Carlo Ancelotti Cristiano Ronaldo Real Madrid
Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti and Cristiano Ronaldo embrace each other after their victory over Barcelona in the El ClasicoReuters

Real Madrid into this massive El Clasico against Barcelona came with a plan, and they applied that plan to perfection, outclassing their great rivals in a convincing 3-1 victory in the La Liga.

The fans at the Bernabeu were treated to some brilliant football from their club, as Real Madrid turned on the attacking style with Cristiano Ronaldo and co. showing exactly why they are such a feared attacking unit.

Choosing to unsettle Barcelona from the word go, by pressing high and not letting the quintessential possession team have too much time on the ball, Real Madrid unsettled the away team, with Lionel Messi and his own band of free scoring men unable to find any kind of quality or consistency through the 90 minutes.

The only real bright moment from Barcelona's point of view came via the opening goal of the match, with Neymar, taking a pass from Luis Suarez, who made his debut, but could not quite have the impact he would have hoped, and slotting the ball into the bottom corner after cutting in from the left.

It was some slack defending from Dani Carvajal which allowed Neymar so much space on his right foot, with the Real Madrid right-back showing the Barcelona forward the inside line, which he took with great glee.

However, if Barcelona thought that goal was a sign of things to come, they were completely mistaken as Real Madrid started peppering the Barca goal time and again, eventually finding a way through via the penalty spot, with Ronaldo scoring the all-important equaliser.

The second half was all Real Madrid as Pepe struck the winner with that glistening head of his, before Karim Benzema added the gloss, applying the finishing touches to a great counter-attack.

Barcelona barely mustered a reply worthy of mentioning, as Real Madrid, enjoying themselves on the counter-attack, missed a whole host of chances to make it an embarrassing scoreline for Luis Enrique's men.

The La Liga is suddenly a lot closer now with this victory for Real Madrid, as the European champions moved to within a point of Barcelona, who remain top of the table on 22 points from nine games.

Barcelona, of course, will bounce back from this loss in their next few games, as they will know pretty well, there are not many better teams in the world, if any, than Real Madrid at the moment, especially from an attacking perspective.

However, what will worry Enrique is how the Barcelona heads seemed to drop after the Pepe goal, with only one team looking like winning from that moment.

From Real Madrid's point of view, this result and performance was as perfect as they could have hoped for, with Carlo Ancelotti showing his technical nous yet again.

The extra pleasing bit of the result will be that Real Madrid dismantled Barcelona without Gareth Bale; because if Bale had also been available for Ancelotti, the scoreline could have been a lot worse for Barca, considering the amount of chances that came the home team's way in the second half.


All Goals - Real Madrid 3-1 Barcelona - 25-10-2014 by VideoGreen