If FC Barcelona want to keep their slim chances of winning the championship alive, they must win the Clasico at Real Madrid – and defy the usual course of events.
After the semi-final in the Champions League is before the Clasico – Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos was already looking ahead to the upcoming weekend immediately after the penalty drama in Manchester.
“If we don’t lose the game, it looks very, very good,” said the strategist on DAZN about the situation in the table ahead of the clash with FC Barcelona, who are eight points clear. “And if we win, we might be able to put a little tick in the box,” said Kroos. That would give us an eleven-point buffer with six games to go
The unspoken third scenario, a Barca win, must self-explanatory be what the Catalans are aiming for after their elimination in the CL quarter-finals. To reduce the lead to five points. To perhaps start another run to avoid ending the season without a title. The Copa del Rey has already gone to Bilbao.
The second-round Clasico as a turnaround for the runners-up – in theory, that is the most obvious way forward. Especially because form rarely plays a major role in these games. But in practice, this plan has never worked in recent years
Even a 4:0 didn’t change anything
When Real had the chance to close the gap to six points on their rivals at the Camp Nou on matchday 26 of the previous season, the Whites lost 2-1 late on – and the title was gone. On matchday 29 of the 2021/22 season, Xavi and his team celebrated an impressive 4-0 win at the Bernabeu and cut the lead to a theoretical nine points. However, Real did not let this upset them on their way to the title
It didn’t matter to the Whites in these situations whether they won or lost. In 2018/19, they played better than Barca in the home game on matchday 26 and could once again have been just six points behind instead of twelve. But the Catalans scored and won in the first season after the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo. In 2015/16, CR7 had scored Real to win on matchday 31 in Barcelona, but the comeback under new coach Zinedine Zidane was just not enough to close the gap to seven points. In the end, one was missing.
The last time this constellation was seen was in 2016/17, when Barcelona were the runners-up and had to play at the Bernabeu on matchday 33. The Catalans won in stoppage time thanks to a Messi goal and closed the gap on the Whites – albeit with one game to spare. Real nevertheless had the better final spurt and became not only the first team to defend the Champions League seven years ago, but also the Spanish champions. They also became Spanish champions
