It was not supposed to be like this. The game that always delivers didn’t, the clásico ending 0-0 for the first time in 17 years and 47 games, going back to the night someone threw a pig’s head at Luis Figo. The biggest club rivalry in world football, a meeting that has produced 126 goals in the past decade alone, produced none here. Only Gareth Bale found the net but it was ruled out, leaving
Real Madrid and
Barcelona taking a point each, still level at the top.
At the final whistle, there was timid applause, a few whistles too, but mostly there was quiet – punctured by the PA announcer repeatedly telling supporters not to leave out the south end of the stadium, where smoke rose over the stands. Perhaps there had been
protests out there during a game that had been politically charged, but inside surprisingly little happened either off the pitch or on it. Ernesto Valverde said his players had not been affected, but it ended up an unusually flat occasion, played 53 days after it was originally scheduled.