Although Barcelona has already celebrated its La Liga title, the stakes are as high as ever ahead of this spring's edition of El Clasico. Real Madrid will almost certainly finish the season in second or third, but they'll be plenty motivated to keep Barcelona from joining the ranks of invincible soccer teams.
Yes, Cristiano Ronaldo’s bicycle kick against Juventus was very nice. And of course, that title-clinching hat-trick that Lionel Messi registered against Deportivo was very nice as well. But does that mean, with regards to Sunday’s El Clasico, that we should only focus on the 10-time Ballon d’Or winners?
Liverpool booked their ticket to the 2018 Champions League Final against Real Madrid on Wednesday with a 7-6 aggregate win over Roma. Now that the semifinals are over, all the attention now shifts to the final in Kiev, and rightly so. But have Liverpool already won the match before it’s even started? Here’s why that might be the case.
In the aftermath of Real Madrid’s extremely fortunate 4-3 aggregate victory over Bayern Munich and Liverpool’s bonkers 7-6 win over Roma, expect two storylines to dominate the headlines in the buildup to Kiev: (1) this is a very different Real Madrid side than previous incarnations (let's be clear here: they’re charmed, not favored — they haven’t gotten the help that Barcelona got against PSG in 2017) and (2) if defending is an art, Liverpool is Jackson Pollock — their backline
In the end, Bayern Munich only has itself to blame. If you want to get particular about it, it’s left back Rafinha and goalkeeper Sven Ulreich who deserve the most condemnation. The duo absolutely gifted Real Madrid two of its four goals, a devastating bit of self-sabotage against the back-to-back world champion.
Another Real Madrid game yesterday, another game Gareth Bale started on the bench.
But this wasn’t just another game; this was the second leg of the Champions League semifinals. For Real Madrid, this was the most important game of the season. It’s the only trophy they still have a chance to win. The fact Gareth Bale started this game on the bench and didn’t even play at all in the first leg is telling. It’s telling no matter what Zinedine Zidane tells you.
The showdowns between Real Madrid and Barcelona, taking place at least twice per year, are the premier sporting events in Spain. Millions around the world tune in to watch the two richest teams in the world’s most popular sport face off in perhaps the world’s greatest rivalry. Earlier this week, we took a look at how the number of worldwide El Clasico viewers compared to the Super Bowl, the biggest event in Spain compared to the biggest event in the U.S.