Why is El Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona always played on the same dates?

It’s the end of October in LaLiga and this can only mean one thing ... it’s time for El Clásico, the biggest game in domestic football when FC Barcelona and Real Madrid lock horns.

In recent years, the dates on which Madrid and Barça have faced each other have been almost repetitive with the first meeting generally scheduled for the last weekend of October.

One of the many reasons for ensuring that these games fall at a certain time of year is to ensure that they don’t open the season when many people are still on holiday and regarding the second meeting of the season, the idea is always to schedule the match when there are still a handful of games outstanding ensuring that the second game is important but not a deal-breaker in deciding the outcome of LaLiga.

Last season, the first-round El Clásico was played on matchday 11, then at Montjuic. This time it also coincided with matchday 11 although this season the first meeting is scheduled for the Bernabéu with the hope that the newly renovated Spotify Camp Nou will be able to host the second-round match.

With LaLiga now having a asymmetric schedule, this frees the calendar from the constraints of playing the first and second rounds in the same order and allows the Clásico to be scheduled on the most suitable dates. For the first round, the option has been to hold the game in mid/late-October, on a weekend prior to a week in which there is no Champions League, in order to have the availability to schedule it on a Saturday or Sunday. In 2020 and 2021, the first Clásico was played on October 24, and the 2019 Clásico, which was postponed to December for security reasons, was scheduled for the 25th. Two seasons ago it was brought forward to October 16, 2022 (matchday 9) due to the calendar adjustment for the World Cup in Qatar and Last season it was played on October 28.

The second Clasico of the season

This year, the second Clásico in the league could prove to be truly decisive... or inconsequential. We will have to wait until matchday 35 (10-11 May) to see in what shape both Barça and Real Madrid are when it comes to the game at Spotify Camp Nou.

This season sees uncharacteristically late scheduling with the second Clasico of the season not being played this late since the 2017-18 season, when it was played on the penultimate matchday (36) and Barça went into the match already as champions. Since then, the second Clásico of the season has been held between matchdays 26 and 30. Last season it was staged on matchday 32.

This year, the match will be so late that it will not coincide with Easter, which will be late (17-20 April), and it will not be sandwiched between the two Champions League semi-final matches with El Clásico set to be played just after the two finalists of the top continental competition are announced.

What time does Real Madrid vs Barcelona start?

The LaLiga matchday-11 game between Real Madrid and Barcelona will be played at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid, Spain, on Saturday October 26, 2024. Kick-off is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. ET/12 noon PT.