Real Madrid vs. Barcelona El Clasico 2022 Preview
Sunday's Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the Bernabeu -- stream LIVE, 4 p.m. ET, ESPN, might not be decisive in terms of La Liga's title race, but it's still a fiery rivalry with plenty on the line. For Real Madrid, it's the final real hurdle between them and winning the league, while for Barcelona, Xavi has a great chance to show just how quickly the Blaugrana revolution is going.
The betting lines from Caesars (subject to variation) are +110 for Real Madrid, +235 for Barcelona and +265 for the draw, while Paul Carr writes that this one could have plenty of goals, suggesting that over 2.5 goals (-150) and both teams to score (-170) are good picks.
Which team has the edge? Which players will likely decide the contest? And which head-to-head matchups will be crucial? Alex Kirkland (Real Madrid) and Sam Marsden (Barcelona) break down the game from both perspectives.
How do Real Madrid approach a Clasico that kicks off with them 10 points clear at the top of the table, and 15 points above Barcelona? This fixture always, always matters, but this time it won't be decisive in the title race.
Sevilla, their nearest challengers, look like they're slipping away, and with 10 games left it's hard to imagine a scenario where Madrid don't end up champions. So while a win against Xavi's resurgent Barca would be cause for celebration, a draw would be fine and a narrow loss would be no reason to panic.
The availability of Karim Benzema -- at the time of this writing, a doubt with a calf problem picked up in Madrid's 3-0 win at Real Mallorca -- will be a significant factor. Madrid rely on Benzema to dictate their forward play. In his absence last month, coach Carlo Ancelotti experimented with Marco Asensio, Isco and Gareth Bale in the role with varying degrees of success.
The temptation is to pick Benzema even if he's not fully fit, but is that a risk you can take with LaLiga close to being won and the Champions League quarterfinals on the horizon?
Can Barcelona control the game and keep the ball as far away from their goal as possible? Under Xavi Hernandez, Barca have improved all three "Ps" (possession, positioning and pressing), but they remain far from the finished article. Without the ball, good counter-attacking teams can still exploit their weaknesses, and Madrid certainly fit that category. There were already signs of Barca's improvement when the teams met in the Spanish Supercopa in January. Ultimately, though, Madrid picked them off on the break to seal an extra-time win in Saudi Arabia.
Barca's upward trajectory has continued over the past two months and with some added efficiency in front of goal, they've comfortably dismantled Atletico Madrid, Valencia, Napoli and Athletic Bilbao, scoring four goals against all of them. The challenge against Madrid will be to really test how far they have come.
If they can keep the ball away from Carlo Ancelotti's side, win it back quickly when they lose it and limit counterattacks (things they've done in recent games against inferior opposition) there's no reason they can't end their barren run -- Barca haven't beaten their rivals in LaLiga since 2019 -- in this fixture.
Stats of interest heading into Sunday
Real Madrid are on their best Clasico run in years, having won the last five meetings in all competitions. The last team to dominate this rivalry to that extent was Pep Guardiola's Barca, who won five in a row between 2008 and 2010, including the famous 6-2 at the Bernabeu and 5-0 at Camp Nou.
Benzema is LaLiga's outstanding offensive player, topping the charts for goals (22) and assists (11) as well as expected goals (17.2), non-penalty goals (17), shots (89), shots on target (38) and passes into the penalty area (72). (All stats from FBRef.) The breakout season of Vinicius Junior is backed up by numbers too. The winger has dribbled past 97 players -- his nearest rival, Rayo Vallecano's Oscar Trejo, has 61 -- and carried the ball into the opposition box 78 times, way ahead of Betis' Nabil Fekir with 48.
Surprisingly, goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois does not have the highest save percentage in LaLiga -- his 78.4% comes in second to the 80% of Sevilla's Bono -- but elsewhere, Madrid players lead in a number of key categories. Toni Kroos is the player who has played most passes into the final third (207, ahead of Barca's Sergio Busquets), and Casemiro has won the most tackles (60).
Xavi's fingerprints on this Barca side are most visible in how the team has recovered its pressing style, but the biggest improvement has been in front of goal. The January signings of Ferran Torres, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Adama Traore have especially helped in that sense: Torres already has five goals in all competitions, while Aubameyang has weighed in with six. Traore's contribution has been setting up goals, with four assists in six appearances.
Goals were a big problem for Barca before January. In their first 21 league games this season, they scored 32 times. By contrast, they've netted 20 goals in their last six LaLiga matches. The goals are now flying in from everywhere, too, with Riqui Puig the 22nd player to score for them in the league this season when he netted last weekend. Never have so many different players scored for a club in the same season in the Spanish top flight.
