Vinicius Junior celebrates first El-Clasico Goal.
Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior and Mariano Diaz gave Real Madrid victory in the El Clasico encounter last night. Real Madrid has not won Barcelona since the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo. Last night’s victory was very key for the Zinedine Zidane side. Real Madrid are now in the top of the La Liga table-topping rival Barcelona with one point.
The game started with the home team making lots of chances, Vinicius Junior was the first to get booked with a yellow card in the first ten minutes of the game. Spanish team mates Dani Carvajal and Jodi Alba were the next to get booked simultaneously just nine minutes after Vinicius Junior received his. Real Madrid were down on possession but they mounted more pressure to the Barcelona team.
The first half of the game ended in a goalless draw, both teams moved to the dressing room with the hope of coming back better. On arrival of the teams, goals were still lacking but the deadlock was broken in the 71 minutes of the game with Vinicius Junior on target.
He drove in the goal through a deflection after Isco’s shot was saved and cleared off the goal line. Karim Benzema volleyed over for Real and substitute Martin Braithwaite went close for Barca moments before Vinicius sparked celebrations at the Bernabeu.
Vinicius made history as he becomes the youngest player to score in an El Clasico beating six-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi’s record set in 2007. The 19-year old pounced firing in from a narrow angle to hand the home team the lead. Ex France attacker Karim Benzema could not break his five-game goalless run as his volley went over the goal post. Barcelona new signing Martin Braithwaite had a chance to level the scores but failed to do as he saw his shot to be saved.
Barcelona had chances to the level the scores and even go upfront but had their chances all missed. Antoine Griezmann fired over from a Jordi Alba cut-back, Arthur was denied by Thibaut Courtois after breaking through on goal and the Madrid keeper parried a Messi effort when the Barca talisman broke the offside trap.
Mariano Diaz who has not played for the Real Madrid side since the start of the season he introduced himself to league with the second goal to seal their victory. The victory is a sure memorable one not for Real Madrid but also for the two goal scorers.
“We deserve our victory for everything we did, in attack and defense. It has been a complicated week for us and we had the chance to turn things around, and we did that. “But this win also doesn’t change anything. We have a long way to go and we have to continue. We’ve got three important points but we’ll have more difficult games and we will be criticized again.”
“We were clear about what we had to do. We had to wait for our moment and be patient and try to keep the ball. “In the second half I can’t understand why we started to lose the ball easily. We were able to breathe life back into Real Madrid. It was a shame we weren’t to take the form of the first half into the second.”