Sofi Balbi couldn’t be there the day her husband became only the second footballer to score a hat-trick in 70 clásicos going back a quarter of a century, but fortunately the neighbour was available to take the kids to the game for her. They wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world and, off work with a broken arm, he didn’t have anything better to do. Besides, he was taking his son anyway. So, Sofi stayed home with five-day-old Lautaro and watched on telly while Benja and Delfina had a day out with Lionel and Thiago Messi, sitting together in the Camp Nou front row cheering as their dad scored three against Real Madrid: an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, a five-year-old and the only other man to have done that (twice, in fact) since Romario snapped Rafa Alkorta’s hips in two in January 1994 and Ivan Zamorano starred as Madrid 5-0ed them back almost exactly a year later.

When Luis Suárez scored his first in Sunday’s clásico, he dashed to the camera and lifted up his shirt to reveal a photo of Benja, Delfina and their new little brother, “welcome, Lauti” written on the front; when he scored his second, he ran over to give them a kiss; and when he scored his third, he ducked behind the goal at the north end and held his hand to his ear. Listen to that. The roar rocked the place, they chanted “Uruguayo! Uruguayo!” and then they bounced about, singing: “Boing! Boing! Boing! Whoever doesn’t boing is a Madridista!” By the touchline, Madrid manager, Julen Lopetegui, wasn’t bouncing; he wasn’t even standing any more. Silently, he sat, head in hands. “It hurts,” he said later, but it will all be over soon. Very, very soon.

Luis Suárez hits hat-trick as Barcelona demolish insipid Real Madrid Read more

The scoreboard read 4-1 to Barcelona, 83 minutes in, but the clásico hadn’t finished yet. They were enjoying this – “I would have liked the game to go on longer,” Sergi Roberto said after – and there was still time for four to become five, Arturo Vidal arriving to score a goal that might have made little difference but made all the difference. There was even time for Suárez to almost score a sixth, a superb volley with the side of his heel pushed away by Thibault Courtois, yet somehow it was almost better that way. When it comes to Barcelona beating Madrid there is no more symbolic scoreline than five and amid the celebrations Gerard Piqué did something he’s done before: he raised his hand, palm open, fingers outstretched.

All around the stadium they did the same, like 93,265 people waving goodbye to Lopetegui. At the end, while Delfina and Benja headed on to the pitch, Casemiro stood and said: “We’re a disaster, all of us.” Anaemic in the first half, absent to the point of abdication, El País noting a magpie had settled on the pitch occupying an empty space where Gareth Bale was supposed to be, Madrid had reacted in the second. There were signs of a resuscitation, but ultimately they had been ripped to bits. “As if shredded by Banksy,” as Javier Cáceres put it in Süddeutsche Zeitung. It was no one-off. “This game was the image of our season,” Casemiro said, and that brings consequences.

Madrid have lost three league games in a row, winning one of their last six matches and going eight hours and one minute without scoring. They left the Camp Nou in ninth place. Ninth. They have lost as many games as they have won under Lopetegui, who has suffered the worst start of any Madrid coach ever. He gave up all that – Spain, the World Cup, the greatest opportunity of his life – for this. He knows his time at Madrid is over; it’s early still but he’s known for a while, in fact. “I know what football’s like,” he said on Sunday. Soon he will be sacked again, the two biggest jobs taken away in the space of four months.

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“I don’t like managers getting sacked,” said Barcelona coach, Ernesto Valverde. Their fans, by contrast, were enjoying this, giggling and chanting for Lopetegui to stay, sarcastically serenading him with declarations of love. But that was not what the hand was about. And nor was this just about Real Madrid. “It’s simple: we scored five goals and that’s it,” Piqué said. “It’s a tradition, and I hope it won’t be the last time.” A raised hand, fingers outstretched, one for each goal scored, it started when Romario scored that hat-trick in 1994, Johan Cruyff’s assistant Toni Bruins Slot the man who first did it, and Piqué, a Barça member from birth, led them in doing the same when they beat Madrid 5-0 in 2010. “This is the kind of game that will go down in history,” Piqué added. “We have to enjoy it today, tomorrow and the day after.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gerard Piqué’s outstretched hand after Arturo Vidal scored Barça’s fifth. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images

There have been an extraordinary number of moments like this of late; big scorelines and big victories. Especially away. In the last decade, Barcelona have beaten Madrid 5-0, 4-3, 3-2, 4-0, 3-1, 3-0, and 6-2. Now they had added 5-1 to that – and without Messi. One by one Barcelona’s players insisted this didn’t mean they didn’t need him. “If he had been there too it would have been the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Santi Giménez wrote in AS.

