El Clásico is on Sunday, one of the most anticipated matches of the year. Sure, Cristiano Ronaldo has moved on and Lionel Messi is injured, but that just means this edition is more unpredictable than ever. Despite all the uncertainty swirling around both clubs right now, we’re pretty confident this year’s El Clásico will not disappoint. Unlike this Sergio Ramos haircut that’s currently breaking the internet.
Real Madrid won its third straight Champions League in 2018. For once, Los Blancos also topped the charts in Champions League revenue.
UEFA released the 2017-18 Champions League revenue (and Europa League, if anyone cares) on Thursday. For the first time during Real Madrid’s impressive back-to-back-to-back UCL championships, the club also won the most prize money.
UEFA doled out $1.605 billion in Champions League revenue, an increase over the $1.5 billion it gave out in 2016-17. Real Madrid took home $100.8 million of it.
A fascinating tactical battle between Lucien Favre’s Bundesliga-leading Dortmund and Diego Simeone’s Atletico (currently averaging 0.55 goals conceded per game in LaLiga) was bossed by the home side at the Westfalenstadion on Wednesday, BVB putting four past Europe’s misers while limiting the visitors to only two shots on frame.
Achraf Hakimi registered a hat-trick of assists while the moves were finished by Axel Witsel, Jadon Sancho and Raphael Guerreiro (x2). Marco Reus wasn’t on the scoresheet, but his deployment in the false nine role murdered Atletico’s shape.
Barcelona hosting Inter Milan at the Camp Nou was supposed to be one of the most anticipated clashes of the Champions League group stage. But that was before Lionel Messi suffered an arm injury on Saturday and was ruled out with a fractured arm.
So Messi watched the game from the stands on Wednesday, with cameras watching his every reaction to the action on the pitch.
On Sunday, Real Madrid and Barcelona square off in the 177th league edition of El Clasico, the greatest rivalry match in all of sports. Real leads the all-time series with 72 La Liga victories as compared to Barca’s 70 (the two sides have shared the spoils an additional 34 times), and the club from the Spanish capital desperately needs another victory to reduce the currently escalating gap in league play.
Barcelona vs. Real Madrid | Camp Nou
Sunday, October 28, 2018 | 11:15 a.m. ET
TV: beIN SPORTS USA or beIN SPORTS en Español
Stream: Fubo TV, Sling TV or beIN SPORTS CONNECT U.S.A
With El Clásico looming on Sunday, the only good news for Real Madrid at the present is the absence of Lionel Messi. Yes, Real climbed to the top of Champions League Group G on Tuesday after narrowly defeating Czech First League side Plzeň 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu, but you could easily argue that Los Blancos looked better during last weekend’s shock 2-1 defeat to Levante.