When Real Madrid turns out against Barcelona on Sunday, expect a global audience of more than 600 million, much higher than even the largely India-based viewership of close to 400 million for the IPL final.

Why does El Clasico command such a vast, loyal following? One reason is football excellence: the two clubs have dominated Spain and Europe over the last two decades. Another is that they hosted two of the world’s most famous athletes — Lionel Messi (Barcelona) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Madrid). The fan-bases built during that period have outlasted the two superstars.

Proxy battles

What gives the fixture its heft, though, is the rivalry’s intensity. Phil Ball in ‘Morbo: the Story of Spanish Football’ describes “morbo” as a uniquely Spanish brand of antagonistic “needle” that turns football matches into proxy battles over historical, political and cultural divides.

El Clasico is the morbo of all morbos. Real, the capital city’s main club, symbolises central Spain’s grandeur, but reminds detractors of patronage from dictator Franco’s regime. Barcelona, ‘mes que un club’ (more than a club), is a voice for Catalan identity which the dictatorship suppressed. But both are owned by members and run by business elites — the contrast is sharper in perception than in fact.

On the pitch, though, the difference is real. It dates back to Dutch great Johan Cruyff, who played for Barcelona (1973-78) and returned as coach in 1988 with totaalvoetbal, or total football. His ‘Dream Team’ won Barcelona’s first European Cup in 1992 with a young Pep Guardiola at its heart.

When Guardiola became the coach in 2008, he took Cruyff’s ideas to their furthest point with a team built largely on homegrown talent such as Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and Messi. It won 14 trophies in four seasons, humiliating Madrid 6-2 at the Bernabeu in 2009 and 5-0 at Camp Nou in 2010.

Madrid’s answer was to hire Guardiola’s antithesis, Jose Mourinho. His Madrid was fast, direct and physical, content to cede the ball and strike on the break. The results were mixed. Madrid won the 2011 Copa del Rey and the 2011-12 league with a record 100 points, and an exhausted Guardiola left soon after. But Barcelona won the 2011 Champions League, and Mourinho departed in 2013 with a split dressing room.

In the decade after the coaching stalwarts left, Madrid won the Champions League six times, while Barcelona won more league titles before a financial crisis forced it to let Messi go in 2021. The revival came after Hansi Flick’s appointment in 2024, built out of necessity on La Masia graduates such as teenagers Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi. Barcelona has since won two successive league titles, while Madrid has gone two seasons without a major trophy. So president Florentino Perez turned to the coach he had once hired to stop Guardiola, Mourinho.

This season, Barcelona has won all nine of its league games, scoring 39 goals and conceding just nine. Having lost three strikers in the off-season, it is led by winger Raphinha, who now plays as a No. 9 and has scored 12 goals in seven games. With Yamal and Anthony Gordon alongside, the forwards harass defenders with relentless pressing. Barcelona averages 21 shots a game, and its expected goals (xG) stands at 33.6, a high 0.18 per shot.

The Yamal effect

Raphinha may be the tip of the spear, but this well-oiled Barca is lifted by Yamal who comes closest to what Messi was in the club’s heyday: a dribbler who can cut through defences at will from the right wing, and a terrific passer with a repertoire of tricks. With eight goals and six assists in nine games, he has been decisive at just 19.

Behind the forwards, former Ballon d’Or winner Rodri, who chose Barca over Real, has provided the steadiness that Barca lacked after Busquets left in 2023, freeing the precocious Pedri to orchestrate play.

Under Flick, the system is built to take risks. Barcelona holds 69.4% of the ball, according to data from MarkStats, and its ‘field tilt’, the share of touches in the final third, is 72.7%, by far the highest in LaLiga. A high defensive line works as an offside trap: Barcelona catches opponents offside 3.1 times a game and allows only 6.8 shots.

But when opponents do get through, usually in transition, their chances are good ones, worth 0.18 xG each. The risk is mitigated by goalkeeper Joan Garcia, who sweeps behind his defence. Flick’s style is far more vertical than Guardiola’s patient possession, moving the ball quickly to wingers who take on their full-backs.