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It was bad enough anyway. For all Madrid’s problems, few expected it to go quite like this. Those results reflect that this has been Messi’s decade and Messi was injured. When Valverde had said his absence wouldn’t affect them, he was being sarcastic. Everyone said it would not be the same without Messi. And while he had been injured when they won 4-0 in 2015 too, only playing the final half an hour then and coming on with the score already at 3-0, back then they had Neymar, stepping into the space. And yet, there they were raising their hands again at the end this time.

“This was a game to remember,” Valverde said. “Historic,” Sport called it. “Humiliating,” Marca’s cover said. Victory over Inter in midweek had brought hope, Valverde choosing to reinforce his midfield, and here he repeated that, Ivan Rakitic, Arthur and Busquets dominating. Barcelona had control and a manager who read the game right. The sense of superiority was overwhelming in the first half, even if chances were few, Nacho entirely exposed. At half-time it was 2-0 and hard to avoid the feeling that, if they really went for it, Barcelona would easily get more.

Then, suddenly, they were overrun at the start of the second, but while Lopetegui’s shift to three centre-backs worked, Valverde reacted. “The score doesn’t reflect the reality,” Lopetegui lamented and there might have been something in that, but Barcelona found a way through the storm, adapting to a match that had become stretched, eventually tearing Madrid to bits. Nelson Semedo went on and Sergi Roberto, who never seems to take a bad decision, moved up. Ousmane Dembélé was introduced too and, while it might have only been 20 minutes each on either side of the midfield/attack, those two were decisive, providing three assists.

Sergi Roberto was superb. Coutinho got the opener. Clément Lenglet embodied calmness. Arthur has a touch of the Xavi about him, everyone says, although perhaps they shouldn’t. And it may not be too much of an exaggeration to describe Jordi Alba as the best player in Spain right now. Barcelona had all that. Most of all, though, they had Suárez. Which many thought was not enough.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Another day to forget for Julen Lopetegui. Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

There have been doubts – “the fat prize”, one headline said on Monday, perhaps a little pointedly, alongside a photo of him – but Valverde didn’t share them. The talk was always of goals or the lack of them. In their absence, sometimes it was about work; not enough was said about the passing and the vision, and still the doubts remained. “He provided two assists against Spurs without even touching the ball,” Barcelona’s manager said, “and then after the game someone asked me: ‘Luis didn’t score …’ Bloody hell! Look, I’ve played against Barcelona lots of times and whenever a manager took Luis off I was pretty much ready to give him a hug.”

This time he was very much ready to do so. This time, Suárez was on his side, playing virtually alone up front, embracing the responsibility. His run dragged Sergio Ramos into the net as Coutinho scored the first, he was fouled for the penalty which he took to make it 2-0 and he provided a superb cross for Piqué as they sought the third. And yet he had walked off at half-time heavy-legged, frustrated, head in hands, muttering to himself, annoyed he had made a horrible mess of a counterattack as four men broke free just before. By full time, though, he walked off holding the match ball, top of the table, seven points clear of Madrid.

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Luis Suarez makes history. The first man to score a penalty awarded after VAR consultation in #ElClasico! ⚽️



Barcelona 2-0 Real Madrid pic.twitter.com/3LV7KwJth2

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Suarez nets his second, and Barcelona's third. Real Madrid looked to be back in it, but that looks to be the decisive blow. 🔵🔴#ElClasico pic.twitter.com/0UsPWI9h9j

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Luis Suarez nets his hat-trick. 🔥



He dinks Thibaut Courtois and wraps up #ElClasico victory for Barcelona. 👏



Barcelona 4-1 Real Madrid pic.twitter.com/C0G7rGH1aR

“Congratulations on the hat-trick,” one radio reporter said. “Which one?” Suárez shot back, smiling. “It’s been an important week. My son was born and it makes me happy that his little brother and sister wanted to come to the stadium to see me.”

Suárez has now scored nine times in nine La Liga clásicos, decisive in the season they won the treble and at the Bernabéu last time Messi was missing. These three took him to 159 Barcelona goals and mean he has scored against Madrid in every season he has spent in Spain. It might have been even more goals, too: those two heeled volleys were something special, the first hitting the post, the second saved by Courtois. In the end he had to settle for three, becoming the only player to have scored a clásico hat-trick in 24 years now. Apart, that is, from the man sitting in the stand babysitting his kids on their grand day out.