Why Have Barcelona Dominated Madrid In The Last Decade?

From 2006 to date, Barcelona have won four UEFA Champions league and six La Liga titles; Real Madrid have one and three respectively.

Real Madrid fans may well ask why their eternal rivals are so successful despite all the money pumped into the team including breaking the transfer record three times in that period.
The problems are plenty and for Madrid to return to their dominant spell of the late 1990s to early 2000s a lot has to be done.

El Clasico is always a fiery affair

Last weekend’s El Clasico shows that the team has a lot of problems which have never been addressed and further showed that despite big money signings like Niko Kovacic and Danilo, the team still has a long way to go in matching their rivals.


Few years ago, Barcelona’s former manager Pep Guardiola gave the perfect response when asked about his team’s dominance.

He said:  “Not so long ago we didn’t even have a Champions League to our name. The ‘Quinta del Buitre’ (the Madrid team featuring five homegrown players and led by Emilio Butragueno that won five straight Liga titles between 1985 and 1990) were an example to us. We fed off of them, we learned so much from them.”



Though that was one of the ways Barcelona were able to get the better of Real Madrid, other things can be done.

 1. Stop the merry go round of sacking coaches; look for someone within: Real Madrid are not the most patient club in the world. Manuel Pellegrini was sacked despite leading Madrid to 96 points (their ever highest tally in La Liga in 2009). Barcelona’s progress and winning La Liga led to his exit despite the manager having to deal with six new signings who had to be shoehorned into his side one way or the other.
Ancelotti was sacked in 2015 despite winning the Champions League in 2014, while Jose Mourinho stayed for three years despite discontent among members of his squad for his aggressive style against Barcelona and dropping big names.

Rafa Benitez needs to be backed for many reasons. There is no clear candidate to replace him for one, and he has brought about defensive progress despite the fans urging a more attacking style.

The 4 – 0 bashing against Barcelona over the weekend showed Madrid are not strong defensively. The need for Casemiro in the side cannot be overstated.

Madrid could also do with bringing in a coach that knows the ins and outs of the club. Zinadane Zidane fits the bill though he claims he does not want to coach the team for the time being.

Barcelona brought in Guardiola and enjoyed success. Tito Vilanova was brought in and won La Liga with record points though his cancer and illness had a negative impact on the team in the Champions League.

Luis Enrique was brought in after the ill-fated spell of Gerado Martino and he brought in the treble in his first season like Guardiola. If Madrid can learn from this, then a successful period beckons.

2. Support the youth team, complement them with super star signings:  Madrid’s youth system ‘La Fabria’ is one of the best in Spain alongside Valencia, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao.
Despite producing top talents, Madrid still sell them to bring in expensive imports. Guardiola got it right in saying Barcelona were successful in his days because they copied Madrid.

Guardiola’s team in his four years at the helm was basically full of La Masia products; Puyol, Pique, Iniesta, Busquests, Xavi, Pedro, Messi, Fabregas, Victor Valdes, Martin Montoya, Marc Bartra, Issac Cuenca, Christian Tello, Thiago Alcantara and complemented by super signings like Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto’o, Yaya Toure,  David Villa, Alexis Sanchez, Masherano, Eric Abidal, Dani Alves and Seydou Keita.

Barça played with eleven players formed at La Masia in an away match against Valencia in 2012

Madrid have a good youth system. One of the best in the world. Some of the popular names from La Fabrica playing for other teams right now include Jose Callejon, Juan Mata, Roberto Soldado, Javi Garcia, Alvaro Morata, Diego Lopez, Juanfran, Esteban Granero and Borja Valero.

If these players had been given a chance to shine, probably millions would not have needed to be spent on big name signings.

The trick is to use your youth team players and complement them with superstar signings. Bayern Munich is another team that uses this trick to her advantage and has led to constant success.

3. Define a particular style of play: Madrid do not have a particular style of play. A new manager brings his style. Mourinho played a counter attacking game with Ozil and Di Maria usually the final suppliers; Ancelotti was more attack-minded and possession-based; Benitez is a defence-first, zonal-marking coach.
Barcelona players are trained to play in a particular style. You play the tiki-taka and have to press when you are not with the ball. The players bought are brought in for specific reasons; tactical and based on the coach’s instructions.

In Madrid, its more about what the players can bring in terms of shirt sales. Coaches are not consulted and as is known, having too many egos in a dressing room kills the morale. Pep Guardiola knew it with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and moved him on.
The player power in the dressing room can be too much for a coach to handle. If Madrid can define a style like Barcelona have done then maybe they can upstage their eternal enemies.

4. Buy the best players from other Spanish teams: It seems like Madrid are not interested in buying the best players from other teams in Spain but rather in plucking the best from Germany, Italy and England. Barcelona are good at buying the best players from other teams in Spain. They did it with Dani Alves, Alex Vidal, Arda Turan, Jeremy Mathieu, Seydou Keita, Jordi Alba and David Villa.
Madrid are better at signing their former youth team internationals who they loaned out previously like Jose Callejon, Carvajal, Arbeloa and Granero to name a few.

Spain has lots of quality players. Teams like Sevilla (Barcelona’s supermarket), Valencia, Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao have some of the best players around.
Bayern Munich do it in Germany and are dominating that sphere. Manchester United under Alex Ferguson did it many times and it worked wonders for them.

Plucking the best from the rest weakens the opposition.

5. Don’t be too confrontational with Barcelona: Copy the model, don’t confront them. They copied your model in the first place and reaped rewards. Doing so again is not rocket science.
Madrid it seems are out to injure, confront and make life a living hell for Barcelona whenever they play. Isco’s red card at the weekend for lashing out at Neymar is a good example; unnecessary, deliberate and too sincere.
Also it seems like the Madrid press are always out to mock Barca. Neymar’s transfer issues, Mascherano and Lionel Messi’s tax cases are always front page headlines for the Madrid-based Marca.

Luis Suarez of Barcelona shoots past Sergio Ramos and Pepe of Real Madrid CF to score their second goal during the La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF at Camp Nou on March 22, 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo: Getty Images)

Barcelona players are careful with their words with the press but Madrid players always seem like cry babies whenever they rivals are succeeding. After Madrid won La Decima with Ancelotti in 2014, Barca regrouped and did better the next season with a treble.

Dortmund won the Bundesliga in 2012; Bayern Munich regrouped and won the treble in 2013. The trick is to regroup, look at problems and try to solve them not sulk when your opponents win.