Commentator on the channels Football1 / Football2 Kirill Krutorogov on the most relevant topics before the main match of Spain.
Date and time of the match The Spanish La Liga positions its championship as the best in the world. However, New Year holidays with most football fans are associated with boxing day, that is, with England. The Spaniards probably want to compete with the Premier League and pull the blanket over. But not just so snuffily, but gradually. At least the last tour in 2017 The examples were for some reason broken down for five days from the middle of the week until Christmas Eve. Where, of course, the main dish and a real gift will be El Clasico.
DECEMBER 23 2017 14:00 Real Madrid -: - Barcelona Logic in this is not perfect. Not only that the first match of the Levante-Leganes tour, pronounced on Tuesday, does not cause much interest, so also these teams will leave for a small holiday on the 19th, and the main stars of Spain - Real and Barca - only 23rd. There is information that their battle was to take place on December 20. But the Madrid side asked for a transfer because of participation in the Club World Cup and the need to restructure on the internal track after a visit to the UAE. And the officials "completely accidentally" transferred to the day preceding the Christmas Eve.
This seems like an attempt to test how Spain and the whole world will perceive the main club derby of football on the day that is usually spent on the last preparations for a big holiday - panic purchase of gifts, concoction in the kitchen and. Despite the many postponed cases, you will have to find time for football. Few can afford to miss such a match.
Next is the start time of the match. Never in the history of El Clasico began at 13:00 on Madrid. Already several seasons Examples of matches start on Saturday at 13 and Sunday at 12 o'clock. There are several observations on this score: 1) In most of these early matches look less dynamic than usual and are often not very spectacular and not very productive. 2) There must be one or two players on the field who are not given the game from the very beginning and they allow obvious effective errors. The organism after all you will not deceive. Football players - people. Both Real and Barca are mostly playing in prime time, in the evening. The mood - for the Champions League with a starting whistle at 20:45. Here it is necessary to completely reconstruct. The reason is the entrance to the Asian market, which is very important for La Liga from the economic point of view. Football is a game of millions, and not only in the sense of calculating popularity by the number of people.
Champion's Corridor Traditionally, interest in El Clasico is warmed up in advance, and the closer to hour X, the more. This time, an epic called "pasillo de campeon". After the victory of Real in the final of the Club World Cup Ronaldo said, they say, it would be nice if Barcelona organized us the championship corridor. Impudent, but it's Cristiano. The Catalans abandoned his idea, saying that they do this only for the winners of the tournaments, in which they participate themselves. It would seem that our business is to offer, yours is to refuse. But the Spanish press is actively inflating. Journalists remembered that in 2006, Barcelona players staged the champion corridor Seville, who won the UEFA Cup yesterday. Also colleagues daily conduct a survey of opinions on this account of famous and authoritative people. Rivaldo, Pavon, Schuster and many others have already spoken out about this. Although, in fact, the topic does not cost anything.
The great advantage of Barca Saturday El Clasico is the meeting of the first and fourth teams of the current season of La Liga. Unexpectedly, the truth? !! And it's not about the London Arsenal, Real - the current champion of Spain and the winner of the Champions League - is on a not prestigious position for himself. On the one hand, it is surprising, because the calendar is not the first tour, and almost half of the season is played. On the other hand, there is no doubt that in the second part of Madrid will be recruited when others will necessarily lose. But the question is different - if the Catalans win at the Santiago Bernabeu, they will increase the gap from the enemy to 14 points. Yes, the "creamy" game is in reserve, yes, it's not a fact that Barca will win, but the likelihood of such a precipice scares the fans of the capital club and makes this match almost a finale in the fight for the championship, adds unnecessary strain to the team. Because the words of Ramos: "We have to win to stay in the race for the title" do not look like an empty sound. Rather, Valverde chuckles: "Real Madrid will remain the contender for the championship, even if we increase the gap".
A win-win series of Barcelona Zidane's team needs a victory, but "blaugranas" has never been in the current draw. The examples did not lose. Moreover, they have not lost in the championship for 23 matches since April 17th. If you take into account only this season, then the unbeaten Barca series in all tournaments has already reached 24 matches. But it is not forgotten that the season began for Valverde with two derogatory defeats in the Super Cup of Spain from Real Madrid. And let the prestige of this trophy is not so great, and let the titles that will be played in May and for them forgive the setbacks in the Supercop are much more important, but two consecutive defeats in El Clasico are a serious blow to self-esteem. Obviously, a healthy calculation and pragmatism should prevail over the infringed ambitions of Barcelona players and a thirst for revenge, but who knows how it really will turn out.
