Real Madrid-Barcelona: old classic in the new world

The classic will have 650 million viewers in 180 countries. The duel between Vinícius and Raphinha heats up the first classic at the new Bernabéu

This is the classic of classics, usually one of the most watched football matches in the world. It must have 650 million viewers in 180 countries around the world. But there’s more: this will be the first time that the Real Madrid v Barcelona match will be played at the Santiago Bernabéu after its spectacular renovation, which has made it one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world. The old classic in the most modern of venues.

Separated by three points and with the league still in its early stages, the result will not be decisive for the future of the two teams in La Liga , but that does not prevent the game from bringing together a good number of factors that arouse the greatest interest: what is freshest in the minds of the fans are the thrashings of the German opponents (the Merengues beat Dortmund 5-2; the Blaugrana beat Bayern Munich 4-1) with hat tricks from Vinícius and Raphinha. These are the two main candidates to be the great protagonists of this evening and the ones who, after all these years, most remind us of the good old days of the rivalry between Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo .

When he arrived at Real at the age of 18, there were some doubts about Vinícius’ future, who took a while to establish himself, but now has a good chance of winning the Ballon d’Or. Raphinha was on the outs at Barcelona last summer, when president Laporta tried to sell him in order to buy Nico Williams . But the deal fell through and Raphin began to show what had never been seen before and became the most unbalancing player.

Hansi Flick arrives at the Bernabéu at the helm of a team that has quickly become one of the great sensations of European football, with a perfect mix of youngsters trained in-house and experienced players like Lewandowski , who has recovered his goalscoring instincts.

Flick’s ambitious system, with a high defence and great pressing capacity, has its risks and one of the curiosities of today’s game will be to see if Flick remains true to his bravery, knowing that the speedy runs of Mbappé and Vinícius can be a danger for defenders too far from their area.

This will be one of the aspects that Ancelotti will try to exploit, knowing that he will be without the injured Courtois , Carvajal and Rodrygo , important absences, especially that of the goalkeeper, who has been the great saviour in the most critical moments.

With everything they have won and the enormous superiority shown last season, it was thought that with the arrival of Mbappé Real Madrid would be devastating this year. But the reality has been different, the absence of Kroos deprives the team of creative capacity and as a result the forwards suffer, the defence shows a lack of force and often gives too many opportunities.

Bellingham , who had already scored 10 goals last season, is still blank this year. Many things are not working and have only not had worse consequences thanks to the enormous value of the majority of its players, capable of solving the problems with their individual actions, such as those of Vinícius in the game against Dortmund.

There is no doubt that Real Madrid have the most to lose in tonight’s match, as defeat leaves them six points behind Barcelona , ​​who, with the three points they now have ahead, would still be top of the table even if they lost. But from what we have seen so far, Flick’s team will not even play for a draw: full of confidence, they know they have the ability to achieve victory and put Real Madrid to the test .