Four Reasons Barcelona Are Favorited Over Real Madrid At El Clasico

Barcelona were seeded when they met Real Madrid at El Clasico (Instagram/@fcbarcelona).

JAKARTA - The competition full of rivalry between Real Madrid vs Barcelona titled El Clasico will be an emotional presentation this weekend.

The two of them will clash at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday, October 27, 2024, early morning WIB.

For 10 weeks that have been running in La Liga 2024/2025, many goals have been created. The two El Clasico teams led goal productivity.

Barcelona is the team with the most with 33 goals in 10 matches. Towards the end of October 2024, they will have eight more goals than any other team across the continent.

Real Madrid are just below it with a collection of 21 goals. They were initially also favorite to win the first El Clasico volume of the season.

Last season's La Liga and Champions League titles became a reference. In addition, Los Blancos have just recruited the best striker in the world, Kylian Mbappe.

Not to mention the fact that one of the Madrid players, Vinicius Junior, became the favorite of the Ballon d'Or winner.

Barcelona are currently leading the standings with a difference of three points from Real Madrid in second place.

However, Los Blancos are unbeaten, just like Atletico Madrid, while Barca have already lost one in 10 league games.

However, Carlo Ancelotti's favorites of troops could be missed. Barcelona performed optimally, while Real Madrid have not fully risen.

Barcelona's attack line contributed critically to winning five league games by at least three goals.

Madrid have scored only three goals in one La Liga game twice this season.

The list of the best strikers of all time, reinforced by Madrid's Vinicius, Mbappe, and Jude Bellingham, turned out to be no more productive than Barcelona.

There are four reasons why Barcelona are more favored than Real Madrid at El Clasico this weekend.

Barcelona's shot

Last season, Barcelona scored 79 goals from 78.47 goals expected. It may seem normal as the numbers are almost perfectly aligned.

However, the best teams in the world almost always exceed their basic figures on the attack side. You see, they create many chances for the best strikers in the world.

Hansi Flick, who took control of Barcelona this season, spent 10 games scoring 33 goals from a potential 26.4.

If Barcelona finished the season with the same ratio as last season, they would currently have a goal difference of +16.

The record will remain the best in the league, but only slightly above the Real Madrid +14 or even the current difference between Atletico Madrid +10.

However, it turns out that Barcelona currently have a goal difference past the prediction, namely +23.

Hansi Flick Improves Barcelona

Flick brought a big improvement from the previous manager, Xavi Hernandez.

Xavi cannot be called a failed manager at Barcelona. After all, he made Barcelona productive.

It's just that, he has his own ideas, but can't really do anything in the long run that can help his players surpass their collective talent level.

Well, Flick did better. The teams he has ever held never failed to create many chances. However, their aggression sometimes led to an embarrassing goal-breaking.

Flick is not the perfect manager. His system that makes him conceded frequently makes Germany lose to Japan and eliminated in the 2022 World Cup group stage.

Germany did produce an average of 10.1 goals and conceded 3.4 goals in the 2022 World Cup group stage.

The problem is, they were only able to turn that dominance into six goals for five conceded.

Flick's biggest reason for failing with Germany was that the final finish fluctuated heavily in a sample of three matches.

However, when he arrived at Barcelona, his system turned out to be suitable. Flick refused as a manager with a profile not aggressive enough and was often more afraid of losing than dedicated to winning.

He wants to get rid of opponents off the pitch. His team will press hard, release multiple shots, and accept the fact that they may lose some high-quality opportunities on the other hand.

That approach will make most teams better. Sure enough, Barcelona have pressed more aggressively this season, controlled more territory, fired more shots, and conceded less.

The general weakness of this approach is conceding high-quality opportunities. Flick's Barca didn't avoid it this year.

Only two teams in La Liga provided better chances to their opponents than Barca, who conceded a shot with an average value of 0.12.

However, it was somewhat negated by the few shots they received, namely 8.5 per match, the lowest number in La Liga.

In total, they conceded at least the sixth of all teams in the league.

Now, the sixth best defense for a team with resources like Barcelona may not sound special. However, look how they compare to others based on the expected goal difference.

In dynamical play, tactics are about exchange. Increasing one aspect of the game can make it better and make it worse on the other side.

However, after going through 10 matches, Flick actually brought the solidity of the defense to a slight reduction.

Best Player Available

Barcelona's best players are available. The thing that makes Flick proud is that almost all the changes in Barcelona personnel come from internal.

