MADRID — Barcelona entered the latest clasico as the team to beat in Spain, having played entertaining football from the start of the season and coming off a big win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

And there was no disappointment on Saturday for Hansi Flick’s side, leaving their biggest rivals Real Madrid searching for answers after being humiliated at home.

With an attack that continued to click and near-perfect defensive tactics, the Catalan club reinforced their status by beating Madrid 4-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium to increase their lead at the top of the Spanish league and gain further momentum after an already hot start fast under Flick.

“We already showed against Bayern that we are a great team,” said Barcelona striker Lamine Yamal, scorer of one of his team’s goals. “We believe in ourselves, now people just need to see it.”

The goal made Yamal the youngest scorer in a clasico at 17 years and 105 days, surpassing teammate Ansu Fati, who was around 250 days older in October 2020.

Barcelona have dominated since the start of the season, with 12 wins and just two defeats – to Monaco in the Champions League and to Osasuna in the Spanish league. He was coming off a 4-1 victory against Bayern Munich in European competition.

The team’s attack – led by Yamal, Raphinha and league top scorer Robert Lewandowski – has been virtually unstoppable, having outscored opponents 47-12 in all competitions.

Barcelona have scored four or more goals in seven of their 14 matches, including a 7-0 loss to Valladolid in the Spanish league and a 5-0 win over Young Boys in the Champions League.

The defense managed to contain Kylian Mbappé in his first match against Barcelona as a Madrid player. He was one of several Madrid players to be caught in Barcelona’s offside trap throughout the match.

Timed traps limited Madrid’s chances as their attackers failed to properly time their breaks behind the defenders and found themselves in an offside position.

Barcelona are already six points ahead of Madrid in the Spanish championship after 11 matches.

“This is what we want to do, this is our philosophy,” said Flick, who replaced former Barcelona great Xavi Hernández this season. “We want to move forward step by step, game by game.”

Barcelona’s most recent victories helped the club end two losing streaks – they had lost six in a row against Bayern and four in a row against Madrid.

Real Madrid’s woes

Madrid, the reigning League champions and Champions League title holders, have not been playing their best football recently, having lost twice in their last five matches.

The other defeat came at Lille in the Champions League, ending a run of 36 games without defeat in all competitions. They had not lost in the Spanish league for 42 consecutive matches, a joint record with Barcelona, ​​who had gone 43 matches without defeat in the competition in 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Madrid also struggled early in their Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund, as they trailed 2-0 at half-time before rallying back impressively to win 5-2.

Carlo Ancelotti’s team were booed by the crowd against both Dortmund and Barcelona.

“We have to get up quickly and correct the mistakes of the second half. We have to continue to compete and fight,” Ancelotti said.

“We have to look at what happened. We learn a lot from a defeat, self-criticism is fundamental and we must do it, but we must not throw everything away. The team’s first half was good and I’m not wrong, I’ve been coaching for 48 years.