The first “El Clasico” the 2023/24 season is taking place on Saturday, October, 28, and the stakes could not be higher in this meeting between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Los Blancos are tied with Girona at the top of the La Liga table, and they are just one point ahead of the Blaugrana.
As this heavyweight duel approaches, Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez has admitted that he feels “nervous”. While speaking during his pre-match press conference on Friday, Xavi started off on a positive note, saying: “We are ready to compete. We are in a good moment, I think…psychologically, also physically in a good moment of a good performance in the last two games.
He added: “Tomorrow is different. It’s a Clasico, you have more nervous, more tension, more everything. So, we need to control the emotions…I think it’s the key point tomorrow.”
Barcelona plagued with injury concerns
Indeed, Barcelona have reasons to be nervous, as do Real Madrid. The hosts in particular, are worried about the fitness levels of several key players. During their training session on Thursday, only one of their six injured players, Raphinha, was able to train with the group.
Meanwhile, Pedri, Sergi Roberto and Jules Kounde were thought to have been ruled out, but the club revealed on Friday that they were all able to return to training. Robert Lewandowski and Frenkie de Jong also joined the group on Friday despite training separately on Thursday.
According to Diario AS, de Jong and Lewandowski had to take pain-killing injections in order to be able to train normally on Friday, and it remains to be seen if they will be able to take to the pitch for El Clasico.
Lewandowski has been struggling with an injury on his ankle ligaments, but he will surely be pushing himself to the limit in order to be ready to play in this crucial encounter.
Of course, Xavi wants his best players on the pitch against their biggest rivals, but he won’t risk exacerbating any injuries. We are barely halfway through the season and he won’t want to take any big risks and end up losing more players for lengthier periods.
Duels to watch out for:João Cancelo vs Vini Jr.: The Brazilian faces the competition’s top tackler
Over the past few years, Xavi has often put Ronald Araújo up against Vini Jr. in El Clasico, but João Cancelo’s excellent start to his FC Barcelona career has seen the Portuguese lock down the right-back spot. As such, it should be the 29-year-old who’ll go up against the player Carlo Ancelotti had repeatedly described as “the best winger in world football”.
Cancelo and Vini Jr. have only faced off once before in their careers, when Real Madrid produced an incredible comeback in the 2021/22 Champions League semi-final second leg against Manchester City. However, Cancelo played at left-back for the majority of that game, so there wasn’t a direct duel between these two talents.
On Saturday, we should finally get to see if Cancelo can handle Vini Jr.’s incredible pace and trickery. One of the best attackers is going up against one of the best defenders and that duel, on Real Madrid’s left and Barça’s right, could be key to deciding the entire contest.
Barça’s midfield vs Real Madrid’s midfield:
Gavi has been the main man in the middle for the Catalan side so far, and he’ll hope to be joined by Pedri and Frenkie de Jong, if those two can recover from injury in time for the big game. Even if they can’t, Xavi has veteran alternatives in the form of İlkay Gündoğan and Oriol Romeu, with the former offering an elite vision of the final third and with the latter providing defensive security in front of the back four.
Romeu could be a busy man, given the explosiveness of Real Madrid’s own midfield. The midfield that has started most frequently for Los Blancos this season, usually in a diamond shape, has been Aurélien Tchouaméni, Federico Valverde, Eduardo Camavinga and Jude Bellingham. Aged 23, 25, 20 and 20, respectively, this is a midfield packed with talent and energy, while Ancelotti can also turn to the experience of Toni Kroos and Luka Modrić if he requires something different.
Real Madrid have won so many games thanks to their midfield this season, especially summer signing Bellingham and his league-leading eight goals, so this will be an area to watch on Saturday.
Xavi vs Ancelotti: The Barça coach just edges the head-to-head record
The other key duel that could decide ELCLASICO will be on the benches, where Xavi and Ancelotti will meet for the eighth time. Of their seven meetings so far, there haven’t been any draws, while the Catalan tactician has triumphed four times to the Italian’s three.
With Barça suffering a few injuries this week, the coach may be forced to experiment and come up with a special tactical wrinkle to win this next contest.
Meanwhile, Ancelotti will look to engineer a game plan as solid as the one that produced a 4-0 Copa del Rey victory in Catalonia last season. The 64-year-old is still capable of coming up with fresh ideas, as demonstrated by his switch to a 4-4-2 diamond system ahead of this season, and Ancelotti will be encouraged by the fact that he has won the first El Clasico of the season in each of the previous two campaigns.
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