Mourinho’s Madrid, in contrast, has struggled to recreate the hallowed Kroos-Modric midfield and a gulf remains between the midfield and a formidable forward line. Madrid’s field tilt is just 51.5%, seventh in the league. It has scored 23 league goals,16 fewer than Barcelona.

Kylian Mbappe remains lethal, but Vinicius Jr. has slumped badly, and the two often crowd each other on the left. Both are reluctant pressers which is partly why Madrid paid up to €140 million for 19-year-old winger Yan Diomande, who works hard without the ball.

Mourinho was brought back, by most accounts, because the club’s hierarchy had tired of a dissonant dressing room that had too much power. But his methods may be outdated. In 2021, tactics writer Michael Cox argued that Mourinho’s approach was out of step with modern football, which is ‘about universality’: pressing from the front, attacking from the back. His football has evolved since but his philosophy remains reactive.

The defensive instinct is intact. Madrid allows nearly twice as many shots as Barcelona, 12.8 a game, but they are mostly speculative efforts worth just 0.08 xG each. Its total xG against, 9.4, is lower than Barcelona’s and the league’s best. Still, Madrid has lost two games and trails Barcelona by six points. Since Mbappe joined, Madrid has won only one of six Clasicos.

Playbook with potential

But that one win, a 2-1 victory at the Bernabeu a year ago under Xabi Alonso, was instructive. Alonso played Federico Valverde at right-back and Arda Guler in a three-man midfield. Mourinho used a similar playbook against Sevilla. A midfield that holds the ball, wide players who track back, and Mbappe attacking the space behind Barcelona’s high line is a blueprint that gives Madrid a better chance of competing. Vinicius’ absence through suspension seems a blessing in disguise.

Spain’s football has largely been a duopoly because Madrid and Barcelona keep adapting to each other, never letting the other dominate for long. Under Flick, Barcelona has updated Cruyffian principles with modern-day pressing. Star-studded Madrid has bet on Mourinho, who once managed, at least for a while, to compete against Guardiola.

Yet as Guardiola said in 2011, Mourinho might be the “boss” in the press room, but Barcelona would fight it out on the pitch. On Sunday, we will know if the pitch is still the answer to the Mourinho question.

The move from the wing to the middle helped Ousmane Dembele assume his final form as an unstoppable force in the 2024-25 season and win the Ballon d’Or.

A similar shift from the flanks to the central spaces as a No. 9 appears to have unleashed a turbocharged version of Raphinha at Barcelona this season. The Brazil international has exploded in his new role, scoring 14 goals in eight matches, 12 in seven games in LaLiga, moving to the top of the scoring charts ahead of Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe.

The striker hunt

Barcelona had spent the close season searching for a centre-forward after Robert Lewandowski left as a free agent for Major League Soccer, with Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez and Inter Milan captain Lautaro Martinez high ‌on its list. The summer chase for Alvarez, which developed into a messy saga, ended in frustration for Barcelona, leaving the club short up front.

Barcelona eventually signed Gabriel Jesus as ‌a rotational option for Hansi Flick’s squad, but the surprise solution has come from within, with Raphinha moving from his hybrid attacking midfielder-right wing role into the centre-forward position.

“The idea was to bring ⁠in a forward with good movement and the ability to link up with others, and Julian [Alvarez] was one such player,” said Barcelona sporting director Deco.

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“We are happy ‌because we discovered a new face of Raphinha. But more important is that he’s happy too. It is different for him, because sometimes he’s not in contact with the ball all the time like he used to. ⁠He needs to be prepared to attack behind the defenders. We expected that he could ⁠do well, but not at this level,” Deco added.

