Like all of the world’s great sporting rivalries, El Clasico has its peaks and troughs. There are periods when its significance and spectacle rises and falls.
For one reason or another, the past few years have felt like a cooling-off period, at least in contrast to what we witnessed throughout the 2010s, one of the fixture’s undisputed golden ages.
Be it the Messi-Ronaldo show, which took centre stage in El Clasico between 2009 and 2018, the toxicity of the meetings during the Jose Mourinho years at Real Madrid, or the simmering political tensions in Catalunya, there were always subplots that only served to spice up a rivalry that rarely disappointed on the pitch.
Heated Clasico a throwback to yesteryear
The first Clasico of the 2025/26 season, and the first of the Xabi Alonso era in Madrid, took place on Sunday. While it produced fewer goals than all of last term’s four clashes, on some levels this felt much more like the Clasicos that captivated global audiences a decade or so ago.
Spiced up by some pointed pre-game remarks from Lamine Yamal, there was always an undercurrent to this fixture. Things didn’t fully boil over until the final moments of the game, when red cards were dished out to Pedri and Andriy Lunin, and when a full-time altercation between Yamal and his international teammate Dani Carvajal helped spark wider confrontations between the two teams.
What happened should not be blown out of proportion. There were plenty of words and the odd gesture exchanged, but no punches were thrown and this will likely blow over more quickly than the debate over Vinicius Junior’s petulant reaction to being substituted by Alonso nearly 30 minutes earlier.
However, it was clear that the Clasico edge was back, with just enough bad blood present to whet the appetite for the next meeting of the clubs, which could potentially be in the Supercopa in January.
Contrast that with the first meeting of the 2023/24 season, which also ended in a 2-1 Real Madrid win, when Barca’s Ilkay Gundogan called for “more frustration, more anger and more disappointment” from his teammates, whose limited reaction to getting beat seemingly upset the experienced midfielder.
The pendulum had swung firmly back in Barcelona’s direction by the 2024/25 campaign, with Hansi Flick’s side winning all four Clasicos. Only the Copa del Rey final in April, which Barca won 3-2 in extra time, came close to matching the intensity and prolonged sense of jeopardy on show throughout this weekend.
A much-needed Real Madrid win
El Clasico always matters, but league encounters are normally more important for the side doing the chasing. This latest clash was a rare exception, with all the pressure on Real Madrid, despite the two-point lead they held going into the game.
That was not only a reflection of a desperate run of results against their great rivals, but also a sense that even Alonso’s arrival had not resolved their problems in the biggest fixtures.
The ex-Bayer Leverkusen boss had won 15 of his 18 matches as Real Madrid coach heading into El Clasico, losing only twice. However, those two defeats came via a 4-0 margin against PSG in the Club World Cup, and a 5-2 loss to Atletico Madrid in LaLiga.
A fresh setback at home against an injury-ravaged Barcelona would have cast a dark, early shadow on his reign, but this was a much more polished and complete display, with Los Blancos good value for their victory.
“We had been talking about it beforehand, how important the game was,” claimed Alonso after the dust had settled on an entertaining clash.
“Not just for the three points, but for what a victory could mean, for deserving it. I’m very happy for the boys. They needed this feeling of winning a big game. The motivation was complete.”
The first of many Alonso-Flick battles?
Another issue in terms of the reduced excitement around El Clasico, certainly since Messi’s departure from Barcelona in 2021, has been the sense that one team has usually been operating at a higher level than the other.
Barca’s financial problems left them second-best to Los Blancos for much of that period, before their fortunes drastically improved following the appointment of Flick in 2024, aided of course by the emergence of Yamal.
After the calamity of Carlo Ancelotti’s final season at the Santiago Bernabeu when the Catalans reigned supreme, a sense of competitive balance has now seemingly been restored, with this the first of what should be many gripping contests between Alonso’s Real Madrid and Flick’s Barcelona.
Mark is a freelance football writer based in Madrid, and the editor of LaLigaExpert.com. He has been covering LaLiga and European football since 2014.
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