The biggest club rivalry in world football continues as LaLiga leaders FC Barcelona travel to Real Madrid with a two point lead in the standings, after last week saw blaugrana talisman Lionel Messi score four in a 5-0 win at home to Eibar, while Los Blancos slipped to a surprise 1-0 defeat at Levante.
Sunday’s LaLiga Santander Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu is the highlight of this weekend schedule, which also features key clashes in the battles to qualify for Europe and avoid relegation.
Barçelona have won on each of their last four LaLiga visits to the Bernabeu, but Real Madrid are unbeaten at their own stadium this season in LaLiga and Zinedine Zidane’s side claimed to have the better of the game when the reverse fixture finished level at the Camp Nou last December.
Both teams switched positions in this past weekend’s round of the LaLiga matches, with Barcelona racking up an emphatic 5-0 win over Eibar on Saturday, while Real Madrid slumped to a surprise 1-0 loss at Levante later the same day. The results saw Barcelona move up to pole position with 55 points, while Real are second with 53.
A further 10 points separate Los Blancos from third-placed Atletico Madrid, underlining how important El Clasico will be in deciding the title.
Barcelona’s big win at the weekend featured four goals from the incomparable Lionel Messi, who will be hoping to add to his record tally of 26 El Clasico goals on Sunday night.
“We have been waiting for a result like this, where everything goes in our favour,” Barcelona boss Quique Setien said as he gears up for his first El Clasico since succeeding Ernesto Valverde.
“In other games, we have not finished the chances we have created, but [against Eibar] we have. The three goals before the break have given us peace of mind ahead the second half, and we have an important week ahead.”
Real have dropped five points in their last two matches to bring into doubt their ability to reclaim the La Liga title. Their performance against Levante was an abject one and came with two massive blows for El Clasico, with news that Rodrygo is suspended and Belgian attacker Eden Hazard is ruled out with an ankle injury.
“We failed at the most important thing in football and that’s to score. It’s screwed up because in a week we’ve dropped five points, but this is football,” lamented manager Zinedine Zidane. “We didn’t deserve that today. We went from more to less. They made their shots count. We can’t look back now.
“My players gave everything and I’m annoyed. Losing five points in two games is a bad moment for us. We’re playing for everything this week. We’ve got to keep our heads up. We’ve had good moments before and now we’re in a bad one but we’ll come out of this.”
Sunday game begins with an Athletic Club side looking to end a concerning run of four straight LaLiga defeats when they welcome a Villarreal CF team who won 3-0 at San Mames last season.
Things look rosier at Sevilla FC following last week’s win at Getafe, so Julen Lopetegui’s men will be looking forward to Sunday afternoon’s clash with an CA Osasuna team in good form recently, but whose last victory at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan was back in 2006.
Atletico de Madrid travel to bottom side RCD Espanyol having returned to third place in LaLiga Santander with last week’s victory against Villarreal. But Los Periquitos’ record in this fixture is excellent; they have beaten Diego Simeone’s team at the RCDE Stadium in both the last two seasons.
18th– placed RCD Mallorca have a chance to stretch their unbeaten run to three LaLiga games at Son Moix on Sunday afternoon, when the visitors are a Getafe CF team whose recent excellent form ended with a bang at home to Sevilla last week.
Anthony Nlebem
