When a match is already dubbed El Clasico, where to go for the superlatives? El Magnifico? El Supremo? Nothing seems to do it justice.

Suffice to say that, even by the mighty standards of European football’s greatest domestic fixture, this was, well, a classic. It had everything including, ultimately, a winner.

Barcelona took the team award, Lionel Messi, with a hat-trick, the individual. There is now one point separating these clubs plus the one at the top of the table, Atletico Madrid, making this season’s La Liga a bit of a Clasico, too. These games always have the Messi-Ronaldo sub-plot, and there was no doubting the victor in that contest.

The muted noise that greeted Messi’s three goals came against a backdrop of records shattering. He is now the second highest scorer in La Liga history, overtaking Hugo Sanchez, and the highest scorer in El Clasico fixtures, usurping Alfredo Di Stefano.

To do that at the Bernabeu must have been doubly sweet. There has been a lot of talk of Barcelona on the slide of late, but it seems to have been overstated. Messi was injured, that was all. This was his second consecutive hat-trick. Tiki-taka is not dead yet.

Any downside on such a remarkable night? Only that, like much great art, the second half of the piece could not quite live up to the pure creative fury of the first.

The opening 45 minutes ended 2-2 and contained some of the finest football of the season in open play. The match concluded 4-3 to visiting Barcelona and the final three goals were penalties.

Ignore conspiracy theories that will no doubt circulate, however. Barcelona’s spot kicks were deserved. Only Madrid’s came as a result of a mistake by referee Alberto Undiano Mallenco.

It was a foul by Dani Alves on Cristiano Ronaldo in the 54th minute, but it was outside the area. Ronaldo fell inside and Mallenco was convinced.

Ronaldo took the kick himself and could not have positioned his shot better. Madrid then led 3-2.

The next penalty was perhaps the most significant, though, because it resulted in the sending-off of Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos. To combat this, his coach Carlo Ancelotti removed striker Karim Benzema, meaning Madrid played with less abandon and tried to settle for a draw.

The winner was a direct result of the panic that sets in when a team play Barcelona with 10 men. It would perhaps have been more satisfactory had they won fair and square, with the shot from Alves that hit a post in the 75th minute, but it was not to be.

Instead, the comeback came from two Messi penalties, falsely allowing Madrid to feel cheated.

Sadly, with players so willing to fall, penalties invariably add controversy where before there had been purity. The best that can be said is Mallenco got his calls right, even if the 19th dismissal of Ramos’s career seemed harsh.

Without doubt the defender got on the wrong side of Neymar in the 64th minute and without doubt he gave the Brazilian a little tug to cover his error. Yet whether his foul deserved a red card as well as a penalty is another matter. It was hardly dangerous or violent. Messi’s penalty was as accurate as Ronaldo’s, and his next, his final flourish, was a carbon copy.

It was clumsiness that cost Real in the end, Xabi Alonso and Daniel Carvajal combining to bundle over Andres Iniesta with six minutes remaining. Messi as cool as you like, same spot, same outcome, master of his domain, even in the lair of his greatest rivals.

So that was the drama. What about the beauty? The first half delivered that, a fiesta of football that finished 2-2 but could have been 6-4 to Real Madrid.

Ten goalscoring opportunities in 45 minutes, four converted, five cheaply missed, another quite brilliantly cleared off the line. Business as usual? Not entirely. One had the feeling that, studying the reactions of Spanish nationals, even by Clasico standards this was a match of an exceptional standard. Among the games of the season, in any competition.

To prevent confusion, let’s take these events in chronological order. In the fourth minute, Ronaldo was dispossessed on the edge of the Barcelona area, and the Catalan side broke, swiftly. Messi found Neymar, who surged clear but aimed a weak shot straight at Diego Lopez in the Madrid goal.

A minute later a tackle on the right ran to Benzema, who snatched at a low shot and directed it wide.

After seven minutes, the first goal. It was a stunning exhibition of passes, almost archetypal for the inventors of tiki-taka, ending with Messi slipping the ball to Iniesta on the overlap to rifle his shot into the roof of the net.

The Bernabeu became strangely subdued, a mood not helped six minutes later when Angel Di Maria delivered a lovely cross which fell to Benzema in a must-score position. He didn’t, sending the ball high over the bar. Emotional Castilians despaired.

Then what should have been Barcelona two goals clear. Messi, put through by Sergio Busquets with only Lopez to beat, scuffed his shot wide to the puzzlement of all.

Next, the punishment for such profligacy. Gareth Bale made a great crossfield run that ended with a ball out to Di Maria, who replicated the accuracy of his previous cross, but this time to Benzema’s head. Victor Valdes in the Barcelona goal got a hand to the ball but to no avail. Madrid were back in the game and back on top of the league.

Just four minutes later Marcelo fed Di Maria and his cross eluded Javier Mascherano – a taller centre half would have got it, the traditionalists will argue – and fell to Benzema unmarked. He brought the ball under control with one touch and finished smartly with the next.

It could have been three in the 27th minute when Di Maria again – this was shaping up to be a ‘Taxi for Alves’ match – found Benzema, only for Gerard Pique to block on the line.

Barcelona were lucky to be in touch but in the 42nd minute they drew level. A pass from Messi to Neymar begged for a return and, as the Argentine sprinted diagonally across the area, he got it. The finish was perfect.

In the squabble that followed, Pepe and Cesc Fabregas squared up, pushed their heads into each other, then both sprung back and fell to the floor as if butted. It wouldn’t be a Clasico without at least one piece of nonsense.

All done? Hell, no. In added time a Carvajal cross found Benzema again, although this time his header was narrowly off target. Madrid would live to rue those misses, regrets that may be no less painful come May.

—Daily mail