This time it’s our turn, Carlo Ancelotti had said, but even he couldn’t have imagined it would end up this good. Barcelona had won three clasicos in a row; by the final minutes of the fourth, though, it was Karim Benzema who stood in the corner of the Camp Nou, arms wide, smile wider. In front of him, the home fans were heading for the exit and so were their team. The Ballon d’Or holder had just completed a hat-trick, slipping the ball past Marc-André ter Stegen to make it 4-0 on the night, 4-1 on aggregate, to carry Real Madrid into the Copa del Rey final for the first time in nine years.
It was the kind of image that can become immediately iconic, something in Benzema’s expression that spoke of the ease, the superiority, with which Madrid finally had won this. Barcelona had begun well but fell behind just before the break and had been broken for the best part of half an hour. With four men missing – Pedri, Ousmane Dembélé, Frenkie de Jong and Andreas Christensen – and obliged to open up in pursuit of a place in the final, the flaws they have hidden so well, domestically at least, were exposed again. Twelve points clear in the league, there will be no double. Instead, there are doubts that run deeper than just this defeat.
