Most derbies exist purely because of geography. One club is situated down the road from the other and, should they share the same league, twice a season they have a neighbourly dust-up.
It is a dispute that extends to the respective fan-bases. There’s Bob from accounts.
He supports a team that wears blue. And then there’s Gary from accounts. His scarf is red. Each desperately wants their team to win so they can rib the other come Monday morning.
Real Madrid and Barcelona don’t live in the same postcode. They are separated by over 300 miles of Spanish terrain. And yet when they clash the world tunes in to witness a rivalry that is as fierce and tribal and intense as any other.
Seeped into its history is political division, national identity, and accusations of establishment bias. It conjures up images of flag-waving zealots, of flares and handkerchiefs. Of a pig’s head thrown onto the pitch.
When one team loses their fan-base goes into deep mourning. A form of grief.
Goodness knows then how they coped being on the wrong end of these score-lines, the most comprehensive defeats suffered across El Clasico’s long and embittered past.
Real Madrid 0-5 Barcelona – 1974
Los Blancos had no answer to Johan Cruyff at his imperious best, the Dutch genius scoring and conjuring up two assists.
A year after joining the Catalan giants from Ajax – and crucially reuniting with his mentor Rinus Michels – Cruyff was at his peak, on route to securing the European Footballer of the Year merit a few months later.
Barca won the league in May, their first La Liga since 1960, but arguably the celebrations that accompanied this thrashing eclipsed even their title success as thousands of Catalonians poured into the streets.
We can assume most of Madrid kept their curtains closed.
Real Madrid 5-0 Barcelona – 1995
The Blaugrana had dispensed a five-goal thumping over their rivals a year before.
This was Real’s revenge, executed in no little style.
A first-half hat-trick by Ivan Zamorano did most of the damage. When Hristo Stoichkov saw red just before the break it was game over.
The result further tilted the La Liga odds Real’s way, with Jorge Vandano’s side hitting peak form in January. They would go on to claim their first league title for five years at a canter while Barca finished a distant fourth.
Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid – 2010
This was Jose Mourinho’s first El Clasico and his first encounter with Barcelona since bettering them with Inter in the Champions League. The Special One sure was in for a special surprise.
Because what played out was Pep-ball at its absolute finest, a performance that has been described in print as ‘the perfect game’.
On a rainy November evening, the hosts were slick, fluid and utterly brilliant, their quick passing and darting movement flummoxing their hated rival from minute one.
To put their superiority in context, books have been written about this game. Plural.
Real Madrid 6-1 Barcelona - 1949
Los Blancos had not won a league title since before the war while Barca went into this having topped La Liga for two seasons running.
Was this a result then that represented a turning of the tide? Truthfully, not really.
Real continued to flail and fall short for a few more years, until their sustained golden period that began in the early-Fifties.
Barca meanwhile signed Laszlo Kubala twelve months later, a colossal talent who exemplified their excellence across the next decade.
This therefore was a stuffing in isolation. Just one of those magical days for the victors and a terrible day at the office for the heavily defeated.
Barcelona 6-1 Real Madrid - 1957
Is it pertinent that this relentless schooling occurred in the Copa del Rey? Not at all.
The visitors had Gento and Alfredo Di Stefano up front, two of the greatest attacking talents the game has ever conceived.
Furthermore, Real were the reigning European Cup winners and were well on course to securing a fourth league title in five years.
Eulogio Martinez was the headline-maker on the night, bagging four goals, and the Paraguayan striker is worthy of a line or two here.
It was he who invented the ‘Cruyff turn’ 14 years before Cruyff supposedly did. Alas, the forward died in tragic circumstances aged 49 when he was run over while changing a flat tyre in a small Catalan town.
Barcelona 7-2 Real Madrid – 1950
For a brief period at the start of the decade Atletico Madrid ruled the roost, with Spain’s two behemoths nowhere to be seen.
It was to the backdrop of this narrative that Barca walloped their adversary by seven in September 1950.
Two goals inside the opening 15 minutes set the tone as the fabulously named Marcus Aurellio orchestrated proceedings from midfield. The Argentine notched twice for good measure.
This remains Barcelona’s record margin of victory over Real, for all that Guardiola’s generation came close.
Real Madrid 8-2 Barcelona – 1935
The biggest league win in El Clasico history took place at Real’s former ground in Chamartin.
Naturally, the scale of the victory surprised but in truth the hosts would have been short-priced in the football betting to prevail.
That’s because the Blaugrana had a miserable time of it in the Thirties, their best league placing a solitary third, and that right at the start of the decade.
Real by comparison were in the ascendency and via four goals from Fernando Sanudo and Jaime Lazcano they mercilessly showcased their dominance.
Real Madrid 11-1 Barcelona – 1943
This Copa del Rey massacre has gone down in infamy, the visitors insisting they were the victims of intimidation courtesy of the authorities.
With the feared dictator General Franco supposedly favouring Real and Barcelona at the time banned from having the Catalan flag on their club crest, the fixture had become a powder keg just waiting to go off. It did so here.
The Barcelona bus was pelted with stones as it left the team hotel and on arrival in the capital police reportedly threatened the players with violence.
The away penalty area was festooned with coins before the players even emerged onto the pitch while Luis Miro, Barca’s keeper, was instructed to stay away from his line for fear of being hurt. When he did so he carried stones in his gloves.
Missiles were hurled at Barcelona’s players throughout as Real raced into an eight goal lead by the break.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Adobe*
