END OF AN ERA
EL CLASICO BERNABEU, TOMORROW, 7.45PM Win for Ronaldo & Co won’t just set up title it will seal a shift in power
JUST in case you’re scratching around for El Clasico statistics before tomorrow night provides you with the chance to watch what will probably be the best football of the season, here’s a couple of beauties.
There have been 233 of these blistering, bucolic, bruising matches in La Liga and the record stands at: Real Madrid 91, Barcelona 93 and 49 draws.
You sit down to watch the Clasico with a nice bottle of Rioja and there’s only a 21 per cent chance of a draw. This game prefers winners and losers.
Better still, the goal average per match when Spain is divided between Castilla and Catalunya is 3.3. Next: across the last 24 Clasicos there have been 15 red cards, 11 for Madrid.
Finally, when they play at home, as is the case on Sunday night, Madrid have 52 wins, have drawn 15 and lost to the Catalans just 19 times.
But in the fixture’s 88-year history seven of those 19 Barca wins in the Spanish capital have come in the last 13 visits to the Santiago Bernabeu. It has been the ‘Cruyff ’ era just as much as when the late Dutchman played or coached there.
Since 2003 when his influence again began to shape Barca’s philosophy they have won more trophies than Madrid and only lost four of those last 13 visits.
But it feels like change is in the air and, potentially, this is the match to be the weather vane.
As Luis Enrique departs Barcelona, it looks certain now that the next coach – unlike the chain which links Frank Rijkaard, Pep Guardiola and Tito Vilanova between 2003 and 2013, won’t be a Cruyff disciple.
Only Andres Iniesta remains from those players who came through the system when either Cruyff was the manager or his recruitment policy still ruled.
The football bears little resemblance to the version which made them dominant when the Cruyff-Guardiola influences combined.
What with the fuss over whether Leo Messi will renew his contract – which runs out next season – the desire to make Neymar the team emblem, the over-emphasis on buying €40million players from Valencia and the lack of faith in promoting from the youth teams, this is beginning to resemble the post-Cruyff period when he was sacked as manager in 1996.
The emphasis then shifted to big-money purchases and cash bonuses for appearances rather than trophies. The club undercut its ethos and standards.
This isn’t an identical time but there are similar themes, which makes more than three points and the title at stake tomorrow.
If Madrid win then La Liga will be theirs for only the second time since 2008. A brutal absence for a club which now finds it simpler to conquer Europe than Spain.
They have begun to promote from within their ranks with ex players like Santi Solari and Guti running parts of their youth system, they are repatriating Raul into the establishment and manager Zinedine Zidane is one of their all-time great footballers.
They are carving an identity which is clearly Madrid’s and adopting elements of what has made Barcelona so successful.
This might be the Clasico which sees the power handed from Catalunya to the capital.