Barcelona vs Real Madrid: Perfect Barcelona, Wounded at the Worst Moment

Nine league games, nine wins. Thirty-nine goals. Six of the last seven Clásicos. Until Tuesday night, Barcelona looked like a team that had already decided how this season would go.

Then Paris happened. And on Sunday at 9pm at the Camp Nou, Barcelona vs Real Madrid arrives at the one moment this autumn when Hansi Flick’s side looks human. Across the touchline will be José Mourinho, in his first Clásico since he came back, a man who has spent his career waiting for exactly this kind of opening.

What Paris Exposed

PSG beat Barcelona 4-2, and the score flattered Barcelona. PSG had fifteen shots on target to five. Joan García made at least nine saves and was one of Barcelona’s best players. Twice Barcelona came back, through Xavi Espart and then a brilliant Lamine Yamal goal at 2-2 on 79 minutes. Twice PSG simply went again. Vitinha volleyed the third two minutes later, and Fabián Ruiz tapped in the fourth.

The analysis afterwards kept landing in the same place. Flick’s defensive line sits close to halfway, and it works when the legs are fresh enough to press the ball before anyone can play behind it. In Paris, the legs were not fresh. Three of PSG’s four goals came after the 70th minute, as their midfielders arrived late into the space and nobody tracked them.

Flick did not hide. He blamed fatigue, too many easy losses of the ball and a cancelled flight home from Seville after storms. He also said, fairly, that titles are not won in October. He is right. But the Clásico is played in October, and Real Madrid have watched the tape.

Barcelona’s high line is a weapon with fresh legs. With tired ones, it is an invitation. And Mbappé has never needed one twice.

The Defence Barcelona Will Not Have

Paris also cost Barcelona Dani Olmo, who went off with an adductor injury and is out for about four weeks. He joins Eric García, Andreas Christensen and Roony Bardghji on the injury list, and Jules Koundé is unlikely to make it, still limping on a sprained ankle. That leaves Flick with no fit recognised right-back and only two fit centre-backs, Pau Cubarsí and Gerard Martín. Frenkie de Jong has been named as an emergency option at the back.

There is good news for Barcelona too. Rodri, signed from Manchester City in the summer, started on the bench in Paris, rested after three games in a row, and is expected to start on Sunday. It would be his first Clásico in a Barcelona shirt. If he and Pedri control the ball, the high line matters less, because Madrid will spend the night chasing it.

Madrid Without Vinícius

Real Madrid have their own hole. Vinícius Júnior is serving a four-match league ban after his red card against Villarreal. The appeal committee upheld it, and unless a last-minute legal appeal succeeds, he misses the Clásico. Rodrygo and Raúl Asencio are injured.

And yet the strangest story of Madrid’s October is that they have looked lighter without him. Against Sevilla, Yan Diomande was involved in all four goals. Mourinho said the young winger reminds him of Vinícius when he first arrived. When asked about his stars, Mourinho put it more bluntly: only the badge is untouchable. Kylian Mbappé has nine league goals, and Arda Güler is playing the best football of his Madrid career. On Wednesday Madrid beat RB Leipzig 4-1, with Bernardo Silva, Güler, Mbappé and Diomande all scoring.

The table is still Barcelona’s. They have 27 points, Atlético 22, Madrid 21. A Barcelona win on Sunday opens a nine-point gap over Madrid before November. A Madrid win makes it a race again.

Mourinho Has Been Here Before

In his first spell, Mourinho’s record in the Clásico was 17 games, 5 wins, 6 draws and 6 defeats. His first one was a 5-0 defeat at the Camp Nou in November 2010, against Pep Guardiola’s best team. It was humiliating, and it changed him. Five months later he beat Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final. A year after that, his Madrid won 2-1 at the Camp Nou on the way to a league title with a hundred points.

That is the Mourinho Barcelona should worry about. Not the one who wins the ball, but the one who studies a weakness until he can name it. Expect his Madrid to defend in a 4-4-2 without the ball and wait for one pass behind a tired back line. On CBS Sports’ Golazo show this week, Troy Deeney said it was impossible for Madrid to beat Barcelona. Mourinho will have read that, and he will have pinned it up somewhere. He has already started the war of words. After Leipzig he complained that Madrid get a day less rest than Barcelona. He was angry, too, that the referee’s name had leaked before it was official.

Where Barcelona vs Real Madrid Will Be Decided

Three duels will settle it. Lamine Yamal against Madrid’s left side, where Barcelona’s most dangerous player will meet a full-back who cannot afford a single lazy second. Rodri and Pedri against Jude Bellingham, Arda Güler and Bernardo Silva, for the ball and the tempo. And Mbappé against whichever two centre-backs Flick can find, on a night when Barcelona’s line will be higher than any Madrid forward has a right to expect.

Raphinha, the league’s top scorer with twelve, is the player Madrid will talk about least and fear most.

The Verdict

Barcelona are the better team this season, and the record says so. Nine wins from nine, six of the last seven Clásicos, and they are at home. Anyone who calls Barcelona vs Real Madrid anything but a home win on paper is not being honest.

But favourites is all they are. They arrive tired, beaten for the first time, and missing half a defence, against a coach whose whole career has been built on games like this one. I do not see a Barcelona win by three or four this time. I see Madrid hurting them on the break, Barcelona hurting Madrid with the ball, and nobody quite managing to finish the job.

The last seven Clásicos produced 33 goals, almost five a game, and both sides arrive with more ways to score than to defend. My call: 2-2. And if one side wins it, it will be the side that defends the last twenty minutes better. In Paris on Tuesday, that was not Barcelona. Your turn. Pick your side.