Karim Benzema was the best player of La Liga's midweek round of fixtures as players from Real Madrid and Barcelona feature heavily in FootballCritic's Team of the Week in Spain.
Following the loss against Shakhtar in the Champions League a few weeks ago, the pressure was suddenly heaped on Madrid head coach Zinedine Zidane to pull his team out of their current funk.
He has did so rather emphatically as Los Blancos have now won four in a row in key matches against Sevilla, Gladbach, Atletico Madrid, and now Athletic Bilbao.
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Benzema (8.6) scored two as the Basque side were defeated 3-1.
Vinicius Junior (7.4) joins his team-mate in attack after assisting the opening goal against Athletic for Toni Kroos.
Making up the front four is Lionel Messi (7.8) who didn't score or assist in Barcelona's much-needed victory against Real Sociedad, but still performed superbly. Nobody in this round of fixtures in La Liga won more ground duels than the Argentine, with 11 to the nearest nine.
Only Luka Modric (7.8) sent more passes into the final third than Messi with 37 to 31. The Croatian makes up part of the midfield three alongside team-mate Kroos (8.3) who scored a rare goal in Madrid's defeat of Athletic.
To complete the full Clasico front six, Frenkie de Jong (7.9) makes the Team of the Week after getting on the scoresheet for Barcelona, flourishing in the freedom awarded to him by Ronald Koeman in the game versus Real Sociedad.
There is only one player in our XI who doesn't play for either Real Madrid or Barcelona and that is Athletic's Yeray Alvarez (6.5), who was slightly unlucky to be on the losing side against Zidane's men, winning 7/9 duels and misplacing just three passes on the night.
The opening goal for Barcelona was scored by Jordi Alba (7.7), who slots in at left-back.
Real Madrid pair Sergio Ramos (7.3) and Dani Carvajal (7.5) make up the back four.
Los Blancos did ride their luck at times, with Thibaut Courtois (7.0) being forced into action with three key saves to ensure they claimed all three points.
Atletico Madrid 
Sevilla 
