How many editions of El Clásico have there been?
Real Madrid have beaten their closest rival 100 times, compared to Barça’s 97. The Catalans have won seven of their last ten visits to the capital.
Real Madrid and Barcelona have met 249 times in official competition - i.e. not including friendlies, 99 of them have been played at the Santiago Bernabéu. Real Madrid come out on top in the overall figures and at home, although the Catalans have managed to win in seven of their last ten visits to the capital and in 14 of the last 20.
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250th Clásico
This afternoon, the 250th official edition of El Clásico will be played at the Bernabéu. As it stands, in this fixture Real Madrid have 100 wins and 415 goals, while Barcelona are on 97 wins and 408 goals. There have been 52 draws, although the last draw in Madrid was back on 30 January 2013 (1-1 in the Copa del Rey) - the last draw in LaLiga was on 16 April 2011 ( 1-1).
Bernabéu
Today’s will be the 100th Clásico to be played at the Santiago Bernabéu. In the previous 99 there have been 50 home wins, 22 draws and 27 away wins. The Clásicos played at the Santiago Bernabéu have produced 314 goals, which can be broken down as follows: 181 for Madrid and 133 for Barcelona. The first meeting between Madrid and Barcelona in Chamartín was played on 19 September 1948 and ended with a Barça victory (1-2, with goals by Florencio, Basora for the visitors and Barinaga for Madrid).
Dynamics
Barcelona have won seven of the last 10 Clásicos at the Santiago Bernabéu (three wins for Madrid) and 12 of the last 20 (five wins for Madrid and three draws). Of the last 30 goals scored in the Clásicos at the Bernabéu, 21 have been scored by Barça and only nine had by Real Madrid. In the 30 visits prior to Guardiola’s arrival on the Barcelona bench, the Culés only won four times at the stadium of their eternal rival.
Key defeats
As a rule of thumb, losing at home against the eternal rival practically means waving goodbye to the league title. Throughout history in the league Clásicos, there have been 45 away victories and only on six occasions (13%) did the team that lost at home go on to become champion: Barcelona 1928-29, Real Madrid 1975-76, Real Madrid 2011-12, Barcelona 2015-16, Real Madrid 2016-17 and Real Madrid 2021-22.
Facing the leaders
Real Madrid have played 59 times at home against the team at the top of the league table, totaling 38 wins, twelve draws and nine losses. On 15 of those 59 occasions, Madrid’s victory also served to snatch leadership from their opponents (against Barcelona on 25 October 1953, 15 February 1959, 29 November 1959, 22 October 1988 and more recently, on 1 March 2020).
Clásico debutants
Four players from Madrid (Hazard, Rüdiger, Tchouameni and Lunin) and six from Barcelona (Balde, Lewandowski, Raphinha, Kessié, Koundé and Marcos Alonso) have a real chance of playing their first Clásico. The last Barça-Madrid in the that there were ten or more debutants was played on 20 November 2004 at Camp Nou. That day, eight players from Barcelona (Belletti, Márquez, Deco, Eto’o, Larsson, Iniesta, Damià and Sylvinho) and two from Madrid (Walter Samuel and Michael Owen) all made their debuts in this historic rivalry. The locals won 3-0 with goals from Eto’o, Van Bronckhorst and Ronaldinho.
Solid defence
Barcelona have kept a clean sheet in seven of the first eight LaLiga games, something that only four other teams had previously achieved: Barça themselves did it in 1977 with Artola in goal, Deportivo did it in 1993 with Liaño between the sticks, Real Madrid did it in 1997 with Cañizares as goalkeeper and Barcelona did it again with Claudio Bravo as the protagonist in 2014. Of the four precedents above, only one led to the team clinching the league title (Barcelona 2014-15).
Coaches
None of Ancelotti’s eight Clásicos has finished in a draw. His team posted four wins and four defeats (two of them at the Santiago Bernabéu) against Barcelona. For Xavi it will be his 45th Clasico (42 as a player and three as a coach). The man from Terrassa accumulated eight wins, six draws and seven losses in his 21 visits as a player to the Whites Coliseum and seven months ago he won 0-4 on his first visit as coach. Ancelotti has accumulated 1,236 official matches as coach, divided between ten teams, while Xavi’s career on the bench consists of 151 matches, 102 at Al-Sadd and 49 at Barcelona.