Barça visits the Santiago Bernabeu with the aim of redeeming itself and defending its leadership of the League in its most difficult week after the premature virtual elimination from the Champions League. Ahead of Xavi's men will be a rested Real Madrid that will seek to regain first place.
Real Madrid signs its best league start in the last eleven years and arrives fresh for the big event, after the rotations of Ancelotti who is looking for solutions to the lack of forcefulness of his team. In need of the return of the true identity of Karim Benzema, who hopes to collect his Ballon d'Or on Monday but has six fewer goals at this point in the season than a year ago. His goalscoring drought reaches 390 minutes.
Real Madrid - Barça will be played at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium this Sunday, October 16, at 4:15 p.m. The meeting can be seen on the DAZN platform. You can follow all the information about the classic live on the La Vanguardia website and check the rest of the results of the day, the classification and the League calendar.
With Vinícius taking a breather in Warsaw for the first time this season to ensure the imbalance against Barcelona, the third piece of the trident will mark Ancelotti's tactical idea in a classic in which he wants to invent little after the 0-4 of the last precedent. That day for the oblivion of Real Madrid with Luka Modric as a false 9 and Casemiro finishing as central defender in full bleeding, a coach who usually chokes on the league classic (four defeats in six games) learned from the error. The classic will be a test of maturity for Andriy Lunin, who faces the biggest game of his career due to the loss of Thibaut Courtois.
Barcelona faces the league classic at the worst moment of the season. And that the trajectory in the domestic competition says the opposite. In the first eight games, Barça leads the table, with the same points as Real Madrid, has had seven consecutive victories and has become the team with the most goals (20) and the fewest goals (1). But the sensations are low since the last national team break. Xavi Hernández's team has beaten Mallorca (0-1) and Celta (1-0) by the minimum.
The Barça downturn has coincided with a plague of injuries in the Barça defense. The absences in the last games of Jules Koundé, Ronald Araújo and Andreas Christensen have forced the coach from Egar to play with Gerard Piqué, fifth central defender in the squad until the national team break, Eric Garcia and even use Marcos Alonso as an emergency solution in the axis.
In Madrid, Xavi will be able to count on Koundé, although it is not yet clear if he will take risks with the French starter, who has not played a single minute since he suffered an injury to the biceps femoris in his left thigh with his national team on September 23. It also remains to be seen if he will play at right back or center back.
With the doubt as to whether Xavi will bet on Busquets or rest Gavi, it is expected that Frenkie de Jong will return to the eleven, who after receiving medical discharge has been a substitute in the last two games. In attack, Robert Lewandowski, author of a double against Inter and top scorer in LaLiga (9), will make his debut in a classic. The Pole is the only forward who has a guaranteed place in the eleven, waiting to see if Xavi continues to bet on Ousmane Dembélé and Raphinha as wingers.
Real Madrid: Lunin; Carvajal, Militao, Alaba, Mendy; Tchouaméni, Kroos, Modric; Fede Valverde, Vinícius and Benzema.
Barcelona: Ter roasting; Balde, Kounde, Eric Garcia, Marcos Alonso; Busquets, De Jong, Pedri; Dembele, Lewandowski and Raphinha.
