Real Madrid vs. Barcelona: Clasico Loss a Painful Reality Check for Blaugrana

Barcelona's 3-1 loss to Real Madrid in Saturday's Clasico was in no way an embarrassment, but it did serve as a painful reality check for new manager Luis Enrique.

The Blaugrana lost only their first match of the 2014-15 La Liga season and their second overall, but despite their impressive record, pundits were particularly harsh on the Catalans after Los Blancos' decisive win. Guilem Balague even believed the club were lucky to only lose 3-1, as reported by Team Talk:

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In a way Enrique has been lucky because it could have been 5-1 or 6-1 in the second half when Barcelona gave up and there was so much space in the midfield.

But it’s interesting how this game could have been so completely different actually, had they gone in 2-0 up with that Lionel Messi chance. At 2-0 up no one would have said that they didn’t deserve it because the game was that equal.

It would have been a completely different game. What you had after that was what Pique said after the match, ‘Real Madrid deserved to win the game’.

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In many ways, the Clasico was everything fans could have hoped for. Lionel Messi had the 2-0 at his feet early in the second half, and there's little doubt the two-goal lead would have changed the complexity of the match entirely.

It didn't happen, however, and after Cristiano Ronaldo's equaliser, it was all Madrid. Los Blancos' counter-attack looked dominant, but perhaps even more impressive was the ease with which Isco and James Rodriguez infiltrated the Blaugrana back four, hardly bothered by the Catalan midfielders.

Barcelona have lost just two matches so far, but those two losses came against the two world-class teams Enrique's troops have faced—Real and Paris Saint-Germain. And in those two matches, the team got hammered, as shared by Sergi Dominguez:

Twice the Blaugrana looked bad against set pieces, and twice they failed to establish any dominance in the centre of the pitch. Given the club's ball-dominant philosophy, that's a problem.

Fans and pundits pointed to Gerard Pique's defensive struggles and the complete lack of participation of Messi and Neymar in the second half as reasons for the loss, but the way the central midfielders lost the pedals is far more worrying.

Sergio Busquets was his usual solid self in the first half and completely vanished in the second, to the point ESPN FC's Dermot Corrigan wondered whether the Spain international was still suffering from injury:

Xavi and Andres Iniesta were asked to help recuperate the ball and play the pressing game, and it simply didn't pan out. Toni Kroos and Luka Modric easily won the battle in the centre, and Real's advancing players had all the time in the world to pick their passes.

The pressing game and higher emphasis on ball recuperation by the central players allows Barcelona to release counter-attacks more often, giving the Blaugrana more ways to score than they had in the past.

But as explained by Balague, we saw none of that on Saturday:

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Barcelona are trying to find new ways to attack and not always by possession.

Two thirds of the goals they have scored this season were from five passes or less leading to the goal. The problem is that you need to press high and Luis Enrique told Messi at the start of the season that the team would play for him.

This meant that players were going to be closer to the box and that Messi would have the whole team in the last third and now that’s the basis of the new Barcelona.

But what you’re asking in this game is for Iniesta, Xavi and Busquets to go and steal ball as well as Suarez, Neymar and Messi - and these are the ones who are supposed to pressure high.

I don’t think they did it at all in the first half and what happened was it became a very open game which suited Real Madrid.

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Rakitic's young legs and large radius of action makes him a good fit for Enrique's new philosophy, but the Croat was on the bench to start Saturday's Clasico, still in the doghouse after his disappointing showing against PSG.

Apart from that match, however, his start to the 2014-15 season has been exemplary, which is why it was such a surprise to see him start on the bench. Enrique knew the risks involved with starting the aging Xavi and Iniesta against a hyper-athletic Real squad, and he went with the duo anyway.

The loss in no way dooms the season—far from it. But coupled with the loss against PSG, one thing has become obvious: The Catalans have too much talent to lose against good teams, but right now, they're no match for the great teams.

Installing Enrique's new philosophy will take time, and the introduction of new faces like Rakitic and Luis Suarez will only help this squad. But as of this moment, the Blaugrana are a step behind the elite clubs of world football, and until the squad's transformation is complete, that won't change.

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