Those goals have contributed to a four-game winning run in the league and a 12-game unbeaten streak as, with Xavi at the helm, they have risen from ninth to third in the table. The last time they lost a game in normal time was in December to Bayern Munich, with their only two defeats in the 18 games since coming after extra-time.
Five Keys For FC Barcelona To Beat Real Madrid In El Clasico
FC Barcelona have a tall order ahead of them when looking to beat Real Madrid in El Clasico at the Bernanbeu on Sunday.
First team coach Xavi Hernandez insists it is just a game like any other, with the Catalans trailing their bitter enemies by 15 points in La Liga with a game in hand.
But those in the know are aware that the fixture arrives as a true litmus test to measure where Xavi's young outfit truly are in their evolution at this moment in time, amid a string of positive results as of late.
Contain the 'golden triangle' and the counter attack
Madrid's veteran midfield trio of Luka Modric, Casemiro and Toni Kroos is one of the best ever to collectively lace up boots. To stop them releasing Vinicius Jr and Karim Benzema on dangerous counter attacks, Barca must contain the golden triangle and suffocate their passing game.
At least owing to a knock he has picked up this week, Barca do not need to worry about Benzema who will play no part in the late Sunday night fixture in the Spanish capital.
Barca would be wise to not get dispossessed in midfield and not give away cheap fouls.
If they do, Toni Kroos can easily find the imposing Eder Militao capable of latching on to free kicks and corners while permanently providing an aerial threat. It will be Ronald Araujo's job to keep the Brazil international at bay in that respect.
El clásico: Xavi’s Barça head to Real Madrid with unexpected optimism
Losing to Madrid hurts but we’re closer to winning,” Gerard Piqué said at the end of the last clásico. It was a curious kind of consolation after yet another defeat knocked Barcelona out of the Spanish Super Cup, but this time there was something for them to cling to. That, at least, was the hope and since then it has hardened into something more tangible. The 282nd meeting between these clubs may offer an indication of how much closer they have come or how far they still have to travel.
Fifteen points behind, it is too late for Barcelona to win the league, the title in Madrid’s hands with weeks to spare, but maybe the clásico can become a proper contest again. Not so much on Sunday night, although that too, but beyond.
In that last meeting in January, Barcelona were beaten 3-2 in Saudi Arabia. The outcome was depressingly familiar for them, but at least it hadn’t been a drubbing: it had taken a 99th-minute goal from Fede Valverde to defeat them and at the point they had started to take control.
“Playing like this we’ll compete for titles,” Piqué said, while the Catalan daily El Mundo Deportivo led its front page on “They fall with honour”. Inside it declared “Barcelona are not completely back, but almost.”
Xavi Hernández, appointed two months earlier, said: “We were the better team in play and dominating the game. If you toss a coin and it comes out heads, no one complains, but it came out tails. This could have been a turning point in terms of the result, but it [still] is in terms of play.”
Some laughed at them. A lot laughed, in fact. Barcelona had been overrun in the first half and the bottom line was inescapable: they had still lost. That made it five clásicos in a row. They stood accused of celebrating defeat, the way they clung to an empty moral victory a humiliation in itself: how the mighty have fallen. But that was pretty much the point. Many expected a destruction but Barcelona had competed, offering some hope, some football. And soon talk of a turning point didn’t look so misplaced.
In the next game, Barcelona were knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Athletic Bilbao. But the winter window closed with Dani Alves, Ferran Torres, Adama Traoré and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang joining. Ousmane Dembélé had not departed, Xavi soon making a virtue of that failure.
The coach’s vision was becoming ever more apparent, an identity emerging, an entire shift in culture discernible. Something was building, the only criticism of Xavi’s appointment now that it hadn’t come sooner. When he reached his 100th day in charge, Xavi said it felt “like 100 years” and last week he said there is too much going on in his head to be able to enjoy this. But he admits it’s getting better, a little better all the time. The last clásico showed it could, and since defeat at Athletic, Barcelona have gone 11 without losing.
The team for whom European away games have been an almost endless trauma have won in Napoli and Istanbul, reaching the Europa League quarter-finals. They put four past Atlético Madrid; they have scored four goals five times in 10 games and climbed back into a Champions League place for the first time this season. Sunday’s points matter: victory would mean taking second from Sevilla remains in their own hands; lose and Atlético and Betis could overtake while Real Sociedad could move to within a point.
Reality remains. On Friday, these clubs watched different European draws: Madrid awaited opponents in the Champions League, Barcelona in the Europa League. On Monday, they were confronted by different financial realities too when La Liga published salary limits: Madrid’s is €739m, Barcelona’s minus €144m. Much as Joan Laporta, Barcelona’s bullish president, said they would try to win the league, they accept they cannot.
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