Real Madrid come back from behind to win 'Classico'

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Real Madrid recovered from conceding an early goal against historic rivals FC Barcelona to win the first Classico of the season 3-1 in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. [Photo/Sina]

Real Madrid recovered from conceding an early goal against historic rivals FC Barcelona to win the first Classico of the season 3-1 in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

Neymar opened the scoring as early as the fourth minute but Real Madrid leveled through a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty, before goals from Pepe and Karim Benzema confirmed Real Madrid's fightback.

The win pulled Carlo Ancelotti's side to within one point of their rivals who have some serious re-thinking to do after suffering a difficult second 45 minutes.

While the Real Madrid side was more or less as expected with Isco in for the injured Gareth Bale and Sergio Ramos back after injury, Barca coach Luis Enrique sprang a surprise by including veteran midfielder Xavi Hernandez in his side, while Luis Suarez went straight into the team the day he completed his fourth month suspension partnering Leo Messi and Neymar in a frightening looking attack

The first 45 minutes provided all the tension that a fan could ask for. Barca took the lead through Neymar in the 4th minute after slack marking from Dani Carvajal, but on the whole the opening minutes were dominated by Madrid and Benzama was unlucky to hit the woodwork twice in a matter of seconds on 10 minutes as his side pegged Barca back.

Slowly the visitors began to shake off the pressure and Messi was twice denied by good saves from Iker Casillas, while Carvajal got in a good block on Neymar.

However with 10 minutes left in the first half the game took another turn as Gerard Pique handled Marcelo's low cross in the Barca penalty area and Ronaldo fired home the resulting penalty to level the scores.

Four minutes into the second half and Real Madrid were ahead as Pepe towered above the Barca defense to head home his first goal in 21 "classico" appearances from a fine Tony Kroos corner kick.

Luis Enrique reacted by replacing Xavi with Ivan Rakitic, but Rakitic's first act was to hit a poor corner, which was cleared for Isco, to beat Iniesta and feed the ball to Ronaldo. Ronaldo played a simple pass to James, who slipped it past the defense for Benzema to make it 3-1.

Things got worse for Barca when Andres Iniesta had to go off with a calf injury, but Barca never looked like they were going to get back into things and the only doubt was whether Real would add another on the break.

 

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