October Clasico – Real Madrid vs Barcelona

This weekend brings the first Clasico of the season on Saturday evening as Real Madrid host arch rivals Barcelona. Unsurprisingly, the two teams occupy the top two spots in the league table with Barcelona currently leading the way on 27 points, three ahead of Real Madrid.

It is the hosts, however, who are unbeaten so far this season as Barcelona have lost one game but Madrid have dropped more points overall by having to make do with three draws. Both had eventful midweek Champions League matches with Real Madrid thrashing Dortmund 5-2 and Barcelona making light work of beating Bayern Munich, an impressive 4-1 win on Wednesday evening. 

Carlo Ancelotti celebrated his 200th league match in charge of Real Madrid last weekend with a 2-1 win over Celta Vigo and he would love another three points from this home match to draw level with Barcelona at the top of the table. They are currently unbeaten in their last 42 matches and are therefore right on the cusp of matching Barcelona’s 43 game record.

The Madrid giants are unbeaten at home since April 2023, a run stretching back 40 games, with 33 of those being wins. Another stat in their favour is the fact that they have only lost one of the last five league head to heads that they have hosted. A worry for manager Ancelotti will be the fact that goalkeeper Courtois and midfielder Rodrygo will both be missing from this tie.

New addition Kylian Mbappe is starting to find his feet in the Spanish capital but last season’s star player, Jude Bellingham, has not got up to speed yet this season. This will be manager Carlo Ancelotti’s 16th Clasico, so he is vastly more experienced than his opponent in the other dugout, Hansi Flick, who will experience this magnificent rivalry for the first time.

Barcelona and Flick are boosted by the return to fitness of Gavi and Fermin Lopez, who both returned to action in the 5-1 win over Sevilla at the weekend. That win was the 13th in their last 14 La Liga matches and they will hope their good form will allow them to avoid a fifth straight H2H defeat against their arch rivals.

Goals have certainly not been a problem for Barcelona this season, they have averaged 3.5 per match in their last four away matches in La Liga. They have also scored at least twice in each of their last ten such matches and have 33 goals so far in the league alone this season, a big jump up from Real Madrid who have 21 goals. Long term injuries include keeper Ter Stegen, Ferran Torres, Andreas Christiansen and Ronald Aurajo so they will need to make use of their significant squad of players. 

Vini Junior and Raphina both scored midweek hat tricks in the Champions League so they will certainly be players worth keeping an eye on as they clash on Saturday evening. Lucas Vasquez and Fermin Lopez both scored in this fixture last season and they are in good form in their respective roles.

Real Madrid have won five of the last ten with Barcelona winning the last five so there’s very little to choose between them in terms of recent history. The last draw in a league game came back in 2019 when the two played out a goalless match in Barcelona. These are generally high scoring matches with nine of the last ten meetings seeing three or more goals scored. There were goals in each half of 12 of the last 13 matches so we can certainly approach this match expecting to be entertained.