Indeed, the change in Raphinha’s fortunes at Barcelona has been sudden and spectacular. He was convinced he was leaving two years ago after growing increasingly frustrated under Xavi Hernandez. But Flick’s arrival as coach in 2024 proved a turning point: Raphinha, who has thrived under the German, was appointed captain at the start of the season after Ronald Araujo and Marc-Andre ter Stegen left the club and Frenkie de Jong was sidelined by a knee injury.

In his first conversation with Raphinha, Flick had told the attacker that he believed in his talent. The start of this season has revealed the extent of the coach’s belief. Flick had an idea that the 29-year-old’s strengths would translate well from the wing to the centre. More to the point, he had the conviction to back his belief.

“In pre-season we did a few tests: the manager liked what he saw and told me a bit about his idea,” Raphinha told the Guardian. “The adaptation came over the last two years, getting used to coming inside, closer to goal. But we tested [me as] an actual No. 9 and it went well.

“There’s the occasional detail that has to be explained, but I’m OK. Before Elche [on the opening day], he asked if I was comfortable there or wanted to go back to my position. I said it was fine, see how it goes, we can always change back.”

Scoring at will

There has been no reason to change. With 31 goals in seven straight league wins — that’s an average of 4.3 goals per match — Barcelona has the hottest attack in Europe, and Raphinha has led the charge in blistering fashion, scoring at will, including back-to-back hat-tricks.

The second of those came in Barcelona’s biggest test of the season so far, at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan in the final league fixture before the international break. With his side down a goal to Sevilla after 19 minutes, Raphinha responded in style. He scored a perfect hat-trick, applying three different finishes. All of them would have made the game’s top No. 9s proud, for they showcased his skill, instinct, speed and sheer desire to score.

The first goal featured a diagonal in-to-out run onto Andreas Christensen’s pass, a tricky feint that put his chasing marker on the ground, and a right-footed finish to the far corner. For the second, he burst out of the defender’s blindside to head a Yamal floater expertly. He chipped the keeper off his stronger left foot for the third, this time after an out-to-in run.

“We know the quality of Raphinha,” Flick said after the game. “He gives us a lot, his dynamic is top but also without the ball he’s good. He has that incredible hunger and intensity, the mentality and attitude we need. After these eight games, I think he’s very happy to play as a No. 9.”

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Interestingly, for someone who has taken to the job like a duck to water, Raphinha wasn’t sure at the beginning. “Yes, I had doubts,” Raphinha told Rac+1 when asked about the transition. “Because people judge you for goals, at the end of the day, you’re playing as a striker. And then there’s the fact that you’re playing in the spot where the one and only Robert Lewandowski played. So if you don’t score goals, people judge you for that, they demand that from you.”

The former Leeds United forward, who joined Barcelona in 2022, has now scored 89 goals in 185 appearances for the Blaugrana, which places him among the top 30 scorers in the club’s history. He needs just five more goals to equal the legendary Ronaldinho.

Tellingly, 69 of Raphinha’s Barcelona goals have come under Flick, who has led the Catalans to LaLiga titles in each of his two seasons. “I’ve always said it and I will always say it, he’s the manager that changed both my mentality within the club and also what I thought about myself,” Raphinha told DAZN. “I’m very grateful for him, and I will demonstrate it whenever I can.”

What lies ahead

It’s no surprise that the player wants to extend his stay at the club. “Given the way I’ve started the season, I think I can keep going for a few more years. I’m in spectacular physical shape so [retirement] is some way off. I would be very happy to extend my contract and, hopefully, finish my career here without having to go elsewhere,” Raphinha told RAC1 radio.

“It’s always important to keep in mind that you need to improve in some areas. I’ll never say I’m at my peak, because I always try to improve as much as I can. There’s surely something more I can contribute to the team than what I’m currently giving.”

It will be interesting to see just how Raphinha’s time at No. 9 plays out. Will he have a season for the ages like Dembele did and maybe even enjoy a late-career swing as an elite striker? Or will it be no more than a short-term fix, even if it is successful? All we know for sure is that Raphinha, like he has through his career, will give it everything.