Barcelona put disappointing back-to-back defeats firmly in the proverbial rearview mirror with a classic rearguard 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semi-final at the Santiago Bernabéu.
With form and fitness concerns working against Barcelona, the latest installment of El Clásico could have hardly come at a worse time for La Blaugrana.
Real Madrid came out of the blocks with plenty of attacking intent as they went in search of some revenge, having been thoroughly embarrassed by Barça in the Spanish Super Cup Final back in January.
They had the ball in the back of the net on 14 minutes when Karim Benzema brought down a clipped pass over the top, before exquisitely volleying past Marc-André ter Stegen.
Los Blancos’ celebrations were short-lived though, as the Frenchman had strayed offside.
As Liverpool found out in the UEFA Champions League, sometimes the worst thing you can do is score against Real Madrid, but Barcelona failed to heed the warning from Anfield and on 27 minutes took the lead against the run of play.
Eduardo Camavinga sloppily gave the ball away in midfield, allowing Ferran Torres to capitalise by playing a perfectly-weighted pass through to the overlapping Franck Kessié whose shot initially hit Éder Militão, before his teammate Nacho failed to clear on the line.
The goal was originally ruled out for offside, but a quick VAR check confirmed the Ivorian was onside, and the goal was given.
Barcelona’s young Uruguayan centre-back Ronald Araújo was switched out to the right by Xavi, plainly tasked with shackling the effervescent Vinícius Júnior, and the makeshift full-back did just that, using every sinew of his body to restrict the Brazilian to a peripheral role upon proceedings.
Even the most staunch of Barça fans would have been forgiven for fearing a severely blunted attack without marksman Robert Lewandowski, who missed out through injury, even more so considering that in three previous matches against Spanish opposition without the Polish international this season, Barcelona have won by a narrow one-goal margin.
No surprise then that Barça managed to repeat the same scoreline without their talisman and resigned Real Madrid to their first defeat on home soil in 11 months.
