El Clásico Will Be a Clash of Wounded Animals
Both BARCELONA and REAL MADRID are coming into club football's biggest match with emotional baggage.
IN THIS ISSUE:
KDB TO LIVERPOOL? / CHAMPIONSHIP PROMOTION PLAYOFFS / CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUALIFIERS IN ITALY, GERMANY & ENGLAND / LIVERPOOL vs ARSENAL / AN ASTON VILLA KIT FOR THE AGES
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It’s a game that needs no introduction, but there’s plenty of narrative coming into this one. BARCELONA just lost the greatest cup tie of all time to Inter Milan in a Champions League semifinal. REAL MADRID are enduring a horror season by their standards, culminating with a Copa del Rey final defeat to their Catalan enemies that had them going ballistic on the referee.
That makes the two contestants in El Clásico a pair of wounded animals, though Barcelona have the consolation of that cup final victory and a very good chance to wrap up La Liga with a win here. Madrid have no such comfort, and all they can do is beat their greatest rivals to keep the title race alive. Which of these two can shake off the emotional baggage in time to win the biggest match in club football?
Here to help us answer that question ahead of kickoff on Sunday (10:15am ET, 3:15pm UK) is Dan Hilton of The Barcelona Podcast:
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Or check it out on APPLE PODCASTS🍎
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LONG READS
⚽︎ The Athletic’s Andy Mitten has a new interview with Xavi Hernández ticking through his phenomenal playing career and (perhaps) his future.
⚽︎ On Substack, Paul Tomkins has a (somewhat audacious) meditation on how Liverpool could sign soon-to-be-free agent Kevin De Bruyne.
⚽︎ The one and only has a video reaction to Barcelona’s defeat in Milan here on Substack, talking Spanish football as only he can.
⚽︎ It’s obvious that the Club World Cup will be a disaster for player welfare, but The Athletic’s Philip Buckingham and Eduardo Tansley take a more thorough look at the details.
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MORE MATCHES
COVENTRY CITY vs SUNDERLAND
Fri @ 3pm ET, 8pm UK
The Championship playoffs have arrived, and this is the pick of the two semifinals. Neither of these two have played a Premier League match in quite some time, though Coventry did get close when they made the playoff final two years ago.
The Sky Blues have been out of the first division since 2001, and just getting to this point this season constitutes a remarkable turnaround for the West Midlands outfit. They were 17th and two points above the relegation zone when Frank Lampard was appointed in November, and it’s a redemption story for the Chelsea legend, too. His time in management before this was hardly stellar. If he can engineer promotion for a modest club first formed as Singers F.C. in 1883, it could change the whole face of his post-playing career.
For Sunderland, it’s a slightly different story. This is a massive club, one of the powers of the Northeast with a 49,000-seat stadium, but they’ve been laid unacceptably low in recent years by poor management from the board level down. Back-to-back relegations that sent them from the Premier League to League One made for a great television series, but it was not a good time for their incredibly devoted fans. Can manager Régis Le Bris bring them back to the promised land? They’ll first have to shake off their recent form: five straight defeats.
LAZIO vs JUVENTUS
Sat @ 12pm ET, 5pm UK
It’s a bit of a rough Saturday as far as enthralling fixtures, but this one is a doozy. These two teams are in the heat of battle for a Champions League spot — with Roma and Bologna also in the mix — and there are only two matches left in Serie A after this weekend. Juventus battled to a draw in Bologna last week to keep hold of the fourth and final UCL spot, and they might just settle for the same result here considering that Roma must travel to Atalanta this weekend and Bologna go to Milan. But it’s a risk, and Lazio will be gunning for it all here. They could deal Juve a decisive blow with home victory at the Stadio Olimpico.
NOTTS COUNTY vs AFC WIMBLEDON
Sat @ 3pm ET, 8pm UK
Did we say it’s a rough Saturday? Because League Two is riding to the rescue. This is another promotion semifinal, and the stories around it are tasty.
Notts County is the oldest professional football club in the world, the team that gave Juventus their black-and-white stripes, but they’ve been mired in the lower leagues since relegation from the old First Division in 1992 — just in time to miss out on the newly formed Premier League. Six years ago, they lost their place in the Football League altogether. They won it back in 2023, winning promotion and coming up with Wrexham, another ancient club, and they’ve since had to watch the Red Dragons climb up the divisions and leave them in the dust. Here’s an opportunity to join them on the ladder.
For Wimbledon, it’s a freighted opportunity for different reasons. This club was formed in 2002 after the original Wimbledon F.C. was spirited away to Milton Keynes by new ownership, a landmark betrayal in the eyes of many football fans across England. Both clubs are in League Two now, though M.K. Dons — the rebranded Wimbledon — had a poor season down in 19th place, just barely avoiding relegation from the Football League. This is a chance for the True Dons to leave what they view as the imposters behind and start climbing up the English pyramid.
NEWCASTLE vs CHELSEA
Sun @ 7am ET, 12pm UK
Through some sort of British broadcasting caper, this one kicks off quite early on Sunday, but it’s not one to miss. It’s a playoff for a Champions League place, fourth against fifth in the Premier League, as two of the five teams in the mix for a spot at Europe’s top table next season lock horns. Victory for either side will get them to the brink of qualification, while defeat could send them spinning towards the Europa League — or worse — if Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa get results this weekend.
BAYER LEVERKUSEN vs BORUSSIA DORTMUND
Sun @ 9:30am ET, 2:30pm UK
There’s not a whole lot riding on this one for Leverkusen, who’ve been well-beaten to the Bundesliga title by Bayern Munich this season. For Dortmund, though, everything is on the line. After a very poor campaign by very high black-and-yellow standards, they’re still in with a shot of qualifying for next year’s Champions League if they can take one more point than Freiburg across the final two matches of the season. This will be the big test, but Dortmund are all of a sudden the form team in Germany, taking 16 of the last 18 points available. It would be a Great Escape of sorts for Niko Kovač and his team.
LIVERPOOL vs ARSENAL
Sun @ 11:30am ET, 4:30pm UK
You may have noticed that a lot of the good matches are packed into a few hours Sunday morning, what with the Clásico kicking off an hour and change before this one. The stakes here are considerably lower, what with Arsenal having more or less folded in the league a couple of months ago, but this is still first against second and the visitors actually need a win. The North London side’s form in the Premier League has been diabolical recently, so much so that Man City have snuck up to within three points of them. Mikel Arteta will not want to relinquish second place and create an even crueler summer to come.
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