If you wanted more reasons to convince yourself of Barcelona’s mastery over the beautiful game, look no further than Saturday’s El Clasico. A rampaging Barcelona swept through a stunned Real Madrid defence, seemingly scoring for fun. The final score was 4-0, which was flattering toMadrid – Barca could easily have scored six or seven. Without Messi being on the field for a large part of the game.

It was not just the goals they scored, but how they scored them. The video above – accelerated to show the extraordinary skills at work – is a mind-boggling example of that. Luis Suarez showed great skill to put Barcelona in the lead in the 11th minute. But the build-up play was even more exhilarating.

The move that led to the goal actually started three minutes earlier. Barcelona played the ball between all ten of their outfield players, never even looking like they would lose possession. On and on they went, coolly probing forward and retreating, frustrating the Madrid defence.

Finally, after three minutes of unchallenged possession, Barcelona broke open the lock – a frustrated Madrid defence all converged on an incoming Sergi Roberto who neatly played in a free Suarez to score the first goal.