The greatness of Real Madrid Whoever says that the Club World Cup is not so prestigious that European clubs are always dominated without any questions and go to an easy level, but do not forget that the winners of continental tournaments take part in it. Real for two years in a row won the main European trophy, and reinforced it with victories in the Mundials. In fact, Madrid - in real time, the current owners of five trophies (and certainly, the record holders in this, but in fact, you can add to this and the above - two consecutive wins in the Champions League and KCM + another UEFA Super Cup). This great greatness, with which "creamy" approach to the most important derby.
Judging The topic is very relevant not only in the context of the championship of Ukraine. In England, after each round, dissatisfaction with the work of referees heard from top-managers, in Italy, Lazio threatens to withdraw from the championship because of claims to the referee. Spain, alas, is no exception. Especially on the eve of El Clasico. In such a match, the team of arbitrators will be attracted almost to more attention than to the organization of the game teams.
Needless to add pepper to this paella is that this season the referee twice did not count the goals of Barcelona, ??when there was every reason for that. Because of this, "blaugranas" has such a right to complain, they say we are stoked by the judges, which will create additional pressure on the referee El Clasico and he can once again be afraid to whistle against Barca. Or, for example, will score a goal against Real Madrid when the ball is half a meter from the line ... This time, the status of the kamikaze was given to Jose Maria Sanchez Martinez. 34-year-old economist from Murcia. Frankly speaking, the referee is not the most experienced and authoritative, working on matches. The examples are only the third year. It will be his second El Clasico in his career. Debut is SuperCup's return match in August.
Cristiano Ronaldo Not an epic, but an informational excitement that will be exaggerated and also stir up interest in El Clasico - the Portuguese injured and trains on an individual program. We begin to guess: "will play \ not play?". If he does not play, then "who will replace?". And we also have options for continuing the topic: it will play badly "this is because there was damage, and he did not train much on the eve". Will play well: "despite the missed training, the genius of Cristiano came to the fore". In reality, it's just the facts: Ronaldo is injured, engaged outside the group, missed two training sessions on the eve of Clasico and, perhaps, will miss the third, final, on Friday. But still, this situation can hardly be attributed to Madrid in the asset.
Fantastic statistics Barca Barcelona Valverde after 16 rounds - the best in Spain, not only on scoring points. For once, the Catalans are the least overlooked team Examples (on par with Atletico). Ter-Shtegen only seven times took the ball from the net of his goal (Real Madrid missed 11 goals) and ten matches held "to zero". But Barca is also the most productive team of La Liga. 42 goals were scored by the Catalans in the previous matches (Real Madrid - only 30). At the same time, in nine games of the championship, Barcelona scored no more than two goals. It says, rather, not about the pragmatic nature of Valverde's team, but about the emerging ability to act strategically (given that there are no problems with the results).
Paulinho steeper Ronaldo and Benzema Many considered his transfer a misunderstanding, laughed when at the presentation he could not normally fill the ball, but the Brazilian instantly adapted in Barcelona and managed to score six goals in Example. Just as much as Ronaldo and Benzema combined. True, only a goal in the gate Getafe became decisive and brought the Catalans victory. In other cases, Paulinho, in general, was one of several successful football players of the match and it is hardly possible to call him now a football player capable of making a difference.
Compositions Real Madrid does not actually have any losses (we do not take into account the damage to Ronaldo). For the first time since the beginning of the season. Again, they took the form of Carvajal and Marcelo, which would allow Madrid to fly across the field. It seems, finds himself again Gareth Bale. Trace of injuries behind. At Club World Cup, however, he played twice for ten minutes. But in the match with Al-Jazeera scored the winning goal. In the context of El Clasico, you can say that in his face Zidane will have a variant with good reinforcement from the bench. Of the personnel minuses except that Asensio.
After a crazy previous season in his performance, Marco now seems to be going through the "second season syndrome", when it's very difficult to reach the set bar.
Barca is out playing Umtiti. This is a great loss, given his reliability and uncompromising defense, the ability to launch an attack (he is one of the leaders in the number of ball touches in the Example and the accuracy of the transmissions), as well as Pique's lost lately. So here and play in El Clasico long written-off account Thomas Vermalen. But who from "blaugranas" will be responsible for the selection of the ball is not entirely clear.