“As long as I win they can’t say anything,” Lamine Yamal said once, but this time he didn’t win and they were coming for him. They said he spoke too much; they replied that, yeah, they would see him outside; they told him talk is cheap. And that was just the players: there was more from the preachers in their pulpits, men who never lose.

On the eve of the clásico, the teenager who claims he left fear behind in Mataró suggested that Real Madrid rob and moan, or so it goes. He also offered a reminder that the last time he had been at the Santiago Bernabéu – a kid with blaugrana braces, a glint in his eye and a right foot they didn’t know he had – he beat them 4-0. But that was then and this was now. And, an adult now, exactly a year on, he was beaten back. He knew, they told him so.

When the final whistle went on a wild, intense 262nd clásico that was a little like old times, Lamine Yamal walked towards Dani Carvajal, hand out. Instead of taking it, Madrid’s captain did the old jibber-jabber gesture. It had...