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It's that time of the year again.
Barcelona take on arch-rivals Real Madrid on the 18th of December at the Camp Nou, and the world of football is buzzing with anticipation.
The first El Clasico generally sets a precedent for the rest of the La Liga season, as two of the three Spanish giants go head-to-head in a crucial encounter.
The top half of the La Liga table has followed a set pattern for the past decade, with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid dominating the top three slots. This season, however, has thrown that notion out of the window to a considerable extent.
Barcelona and Real Madrid started the season very slowly and have only picked up the pace recently. Both sit pretty at the top of the table with 35 points apiece. As things stand, Barcelona are only marginally on top due to goal difference.
History paints an intriguing picture as well. While Madrid dominated a large chunk of the early 20th century, Barcelona has managed to claw its way back into the contest in the past 50 years, courtesy the legendary Johan Cruyff and a certain Lionel Messi. Statistics are often unable to reflect the true nature of a sporting rivalry, but the intensity of this particular rivalry is almost perfectly in correlation with the numbers.
Of 242 Clasicos played to date, Barcelona has a slight edge, winning 96 as opposed to Real Madrid's 95.
Barcelona has dominated the fixture in recent history, and have often done so with aplomb. While several matches between the two sides have been fiercely contested, there have been some astounding scorelines in favour of the Catalans.
Fasten your seat belts, as we take a look at Barcelona's most dominant performances in the history of the fixture.
#5 Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid, 1994
It is quite intriguing how legacies are shaped at FC Barcelona, and Johan Cruyff is a talisman in the club's glorious history.
Under the tutelage of the master tactician, Barcelona's proverbial 'Dream Team', boasting the likes of Romario, Pep Guardiola, Hristo Stoichkov, Michael Laudrup and Ronald Koeman, put on a display of sheer skill and tactical brilliance at the Camp Nou to thump arch-rivals Real Madrid by a scoreline of 5-0 on the 8th of January, 1994.
While Laudrup and Stoichkov were both at their unplayable best, the show was undoubtedly stolen by Brazilian superstar Romario, who put Real Madrid to the sword with a hat-trick that continues to resonate with Catalans to this day. Ronald Koeman put the cherry on the cake with one of his trademark free-kicks to conclude a memorable day for the Blaugrana.
Barcelona went on to lose the Champions League final to Fabio Capello's AC Milan that season, but the 'Dream Team' etched itself into the history of the Camp Nou with this famous victory.
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#4 Barcelona 5-1 Real Madrid, 2018
The most recent of the hammerings mentioned in this list, this result remains fresh in the memory of fans of FC Barcelona and is likely to be remembered for a long time.
Much has been said in the recent past about the team's 'Messidependencia': the irrefutable fact that Barcelona tends to rely immensely on Lionel Messi to make something happen in the final third.
The context is what makes this 5-1 victory so special. Messi was unable to play a role in this fixture due to a fractured arm, and a low-scoring draw was expected to be the most likely outcome.
Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho decided to spring a surprise.
In the absence of their Argentine captain, the Brazilian and the Uruguayan split the creative and goal-scoring responsibilities between them to blow more holes into Julen Lopetegui's sinking ship.
Ernesto Valverde's Barcelona is often criticized for playing boring football, but they sure do turn up against Real Madrid. Apart from a short period in the second half which saw Marcelo pull one back for the visitors, Barcelona completely dominated the proceedings.
Los Blancos never fully recovered from the defeat and were reduced to mere spectator status as the Blaugrana marched to yet another league title.
#3 Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid, 1974
The Camp Nou reveres Johan Cruyff.
Prior to the Dutch maestro's arrival in Catalunya, Barcelona was considerably successful in the Spanish league but was simply unable to match up to Real Madrid. Cruyff's arrival wreaked havoc on the status quo.
Widely regarded as the man solely responsible for transforming Barcelona and even football to a great extent, Cruyff applied the largely foreign concept of 'Total Football' to Barcelona's squad at the time, and the results were nothing short of astounding.
Real Madrid, at the time, used a fairly conventional system that proved no match for Cruyff's tactical nous. Pulling the strings in attacking midfield, Cruyff got on the scoresheet before setting up goals for Juan Manuel Asensi and Juan Carlos.
The Dutchman subsequently succeeded in pulling Barcelona out of a mediocre phase and is responsible for Barcelona's impeccable style of play over the past decade. This 5-0 drubbing was the first time Barcelona had so effectively dominated their arch-rivals. It served as a benchmark for several Barcelona teams for the rest of the century.
#2 Barcelona 6-2 Real Madrid, 2009
If a single game had to be pinpointed as the start of Barcelona's long era of dominance under Pep Guardiola, look no further than this fixture.
The Barcelona of today becomes a different beast when they play at the Santiago Bernabeu, and this game was, to an extent, an initiation of sorts.
Gonzalo Higuain scored early on in the match to give the Galacticos the lead, and it did look like Real Madrid would burst the Guardiola bubble.
Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi had other ideas.
Both forwards, starting the match on either wing, scored on either side of the break to give the Catalans yet another resounding victory. This match also marks one of the rare occasions where Barcelona's defensive lynchpins Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique both got on to the scoresheet. Sergio Ramos pulled one back later in the game, but it proved to be a mere consolation in the end.
In a nutshell, this game was "the first of many", in several different ways. Lionel Messi was at his unplayable best, as is the norm today, and Los Blancos were simply unable to deal with the Argentine genius.
#1 Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid, 2010
As far as one-sided domination is concerned, very few matches in El Clasico history have seen the sheer magnitude of humiliation that Pep Guardiola's famed Barcelona side inflicted on Real Madrid in 2010.
Much was said in the weeks leading up to this fixture, with Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid playing some impressive football and Cristiano Ronaldo providing stiff competition to Lionel Messi in the Pichichi race.
Mourinho also had a bit of history with this Barcelona side and was able to lead his Inter Milan team past Barcelona in the semi-finals of the Champions League the previous season. The build-up to the fixture indicated a highly competitive match-up.
While a few on-field clashes made the contest fierce to an extent, there was a palpable difference in quality between the sides. Barcelona's display was 'tiki-taka' at its absolute peak, with the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, and Busquets puppeteering Madrid's midfield and defence with exquisite passing. For almost the entirety of the game, Real Madrid's Galacticos were chasing shadows as Barcelona's maestros pinged the ball around with stunning accuracy.
The scoreline didn't spare Mourinho's side, either. Xavi opened the scoring in the tenth minute, latching on to a silky through ball from Andres Iniesta. With Real Madrid's defence constantly being pulled out of position by Messi and Barcelona's midfield, David Villa and Pedro took full toll.
In a span of five minutes in the second half, Lionel Messi carved through Real Madrid with inch-perfect passes and David Villa obliged by clinically slotting the ball past Iker Casillas.
To add further insult to injury, Barcelona's youth products Jeffren Suarez and Bojan Krkic combined to score in stoppage time, handing Barcelona an incredible 5-0 victory.
