Barca lands a Real killer blow

Catalans cruise to Clasico victory to open 14-point lead over Madrid

MADRID - Barcelona looks to have all but ended Real Madrid's defense of its Spanish league title, and there's still half a season to go.

Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez left Madrid staring at a 14-point deficit after leading Barca to a 3-0 win at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium on Saturday.

Madrid has a game in hand, but the gap already looks too big as La Liga approaches its midway point.

"It is a loss that hurts," Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said. "It is a very, very difficult match for us. But this (the title race) is not over. It might look like it, but we can never give up."

Barcelona increased its lead to nine points over second-place Atletico Madrid, which lost at Espanyol on Friday. Valencia's 1-0 home loss to Villarreal on Saturday left it 11 points back.

Suarez struck in the 54th minute and Messi added a penalty 10 minutes later after Madrid's Dani Carvajal received a straight red card for stopping a goal-bound Paulinho header with his arm.

Messi also set up Aleix Vidal to round off the commanding win in stoppage time.

Despite his team's huge lead, Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde and his players aren't counting out a Madrid comeback.

"We took another step forward in the league but I don't rule out Madrid," Barca midfielder Andres Iniesta said. "This is a long-distance race."

But Barcelona is undoubtedly performing like a champion-in-waiting. It extended its unbeaten streak to 25 matches in all competitions since losing to Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup in August, when Barca was reeling from the departure of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain.

That all seemed light years away on Saturday with Barcelona resisting an early push by the host before imposing its will.

The match was a contrast in tempos: Madrid wanted a frantic, up-and-down shootout, with its talisman Cristiano Ronaldo having space to roam, while Barcelona wanted to hold the ball and let Messi pick his moments.

Ronaldo beat Messi for the Ballon d'Or this month but the Portuguese failed to make much of an impact on Saturday as Messi took his Clasico record to 25 goals in 37 matches and his season-leading tally to 15 in the league.

Zidane left Spain midfielder Isco on the bench in a surprise move, instead giving Mateo Kovacic his first league start of the season, hoping the Croatian could reprise his role from August's Spanish Super Cup victory when he enjoyed a degree of success in man-marking Messi and limiting the little magician's influence.

Kovacic's physicality worked well for a time on Saturday but, after weathering Madrid's early pressure, the Catalan club made Real look clueless.

Zidane defended his choice after the stinging loss.

"I am here to take decisions... nothing is going to change what I think," Zidane said.

Ronaldo had an early goal disallowed for offside, goal-keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen got his foot on another Ronaldo strike to turn it past the post, and Karim Benzema headed off a post in the 42nd.

Then Suarez scored the opener. Sergio Busquets cued Barcelona with a forward pass for Ivan Rakitic, who pushed down the middle before playing Sergi Roberto wide. The rightback's one-touch pass found Suarez arriving from the left to drill his shot under keeper Keylor Navas.

Madrid collapsed after falling behind, losing ball after ball to Barcelona.

Messi seized the moment by playing Suarez clear. After Suarez hit the post, Carvajal blatantly used his arm to stop Paulinho's header from going in - a decision that earned him a direct red and sent Messi to the penalty spot to fire home emphatically.

Trying to spark a comeback, Zidane sent on forwards Marco Asensio and Gareth Bale, who drew a save from ter Stegen.

But it was Messi who reached the endline before finding Vidal to cap the win, as Barcelona won a third straight league visit at Madrid for the first time in their long rivalry.

"It's complicated, some would say impossible, but Madrid is obliged to fight until the end," Madrid defender Sergio Ramos said.

The game came only two days after separatist political parties in Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, won a majority of seats in the regional parliament.

The only reference to Spain's political crisis came from Ramos, who made a joke about Catalonia's fugitive former leader, Carles Puigdemont.

Ramos quipped that "in Barcelona they will say I should go to prison like Puigdemont" for using his arm to swipe at Suarez, an incident that earned him a yellow card. Puigdemont has fled to Belgium for pushing forward an illegal declaration of independence in October.

Associated Press