (before the red card) and, in contrast, with the extra man we were a bit worse. We needed to have a little more patience, but that doesn’t change anything. We must congratulate Barcelona.”
Advertisement