Ewa Pajor scored twice on her first start in more than a month as Barcelona exacted Clásico revenge on Real Madrid on Saturday, running out 4-0 winners in a fiery encounter at the Olympic Stadium to extend their lead at the top of Liga F to seven points.
Substitutes Sydney Schertenleib and Aitana Bonmatí added a gloss to the scoreline late on after Pajor's first-half double, but the result does not paint the full story of what was at times a heated affair between the two rivals. Madrid will lament wasted opportunities, most notably Caroline Weir's missed penalty when the score was 2-0 in the second half, a moment that really brought the game to life and stoked the atmosphere among the 36,276 fans inside the stadium.
Ultimately, it was Pajor's predatory instinct that tipped the tie in Barça's favor in an end-to-end opening to the game. The Poland striker had the ball in the net four times inside 30 minutes -- one was ruled out for a marginal offside; another for a debatable handball -- after Alexia Putellas was denied by the woodwork after just 30 seconds.
At the other end, Madrid could easily have scored two of their own. Weir had a goal ruled out for offside, Naomie Feller hit the post, Linda Caicedo was denied by the superb Barça goalkeeper Cata Coll and Irene Paredes hooked a Weir effort off the line.
Two weeks ago, it was Barça missing those chances as they fell to a rare defeat at Real Sociedad. With Pajor missing through injury, they were beaten 1-0 in the Basque Country as they failed to score in a Liga F game for the first time since January 2020.
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It may have been different had Pajor been fit then. She injured her knee at the start of October. It was initially feared she would be out for months, but she returned as a substitute last weekend and was fit to start -- and torment -- Madrid on Saturday.
Her brace takes her to 10 goals this season in all competitions and showcased why she is so vital to this Barça's team in the final third.
"This is a very special game," Pajor said. "Not just in Spain, but in the world, and of course I feel this [rivalry] and this is a special game. It's a good feeling playing against Real Madrid and I am really happy to have won this game."
Her double also helped her team make amends for a surprise defeat in this fixture last season.
When the two sides met at the Olympic Stadium in March, Madrid ran out unexpected 3-1 winners as they ended a run of 18 successive Clásico defeats. It was the biggest sign yet that the gap between the two sides is finally slowly beginning to close.
That game dominated the buildup to this one. Barça defender Esmee Brugts, who exited with an injury in the second half here, had spoken about wanting "revenge" for that loss, while Paredes had said they were desperate to seize this "opportunity" to beat Madrid after being "massively hurt" by the reverse in March.
A 4-0 win will help ease those wounds and establish Barça's superiority in Spain once again, but it would be amiss to suggest this was all one-way traffic.
There was a period in the second half, when Madrid were awarded an 81st-minute penalty, when you really felt the rivalry more than ever. After Coll had dropped the ball and appeared to clip Athenea del Castillo, Madrid coach Pau Quesada challenged the decision not to award the spot kick -- each team gets two challenges per game as part of the Football Video Support (FVS) used in Liga F -- and, after a long review, the penalty was given.
After Pajor's disallowed goals in the first half, the decision sparked a sense of injustice among the Barça players and fans. Searing whistles soundtracked the players clashing, and being pulled apart, in the box before Weir stepped up from 12 yards. She looked cool, but she could not beat Coll, who dived to her left and palmed away the penalty from the Scotland international, who was the match winner here last time.
The cheer that greeted the save was arguably louder than the one that followed any of the four goals. "If you don't bounce up and down, you're a Madrid fan," rung around the stadium.
"It was not a penalty for me," Coll told reporters. "There was a lot of anger in the save. I was desperate for the clean sheet."
There was still time for her to make another fine stop, this time from Athenea, but that signaled the end of Madrid's chances. Schertenleib and Bonmatí added goals in 11 minutes of stoppage time -- mainly made up from the delay over the penalty decision -- to give Barça a handsome win, but they will have known they were in a game.
"At the end of the day, we were almost there," Madrid goalkeeper Misa Rodríguez said. "The chances we had, we didn't take. That's the difference between one team and the other today. Clásico matches are decided on the small details."