Follow updates from El Clasico at Camp Nou, including the build-up, analysis and live text commentary of the game.
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Barcelona go into one of the biggest games on the world football calendar looking to make history tonght.
Hansi Flick has guided Barca to nine straight wins to begin their La Liga campaign, matching the record set by Real Madrid in 1968.
No team has ever won their opening 10 fixtures.
Flick will have high hopes of doing so, however, his side are unbeaten in seven games against their bitter rivals, winning six of them, since his arrival, having lost 10 of the 15 El Classico fixtures before he took charge.
Flick’s side have scored 39 goals already, second only to Sevilla in 1940 for the most at this stage of a season, and have Raphina and Anthony Gordon back in the attack alongside Lamine Yamal, who has eight goals already.
With no Thibaut Courtois in goal for Madrid,
Real are third in the La Liga points table, six points behind leaders and rivals Barca.
They have won seven league games but lost to Atletico Madrid and Real Betis.
However, Real have made a perfect start in the UCL, registering two wins in as many matches.
Barcelona have a perfect record in La Liga with nine wins from nine games. They are five points clear at the top of the standings.
Their only defeat in all competitions this season came in their last match, falling 4-2 to title holders PSG in the Champions League league phase.
Hansi Flick has made three changes to the Barca XI that faced Real Betis in their last league game.
Joao Cancelo, Raphinha and Anthony Gordon come in with Jules Kounde injured and Gabriel Jesus and Karim Adeyemi dropping out. Dani Olmo remains sidelined.
Barca XI: Joan Garcia; Joao Cancelo, Gerard Martin, Pau Cubarsi, Xavi Espart; Fermin Lopez, Rodri, Pedri; Anthony Gordon, Raphinha, Lamine Yamal.
Jose Mourinho has made two changes to the Real Madrid team that faced Sevilla, and one of them is huge.
There’s no Thibaut Courtois so in comes Andrii Lunin in goal and Bernardo Silva replaces Endrick while Vincius Jr misses the game due to suspension and Raul Asencio (leg) and Rodrygo (knee) are both injured.
Real Madrid XI: Andrii Lunin; Marc Cucurella, Dean Huijsen, Ibrahima Konate, Federico Valverde; Jude Bellingham, Bernardo Silva, Aurelien Tchouameni, Arda Guler; Yan Diomande. Kylian Mbappe.
The 63-year-old is a veteran of 27 matches against Barcelona and 17 El Clasicos on the Real bench.
Real Madrid President Florentino Perez first appointed Mourinho as manager in 2010 to compete with Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, and he will hope the Portuguese can wrest the La Liga title back to the Bernabeu for a second time.
Mourinho’s first spell at Real coincided with arguably the most heated encounters in the modern history of El Clasico, and there will be numerous cameras trained on his every move at Camp Nou on Sunday.
The Portuguese manager won just once in his first 10 El Clasicos, but went unbeaten in his final five games against Barcelona, recording three victories.
Mourinho said he would not change his plans to try to stop Barcelona winger Lamine Yamal.
The 19-year-old Spain international is in sublime form and hopes to win the Ballon d’Or award on Monday.
“He’s a great player and great players you respect,” added Mourinho.
“One thing is respecting, another thing is to change plans, structures, forgetting your own essence.
“That we will not do, neither for him or any other player of great quality we face.”
Mourinho said form did not matter when it comes to the Clasico.
“We’ve been in a good dynamic, winning games, playing well, scoring goals, but in the Clasico it doesn’t matter what you did before, it has no influence,” said Mourinho.
“The Clasico is unique, normally the football world stops to watch it. Hopefully it’s a great game. And we win.”
Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho said it was unfair to compare his side to Spanish champions Barcelona ahead of Sunday’s El Clasico.
Hansi Flick’s Barca have won back-to-back La Liga titles and lead the top flight, in which they are unbeaten, while Mourinho arrived this summer after Madrid went two seasons without a major trophy.
The panorama has changed slightly, after Barca suffered their first defeat of the season at Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday, while Madrid have won their last four matches.
Madrid are third in La Liga, trailing Barca by six points before Sunday’s meeting at Camp Nou.
“People look at us like a finished product, but finished products in football are difficult because they are never finished … but they look at us like we’re in an advanced phase of the process,” continued Mourinho.
“We’ve been working for three months, out of that you can take preseason when the players were arriving [back from the World Cup] and the recent international break, then we’ve been together a month-and-a-half, two months…
“This is the start of a product, we’re in an initial phase where the coach is learning, analysing, bit by bit defining paths, the players are learning about the coach… comparing a team in this state [to more established sides], I think is unfair.”
Barcelona shipped four goals against PSG and showed they are no closer to solving their vulnerability at the back, something which has persisted in the Flick era, partially caused by their high defensive line.
“We made too many mistakes, especially in ball possession, easy ball losses,” admitted Flick. “This is what we have to analyse.
“We have to understand the mistakes happen because [players] are not fresh. What they had to do the last couple of weeks is unbelievable.”
The good news for Barcelona is that they still have the Midas touch – everything turns to goals. They have scored at least twice in every match this season.
“Our unbeaten run [domestically] is still intact, and we’ll do everything we can to keep it that way,” Raphinha told TNT Sports.
Barcelona have averaged more than four goals a game this season, and Raphinha is the league’s top scorer, with 12 goals, three more than Kylian Mbappe has scored for Real Madrid, with Yamal third on eight.
Flick said the 4-2 defeat in Paris by PSG gave his team some clues as to where they need to improve.
“We analysed this game. We did many things really good, but we saw some situations where we have to improve,” added Flick.
“We have to grow as a team. Tomorrow we play against one of the best teams in the world, so it’s a good opportunity to grow. To challenge ourselves, to improve ourselves and to grow as a team.”
Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said he expected a Madrid side arriving with “a lot of confidence” and praised his opposite number Mourinho.
“I have the highest respect. When you’re managing teams on this level for so many years and you always have success, it’s about quality, he showed this at every club,” Flick told reporters.
“Every player from the [Germany] national team who worked under him speaks with a great respect, I think the same.
“He’s a colleague, a very, very successful colleague and a great colleague.”
Vincius Jr will miss the game due to a suspension, while Raul Asencio (leg) and Rodrygo (knee) are both injured.
Predicted starting XI:
Thibaut Courtois (goalkeeper); Federico Valverde, Antonio Rudiger, Dean Huijsen, Alvaro Carreras; Bernardo Silva, Eduardo Camavinga; Arda Guler, Jude Bellingham, Yan Diomande, Kylian Mbappe
Midfielder Dani Olmo will miss the Clasico after being ruled out for about a month with a thigh injury.
Other names already on the injury list are Jules Kounde (ankle), Eric Garcia (thigh), Andreas Christensen (thigh) and Roony Bardghji (knee).
Predicted starting XI:
Joan Garcia (goalkeeper); Xavi Espart, Pau Cubarsi, Gerard Martin, Joao Cancelo; Marc Bernal, Pedri; Lamine Yamal, Ferran Torres, Anthony Gordon; Raphinha
It has been 15 years since Jose Mourinho was first thrown into the ring of fire for his first El Clasico at Camp Nou and the famously polarising manager’s Real Madrid side were handed a La Liga battering by Barcelona.
The home team’s supporters have not forgotten that cold November night in 2010, when Pep Guardiola’s men stamped their authority with a 5-0 win.
It became an enduring image of a rivalry that spilled from the pitch onto the touchline, sparking heated confrontations among players and bitter exchanges between managers for years to come.
Now, Barcelona – the city and the club – are ready to “welcome back” Mourinho for his second stint as the manager of their fiercest rival.
“I remember the 5-0 [scoreline] but also the tension,” recalls Aleix Soler, a Barcelona fan.
“You’d spend the whole week arguing about the game even before a ball was kicked,” he tells Al Jazeera at a Barcelona fan zone.
The 35-year-old culer – as Barcelona’s supporters are known – will watch the match, having also attended games during Mourinho’s first Madrid spell.
“Beating Madrid is always special, but against Mourinho, you’re still smiling on Monday morning.”
Sunday’s highly anticipated El Clasico will see up to 40 cameras cover the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, including dedicated coverage of stars Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe a day before Ballon d’Or winners are announced.
The cameras will be placed across Camp Nou Stadium as part of a television production plan that includes ultra-high-definition filming, slow-motion replays, and individual player tracking techniques, Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo reported on Tuesday.
Why are 40 cameras required? What will the cameras focus on? And is this the first time camera innovation has been enabled?
Read more here.
One of football’s oldest rivalries will be in the spotlight this weekend, as Barcelona host Real Madrid in Sunday’s blockbuster showdown.
Famously dubbed El Clasico – Spanish for “The Classic” – fixtures between the La Liga giants have historically drawn millions of viewers worldwide, with many of the world’s best players featuring.
From duels between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, two of football’s finest players, to Neymar Jr, Luis Suarez, David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane, fans have been spoiled for choice.
In recent years, the limelight has shifted to Lamine Yamal and Raphinha of Barcelona and Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Jr in the Real camp.
With a rivalry dating back to 1902, Barcelona and Real are familiar foes, and victory on the pitch often brings bragging rights that extend far beyond football.
Al Jazeera looks back at their top five clashes here.
The rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid dates back to 1902, when the teams first met in the Copa de la Coronacion (a predecessor to the current-day Copa del Rey). Barcelona won the match 3-1 on May 13, 1902, at the La Castellana hippodrome in Madrid.
It took another six meetings before they finally faced each other in La Liga on February 17, 1929. Real won the match 2-1, thanks to Rafael Morera’s brace.
The formation of Spain’s top flight that year added further intensity to the rivalry.
The term El Clasico – “The Classic” in Spanish – first appeared in a local newspaper during the 1960s. By that time, the match had been long considered a huge derby.
The rivalry is now recognised as one of the biggest in world sport and, in the last two decades, has featured the era of Pep Guardiola vs Jose Mourinho in the dugouts and the small matter of Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo on the pitch.
Read more here.
Hello, welcome and thanks for joining our live coverage of Barcelona vs Real Madrid in La Liga.
For weeks, La Liga leaders Barcelona have been eagerly awaiting Sunday’s El Clasico as a chance to stretch the gap between themselves and rivals Real Madrid to nine points.
Some turbulence in the final approach to the clash at Camp Nou has complicated the picture for Hansi Flick’s Spanish champions, who suffered their first defeat of the season at Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Tuesday.
By contrast, Real Madrid have won four consecutive matches, thrashing RB Leipzig on Wednesday and starting to look, for the first time since Jose Mourinho’s arrival some months ago, like a team.
Should Real come away with a win, it would not only halve the current six-point gap, but provide a much-needed confidence boost for a side that has lost six of the last seven Clasicos.
I’m Patrick Keddie, and I’ll bring you the live build-up with the analysis and news surrounding the game, as well as photo coverage of the day.
Alex Hoad will bring you the team news as it drops and live text commentary of the match.
The coverage includes ultra-high-definition filming, slow-motion replays, and individual player tracking techniques.
Matches between Barca and Real are among the biggest in world football, with their rivalry spanning more than a century.
Despite not winning silverware last season, Mbappe has been clear his goal to clinch the Ballon d’Or.
Bragging rights are up for grabs in Sunday’s El Clasico between La Liga leaders Barcelona and third-placed Real Madrid.
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