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Your support makes all the difference.Real Madrid simply have to beat Barcelona today to keep their floundering title hopes alive.
The reigning champions currently sit 11-points behind their fierce rivals – although they do have a game in hand. But a loss today would see the gap widen even further ahead of the winter break.
The good news for Real is that Cristiano Ronaldo appears to have rediscovered his scoring touch and has scored in each of his last four games. The bad news is that Barcelona have been in sensational form this campaign, contrary to all predictions. They are undefeated in the league and thrashed Deportivo de La Coruña 4-0 last time out.
Join us for build-up, minute-by-minute coverage and all of the reaction and fallout.
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Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of Real Madrid vs Barcelona.
This really is a must win for Zinedine Zidane's floundering side and anything less than three points for Los Blancos will leave their fierce rivals in pole position to secure the league title this season.
Join us for build-up, minute-by-minute coverage and all of the reaction and fallout. Team news is expected in 15-minutes or so, but for the meantime here are the predicted line-ups:
Real Madrid starting XI: Navas; Carvajal, Varane, Ramos, Marcelo; Casemiro, Kroos, Modric; Isco; Benzema, Ronaldo
Barcelona starting XI: Ter Stegen; Roberto, Pique, Vermaelen, Alba; Rakitic, Iniesta, Busquets; Paulinho; Messi, Suarez
Here's former Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka's exclusive preview on today's match:
For a coach, one of the many things that makes the clásico a fixture different in scale to virtually any other club game is that you start preparing for the next one from the moment the last one has finished. That’s how consuming it is.
You have questions about what you could have done differently, start scrutinising what the opposition did differently, down to the very finest details. There’s naturally so much second-guessing, as you think of how to respond to what happened, but also offer something new the next time.
I recognise it so well from my time working with Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid, up against Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.
Read the full preview here:
The team news has been announced!
Here's how the hosts will line up today...
Struggle to tell the difference between Sergio Ramos and Sergio Roberto? Not usually a fan of all this fancy continental European football? A fan of blue passports?
Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. Here’s a detailed player-by-player guide to today’s Real Madrid team, courtesy of Spanish football writer Gonzalo Canada:
10 minutes until kick-off!
Which is just enough time to read our Chief Football Writer Miguel Delaney on how La Liga plan on catching up with the popularity of the Premier League...
As ever with the biggest game in the world it gets off to an electric start and Real Madrid, attacking down the right, win a corner on their first attack.
They're attacking what we will call 'the sunny end'.
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