The lowdown on Real Madrid
Barça take on Real Madrid at the Estadio Alfredo di Stefano this Saturday at 9.00pm CEST, and here’s a closer look at the other half of football’s most famous rivalry.
The club
Originally founded in 1902, curiously by two Catalan brothers, Madrid FC became Real (‘Royal’) Madrid when it was granted the title by King Alfonso XIII in 1920. The club has gone to win more European Cup/Champions League titles than any other (13), and has also won La Liga a record 34 times, although Barça, now with 26, are rapidly closing the gap.
The colours
Madrid have always worn an all-white strip. The reason is simple. In the early days of football, everyone wore white and teams were told apart by wearing coloured sashes. As football grew more serious, teams started to wear different coloured shirts instead, but Madrid decided to carry on wearing white.
In fact, one of the many unconfirmed theories for the origin of the Barça colours follows a similar vein. In the ‘old days’, teams in Barcelona typically wore red or blue sashes – and when FC Barcelona was founded, the players simply combined the two colours as one. There are plenty of rival theories though.
Also, although nowadays it would be unthinkable for Barça to wear their biggest rival’s colours, the club has actually worn white on several occasions in the past. Before the spectacular away kit designs of today, it was normal practice for visiting teams to wear white in the case of a colour clash. The last time Barça did so was against Ipswich Town on 7 March 1979.
The Venue
This weekend El Clásico is being played at a brand new venue, and the eighteenth in total. In time of Covid-19, Real Madrid are using the absence of spectators to make renovations to the Santiago Bernabéu, and are instead playing games at their training ground in the suburb of Valdebebas, close to Barajas Airport.
The Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium, named after the club legend who passed away in 2014, is the usual home of the club’s reserve team, Real Madrid Castilla. The venue was opened in 2006 and would normally seat 6,000 people.
Head to head
The rivalry between Barça and Real Madrid needs no introduction. There simply isn’t anything in world football that compares with it, and we did the research to prove that. They don’t call it El Clásico for nothing.
However, that name is actually only a recent phenomenon. The term was inherited from South America, where it was used to describe such games as Boca v River and Nacional v Peñarol, and has only been used in reference to this game for the last twenty years or so.
Historically, Real Madrid have won the fixture 98 times and Barça 97, so a win for the blaugrana on Saturday would tie the series. However, if including semi-official and friendly games, Barça actually lead 115-110.
And there is little doubt that it’s the Catalans who have had the upper hand in recent years. Although Real Madrid won the last two meetings (3-1 at Camp Nou earlier this season and 2-0 at the Bernabéu in March 2020) it was the first time that had happened since 2008. In between, Barça won 13 games, drew five and lost just four.
Curiously, Barça have done better away from home in recent years, winning four of the last five league games at the Bernabéu, but winning just one of the last six games at Camp Nou (the memorable 5-1 victory in 2018).
Form guide
Like Barça, Real Madrid got off to an uncharacteristically sluggish start in La Liga 2020/21, including shock home defeats to both Cádiz and Alavés. However, they have only lost one league game since November (another upset at the Di Stefano, this time to Levante), and now lie third in the table, two points behind Barça and three points below leaders Atlético Madrid.
Their Copa del Rey adventure came to an unexpectedly early end when they fell at the first hurdle to second division Alcoyano.
Meanwhile, despite losing both home and away to Shakthar Donetsk, they still managed to top their Champions League group, with Borussia Mönchengladbach finishing second and Inter Milan surprisingly landing at the bottom. They got past Atalanta without too much difficulty in the first knockout round, and on Tuesday defeated Liverpool 3-1 in the first leg of their quarter final.
The players
Most capped internationals: Sergio Ramos (Spain, 180), Luka Modrić (Croatia, 136), Eden Hazard (Belgium, 106), Toni Kroos (Germany, 101), Karim Benzema (France, 81), Thibaut Courtois (Belgium, 83), Raphaël Varane (France, 73), Marcelo (Brazil, 58)
Top scorers 2020/21 (all competitions): Karim Benzema (24), Marco Asensio, Casemiro, Vinicius Junior (6), Luka Modrić, Sergio Ramos (4)
The manager
Widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, Zinedine Zidane was a huge star at both Juventus and Real Madrid and the hero of France’s first ever World Cup triumph in 1998.
He has only ever worked as a manager at Real Madrid, who he guided to an unprecedented three Champions League titles in a row, but resigned in 2018. However, following Madrid’s poor form, he was persuaded to return in March of last year.