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Real Madrid has ended a seven-game winless run in El Clásico with a deserved 2-nil victory over Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu, a crucial win that sends Madrid back to the top of La Liga.
Barca threatened their hosts on some occasions in the first half, but could not find a way past the keeper. Antoine Griezmann then shot the ball high after 21 minutes of play.
In the 34th minute, Arthur Melo burst inside the box and produced a shot, but Thibaut Courtois closed the angle to deny him from a one-on-one situation.
After the break, Madrid could have gone ahead through Isco, only for his curling effort to be palmed away by Marc-André ter Stegen.
A few minutes later, Isco applied a header and this time he beat the German keeper, yet was denied again as Gerard Pique blocked the ball at the goalmouth and cleared it away.
But, Real finally found the breakthrough in the 71st minute, when Toni Kroos sent a lovely pass to Vinicius Junior down the left flank, and the Brazilian forward side-footed a shot that took a deflection off Pique and beat Ter Stegen at the near post.
And in the dying moments of the match, substitute Mariano sprinted past Samuel Umtiti and added a second as Zinedine Zidane’s men leapfrogged their rivals with a single point clear at the top of the Spanish league.
