On one side El Classicthere was Kylian Mbappé. There was Vinícius Jr. and Jude Bellingham. There were the reigning European champions, the latest wave of Galácticos, the most feared attack in football, the reason why Real Madrid were the overwhelming favorites to win La Liga.

And on the other side, the Barcelona side, there was no fear.

Instead, there was an audacious offside trap that thwarted and frustrated Real Madrid; and in the second half there was Robert Lewandowski.

Lewandowski scored twice in three minutes on Saturday to silence Madrid’s palatial Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and open his first goal of the season Classic. Barca’s teenage sensation, Lamine Yamal, finally scored the third goal. Shortly afterwards, Raphinha secured a deserved 4-0 win.

But the story of the game unfolded in a fascinating first half. Real Madrid raced forward again and again. And time and time again, Mbappé failed in a strategy that, as experts emphasized, Barcelona would certainly not use against the champions.

Under German coach Hansi Flick this season, Barca have put their opponents under pressure and forced them into submission. Strikers chased the ball. The defenders held a dangerously high line that restricted the space in front of them, tilted the pitch and allowed Barca to play up front for 90 crazy minutes.

But if it did that against Mbappé and Vini, the thinking went, it would be punished because there was so much space behind it.

“If they play like that, they’re going to concede goal after goal,” warned ESPN color commentator Steve McManaman at the start of Saturday’s game.

However, Barca never flinched. Not only did it “play like that,” it also played the highest line skillfully. In the first 36 minutes of the game, Real Madrid were offside eight times. (Eight! In 36 minutes!) Mbappé mistimed one run after another. The fans at the Bernabeu waved their arms in anger – but every single decision was right because Barca’s midfield was active and its defenders were in sync.

In the 30th minute, Mbappé scored, but VAR overturned the goal because he was half a body length away from it.

Vini broke the trap once, but his shot went wide of the near post. And that was officially the only shot Real Madrid managed in the entire first half – because the rest were canceled by an assistant referee’s flag.

For most of the half, Barca seemed to be on thin ice. But under Flick – who used similar styles at the helm of Bayern Munich and the German national team – the Catalan children have already become accustomed to the danger. They have accepted the strategy’s inherent pitfalls. They believe the benefits outweigh the risks. And they bloomed.

They have scored more expected goals (xG) than any other team in Europe’s Big Five leagues by a wide margin. They have now scored 37 goals in 11 La Liga games.

And they have caught opponents offside a whopping 77 times, more than twice as often as any other top team in Spain, England, Germany or Italy.

On Saturday, Mbappé finally hit his trap in the 71st minute. But his shot was saved, and what’s more, Barca’s rampant attack had already achieved its goal by this point. Marc Casadó opened the scoring for Real Madrid with a beautiful through ball. Lewandowski overcame Madrid’s sloppy offside trap to score his first of two goals.

His second goal was a header. Yamal and Raphinha then added to the tally. Strangely, Real Madrid felt like the team troubled by a major event. And Barca jumped to 30 points with the comfortable win, six ahead of Madrid at the top of La Liga.