The first El Clasico of the season is upon us

La Liga

Football
Published: 24/10/2014

Barcelona travel to Madrid on Saturday evening for the first El Clasico of the season, which is to be played at the Bernabeu Stadium. With Real Madrid currently sitting four points off La Liga leaders Barcelona and also a point behind Sevilla, who sit in second place in the league, Real Madrid can not afford to drop further behind the Catalans so early in the season. In addition to this, with Valencia playing Elche at home and Atletico Madrid making the short trip to Getafe, Real Madrid could find themselves as far down as fifth in the table if they do not get a positive result out of the match.

If Carlo Ancelotti`s men are to take all three points, then they will have to inflict Barcelona`s first league defeat of the season, having won seven and drawn just one of their opening eight games in manager, Luis Enrique`s first season in charge.

Real Madrid are priced at 7/5 with Coral to end Barcelona`s undefeated run in the league and close within a point of the leaders. Ancelotti will have been pleased that he could take off star man Cristiano Ronaldo during the second half of the Champions League game at Liverpool and the Portuguese is 4/1 with SkyBet to get the first goal of the game. Karim Benzema also enjoyed a good run out against Liverpool, bagging two goals in the process and the French striker can be backed at 13/2 with ladbrokes to open the scoring.

Barcelona, who go into the match following a comfortable night at the Camp Nou against Ajax on Tuesday are 2/1 with SkyBet to leave the Bernabeu with all three points and deal a severe blow to their rivals. All eyes will of course be on Lionel Messi, who could break the all time La Liga goal scoring record during this match and he is 5/1 with bet365 to get the first goal of the game. Despite so much attention being placed on Messi and Ronaldo, one man who could end up making the difference is Luis Suarez, who is available for selection after serving a ban. Although it`s unlikely that the Uruguayan will start the match having not played at this level for so long, signs are that he will play some part in the game and can be backed at 7/2 with stanjames to score at any time.

One thing that can`t be said about these games is that they are dull, in fact, there has not been a 0-0 draw in this league fixture since November 2002 and with such an array of attacking talent on the pitch, it`s very unlikely this one is going to remain goalless either. In total, 31 goals have been scored in their last eight league meetings, averaging almost four goals per game and BetVictor offer 11/8 for there to be over 3.5 goals on Saturday evening. Furthermore, perhaps due to the intense atmosphere and build up, there is often an early goal scored in this fixture and this has been the case in the last five meetings, as a goal has been scored within the first 20 minutes of those games. william hill offer 8/5 for this first goal to be scored within the first 15 minutes and bet365 have 13/5 available for the first goal to be scored between 10 and 20 minutes into the match.

With so much drama in these games, yellow and red cards are not uncommon, with Sergio Ramos and Pepe often involved in incidents off the ball and the latter is priced at 20/1 with paddypower to receive a red card during the match.

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Any odds displayed within this article were correct at the time of publishing (24/10/2014) but are subject to change.

24/10/2014     © Frixo 2024

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