Barcelona clinch LaLiga title as Real Madrid brushed aside in El Clasico | OneFootball

Marcus Rashford and Ferran Torres on target early at Camp Nou as Barca make history

Barcelona have sealed the LaLiga title with three games to spare after a 2-0 win over Real Madrid in El Clasico.

Hansi Flick’s side, 11 points clear at the start of the day, needed just to avoid defeat at an expectant Camp Nou on Sunday night to retain the trophy against their arch-rivals, and Marcus Rashford’s superb early free-kick and a further stylish first-half effort from Ferran Torres saw them do more than enough.

Barcelona now have an unassailable 14-point lead at the Spanish top-flight summit as they prepare to finish a memorable season with matches against Alaves, Real Betis and Valencia.

They are the first team to clinch the LaLiga title in El Clasico since 1932, levelling the all-time head to head at 106 wins apiece, and will now target three more victories to end the campaign that would see them equal the record 100-point tally achieved by Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid team of 2011/12 and then matched by Tito Vilanova’s Barca a year later.

A win over Betis next weekend would also see Barcelona - now 29-times champions of Spain - finish the season with a 100 per cent home league record.

The victory was bittersweet for Flick, whose father’s death was announced by the club just hours before kick-off in Catalonia, with a minute’s silence observed before kick-off and players wearing black armbands as the head coach still took his place in the dugout.

For Real Madrid, it was a tough end to a disastrous week as a second consecutive season without a major trophy was officially confirmed.

Celebration: Head coach Hansi Flick is tossed into the air by his players after Barcelona’s title triumph

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The build-up to the game was dominated by reports of a series of training ground busts-ups at their Valdebebas base, including two between midfielders Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde.

Valverde went to hospital on Thursday for treatment on a head injury, later saying in a statement that he had sustained a small cut to his forehead after accidentally hitting a table as he denied claims that he and Tchouameni had come to blows.

That injury kept Valverde out of El Clasico as he joined a raft of high-profile Real Madrid absentees that included Kylian Mbappe, who missed a second successive game after feeling discomfort during a training session on Saturday, having this week defended himself from fan criticism following a holiday in Sardinia.

Valverde and Tchouameni were both fined €500,000 by the club but neither player was suspended, with the latter starting and playing 90 minutes for Los Blancos on Sunday night.

Real Madrid’s plight got worse ahead of kick-off as Dean Huijsen experienced pain in the warm-up and was replaced in defence by Raul Asencio, while they were indebted to the returning Thibaut Courtois in goal for making a string of fine saves and preventing their margin of defeat becoming more emphatic.

The closest they came to troubling the scoreboard was through a second half Jude Bellingham effort that was rightly ruled out for offside.

Reports earlier on Sunday claimed that Madrid had held more talks over a sensational return to the Bernabeu after 13 years for current Benfica boss Jose Mourinho, who would replace embattled coach Alvaro Arbeloa this summer.