Seven Clásico first-timers
The result wasn't the one they wanted, but at least İlkay Gündoğan, Fermín López, Iñigo Martínez, João Félix, João Cancelo, Oriol Romeu and Lamine Yamal all now know what it's like to play a competitive game against Real Madrid.
Gündo-goal
İlkay Gündoğan was regularly knocking in goals for Man City and Germany, but partly because of his more creative role under Xavi, we were still waiting for his first goal in blaugrana. Following a 1-2 with Ferran Torres that looked to have gone wrong, he showed full insistence to take the punch out of Alaba's tackle and instead work his way into a goalscoring position.
It was actually Barça's second earliest goal ever in a Clásico, and also made made him the second oldest player to score a goal in his first appearance in the famous fixture. Only Sergio Aguero was older than the man who turned 33 four days ago.
Denied by the post
Meanwhile, Fermín López was back facing Real Madrid after capturing all the headlines for his performance, goal included, in the friendly in Dallas this summer. He started the game and went on to enjoy his first 72 minutes of competitive Clásico action before being replaced by another newbie in Oriol Romeu. Fermin was lively throughout, and after the woodwork had been his enemy against Shakhtar on Wednesday, there was more of the same today as he hit the post on 16 minutes.
Fermín was also involved in a move that saw another rookie hit the woodwork, Iñigo Martínez. The Basque was one of Barça's most incisive players today, showing his class on numerous occasions.
Another standout performer was João Félix, who made a couple of impressive runs on goal that sadly came to nothing, and he came off in the same 77th minute as his compatriot Cancelo. Coming on for him was Lamine Yamal, who thus became the youngest player ever to feature in a competitive Clásico, and although he had an immediate impact as he always does, it wasn't enough to prevent the game from taking a nasty turn for the worse, with the three points eventually heading for Madrid.