A night that began with a colourful 4 k homage to a legend-ary Barcelona player turned coach in Johan Cruyff, ended ■ rp with Real Madrid's

Lfr own version of a

one-time playing great in Zinedine Zidane celebrating his first big victory in management.

Zidane's men swept aside a tiring Barca in the closing stages of Saturday's 2-1 El Clasico win at the Camp Nou to bring a remarkable 39-game unbeaten run by the European champions stretching back six months to an end.

Moreover, they did so having come from behind after Gerard Pique's header gave Barca an early second-half lead, and despite finishing with 10 men as captain Sergio Ramos was sent off for the 21 st time in his career.

"Madrid needed a prestigious victory and a performance of the highest quality," said Madrid sports daily Marca on Sunday.

Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo got the goals, while Gareth Bale had another wrongly ruled out on a night when Madrid's 'BBC' outgunned Barca's triumvirate of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar.

Ronaldo’s winner five minutes from time silenced critics of the threetime World Player of the Year that

despite his 42 goals this season, he hadn't produced in the big games.

Yet, it was Zidane who exited the Camp Nou with his credibility most enhanced after his first Clasico since taking his first senior managerial role back in January.

"Super Zidane" ran the front page of French sports paper L'Equipe back in his homeland. Madrid's hope in easing Zidane through the stages of assistant manager and then youth team coach was based in hoping he could be their Pep Guardiola.

An ardent disciple of Cruyff, Guardiola superseded the Dutch great as Barca’s most successful ever coach with 14 trophies in a glorious four-year spell between 2008 and 2012.

Madrid's performance at the Camp Nou was far from the virtues of beautiful football extolled by Cruyff and Guardiola, or even Zidane in his playing days. However, it demonstrated Zidane's savvy and willingness to take big decisions.

Since losing 1-0 to local rivals Atletico Madrid last month after which he questioned his side's workrate and mental strength, two players of similar characteristics to Zidane the player in James Rodriguez and Isco have been sidelined for the more defensive-minded Casemiro, who shone in midfield.

To his cost Rafael Benitez dropped the Brazilian in favour of Rodriguez as Barca won 4-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu earlier in the season. This time round Madrid defended deep and rode their luck early on before exploiting Barca with their exhilarating speed on the counter-attack.

Despite defeat, Barca remain heavy favourites to win La Liga as they hold a six-point lead over Atletico Madrid with Real a further point back in third with seven games remaining.

However, ever since Zidane's appointment, Madrid have had one eye on salvaging their season in the Champions League, where they meet Wolfsburg in the first leg of their quarter-final on Wednesday.

As 10-time winners, Madrid's history is defined by the European Cup. So too was Zidane's career as a Real player thanks to his sensational volley to win the 2002 final over Bayer Leverkusen.

"We know what we want to do in the Champions League," said Zidane.

"For confidence it is very important to win here for the rest of the season."

Madrid were always expected to see offWolfsburg, but would now face any rematch with Barcelona or any of Europe's elite with far more belief than

before bursting Barca's bubble.

Before the match got underway, over 90,000 Barcelona fans took part in a spectacular display in honour of Johan Cruyff.

The display read "Thank you Johan" alongside a Barca jersey with the number 14 the Dutch great wore during his playing career.