The only big player they recruited over the summer was Dani Olmo from RB Leipzig. So far he has only played 21 percent of the league's minutes.

Then, the Barcelona players were much healthier than last season.

Raphinha struggled with injury throughout the 2023-24 season. He only played 40.1 percent of the most minutes he could get. It's different from this season which he played 90.1 percent.

Pedri has also played 74.4 percent this season, after only performing 43.3 percent at the same time the previous season. The same applies to left-back Alejandro Balde, who rose to 70.8 percent from 40.3 last season.

Flick is also able to rely on a number of young players. They are better able to handle the burden of higher playing minutes.

At the age of 17, Lamine Yamal played 88.6 percent after appearing in about two-thirds of last season's match time.

Pau Cubarsi, who is also 17 years old, has changed from a gloomy season (45.7 percent) to a mainstay in the midfield (83.9 percent) this season.

The 20-year-old midfielder, Marc Casado, who played only 15 professional minutes before this season, has appeared in 62.4 percent of the playing minutes in the 2024/2025 season.

Only Gavi and Frenkie de Jong had only had a few minutes to play because they had just recovered from injury. They have played together for 18 minutes so far.

Real Madrid Haven't Worked Well Yet

As has been mentioned, Madrid are only three points behind Barcelona. They were unbeaten, seven wins and three draws.

The problem is, they are not that good. Madrid have scored five goals from penalties this season, as much as they did in 38 games last season.

When Madrid recruited Mbappe in June 2024, it seems that a decline is likely to occur in defense. Los Blancos prioritized the Mbappe, Vinicius, and Rodrygo tridents.

However, they forgot the defense sector. Bellingham did not last too much and was more focused on supporting the trident earlier.

Apparently, that focus hasn't worked well either. Madrid have so far only produced 1.4 non-penalty goals per game. In fact, last season they scored 1.7 goals per game outside last season's penalty.

They had a little more possession in the final third and tried to do half an extra shot per game, but the quality of the trial has decreased.

Despite using Mbappe, perhaps the best off-ball runner in the sport, the number of their breakthrough passes attempted per game was 1.2 compared to 2.4 last season.

All three of their attackers are also on track for the worst season of their careers.

Mbappe averaged 0.62 goals expected per 90 minutes. While Vinicius at 0.55 and Rodrygo was at 0.24.

Bellingham has also not been able to rise. He only scored a goal average of 90 minutes, which is 0.23. The England player's best record throughout his career was 0.62 last season.

The problem is, it's clear about bait for the Madrid trident. All of their players are creative in the sense of creating opportunities for their teammates.

They all do so by getting into a good position without the ball or by dribble and then giving a simple pass to the team-mates who are in a better position.

However, that quality is not yet effective. Real Madrid still can't move on after the departure of retired Toni Kroos.

There are still no players to replace the German midfielder's role. Only Kroos can provide the bait that the players like.

Federico Valverde, who inherited Kroos' jersey number, is also expected to continue his role, but has not been able to.

A solution in the form of letting the trident move freely without a ball to persuade players to survive outside their defense areas and create vacant space that has not yet run.

Meanwhile, three Barcelona strikers have carried out their roles well this season.

Three Barca strikers are better than Madrid because they complement each other.

Robert Lewandowski scored 75 goals in almost two Bundesliga seasons under Flick at Bayern Munich.

He is the perfect striker for this kind of approach. He lives behind the defensive line and continues to run into the most dangerous area on the pitch.

As it turns out, even at the age of 35, he may still be a very dangerous predator with Flick's approach. He recorded an average of 1.2 goals per 90 minutes, almost double Mbappe's ratio.

The record is more than he recorded in both seasons with Flick at Bayern Munich.

In the counter-attack scheme, he is always in the middle of the penalty box, ready to complete attacks from one of his wingers.

Then, in more stable possession of the ball, the midfielders and defenders dribble, while Lewandowski is running fast, trying to find space for the ball to his feet or behind the defensive line.

Lamine Yamal who supports Lewandowski is also equally dangerous. He leads across Europe in terms of progressive passes received and bait completed into the penalty area.

He was scary when he broke through from the right side. Yamal gave a gap in the opponent's defense because it attracted a lot of attention when he controlled the ball.

Yamal fired 3.5 shots per 90 minutes and created 2.4 chances. With all the attention given to the 17-year-old, Barca's opponents forgot they still had Raphinha on the other hand.

The Brazilian leads the team with 1.24 goals per 90 minutes and is the ideal secondary winger.