El Clásico is always a huge deal, one of the most-viewed matches around the world in any season. But with Barcelona and Real Madrid meeting so late in the season with the LaLiga title still on the line, this is one of the biggest in years.
When these two giants meet at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium on Sunday (stream LIVE at 10:15 a.m. ET on ESPN+), they do so as the only two teams left who can become champions of Spain for 2024-25. If winning the title itself is not sufficient motivation for stars such as Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappé, then the alternative — losing out to their own club’s bitter rivals — is unthinkable.
Barcelona have had the upper hand every time they played Madrid this season. But failure to convert their four-point lead into lifting the trophy would be a cruel end to coach Hansi Flick’s first season in charge, especially after their stunning defeat in an all-time classic UEFA Champions League semifinal against Inter Milan earlier this week.
For Madrid, a season without any silverware is nothing short of a disaster. But that is the possibility legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti is facing in what appears to be his final year at the club.
ESPN’s Barcelona and Madrid correspondents, Sam Marsden and Alex Kirkland, explain why there is so much riding on this Sunday’s Clásico.
Why this is the biggest Clásico in years
We’ve had four Clásicos this season, each more significant than the last. Now, it seems like the whole campaign has been building to this one game.
For a start, Clásicos rarely happen this late, and much less with so much at stake. LaLiga intentionally schedules these games for March or April, when there’s likely to be more jeopardy and less chance of the league’s most high-profile fixture having no tangible stakes. In fact, in the past 30 years, only one Clásico has come later: Barcelona’s 1-0 win over Madrid — who won the league anyway, with Barça finishing three places and nine points behind — on May 27, 1995. But here we are, on Matchday 35, with the league title still up for grabs: Barça four points ahead, favorites to win the league and complete a domestic double, with Madrid grimly hanging on, hoping to win this clash and for Barça to crumble in the three games that follow.
There are a couple of significant precedents, and they gave us some of the biggest moments in Clásico history.
Let’s go back to April 2012 and Matchday 35 at Camp Nou. This was, in many ways, peak Clásico. Pep Guardiola vs. José Mourinho, Lionel Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo, and one iconic image: Ronaldo’s “calma, calma” gesture to the Camp Nou crowd after scoring the winner. Madrid won 2-1, and a week later, they won the league with a record 100 points and 121 goals scored.
Three years earlier, another epic Clásico: on May 2, 2009, Matchday 34, Barça demolished Madrid 6-2 at the Santiago Bernabéu. Messi and Thierry Henry both scored twice in arguably the signature performance of the Guardiola era. It wasn’t quite decisive — Barça were declared champions two weeks later — but the jaw-dropping result left no doubt about which way the race was headed.
Will we get anything that historic Sunday? Let’s hope so. — Kirkland
How did we get here?
When the fixtures came out, there was a feeling this Clásico might arrive a little too late to be significant. That feeling has been proved completely wrong. The timing couldn’t be better as we reach the finale of a title race that has been marked by twists and turns.
There have been moments when both teams have threatened to pull away at the top. Atlético Madrid have also played their part, but it’s Barça, aside from a dip in form at the back end of 2024, who have led the way for the majority of the campaign.
When they thumped Madrid 4-0 in the Spanish capital last October, affirming their start to the season was no flash in the pan, they opened up a six-point lead over their Clásico rivals at the top. Atlético were 10 points back. Then Barça collapsed as a curse seemed to grip whichever team ascended to first place. One win in seven, culminating with defeat to Atlético, allowed Diego Simeone’s side to rise to the summit. Then Atlético won only two of their next six, handing the initiative to Madrid.
After hammering Real Valladolid in January, Los Blancos led Atlético by four points and Barça by seven. With so much room for error, surely they would see it home from there? Wrong. It was their turn to fumble the lead.
Real won once in five league games between Feb. 1 and March 1. Meanwhile, Barça recovered their early-season form. Briefly, before Barça’s win at Atlético in March, it looked like a three-horse race would go the distance, but since April, it has come down to the Clásico duo.
Barça have won 13 and drawn two of their 15 league games in 2025, turning a seven-point deficit into a four-point lead. They’ve also asserted their authority over Madrid with a 5-2 Spanish Supercopa final win and last month’s 3-2 victory in the Copa del Rey final. Avoid defeat Sunday and they should win a second title in three years; lose and this season of twists might have one more up its sleeve. — Marsden
What’s at stake for Barcelona?
First, let’s say that Barça’s season has exceeded expectations. Winning the Spanish Supercopa and the Copa del Rey, in addition to reaching a first Champions League semifinal since 2019, would have been more than acceptable achievements at the start of the campaign for a young team that won nothing last season.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s also say that expectations have changed. We all knew Lamine Yamal was special, but the speed at which he has blossomed into one of the world’s best players before turning 18 has been remarkable. No one saw Raphinha’s numbers coming; Robert Lewandowski, 37 in August, having his best scoring season since joining the club; or Pedri staying fit and finally developing into the controlling midfielder we have been waiting for.
They have all flourished in Hansi Flick’s system, which, as everyone knows by now, is high intensity, high line and highly fun. It’s also highly flawed, as Inter demonstrated in their thrilling Champions League triumph this week.
Barça have a golden chance to bounce back from that European defeat by beating Madrid for the fourth time this season and putting one hand on the title. Win the league and this will be viewed as a remarkable first season under Flick. Lose it and the pain of surrendering the top spot to Madrid, coupled with Inter’s late show, will probably override all the progress the Blaugrana undoubtedly have made this year, even if it shouldn’t. — Marsden
What’s at stake for Real Madrid?
Everything. It’s all-or-nothing for Madrid. Either they win this Clásico, go on to win LaLiga and salvage their season — or they lose and write this entire campaign off as a monumental failure.
For many Madridistas and the Madrid media, the verdict is already in after their elimination in the Champions League quarterfinals. At this club, that’s the competition that matters, and after winning it six times in 11 seasons, a quarterfinal exit with this talented squad just doesn’t cut it. But thanks to Inter, Madrid’s greatest fear — Barça winning it instead — has been averted. Win LaLiga, and Madrid could even make the case that their season has ended up better than Barça’s, who’d have just a Copa del Rey trophy and a Supercopa to show for all their flamboyant football under Flick.
Whatever happens, coach Carlo Ancelotti is on the way out and seems set to take the Brazil job. But if Madrid win this Clásico, and then LaLiga, it might determine just how much appetite there is for a major overhaul of the squad ready for Ancelotti’s successor, expected to be Xabi Alonso. Trent Alexander-Arnold is already on the verge of being the first confirmed arrival, but whether Madrid follow that up by spending big on a center back and a central midfielder — and move on the likes of Rodrygo — might be influenced by how the next two weeks go. — Kirkland
How will Clásico result impact title race?
If Barça wins
A win would take Barcelona to 82 points and leave Madrid stranded on 75 with three matches left. If not quite game over, it wouldn’t be not far off. Barça would need to secure three more points to win the league outright, which they’d have the chance to do away at local rivals Espanyol on Thursday — unless Madrid fail to beat Mallorca a day earlier.
If Madrid lose to Mallorca, Barça will have won the title already by the time they play Espanyol; if Madrid draw with Mallorca, the most they could hope for will be to level Barça’s 82-point tally. There, head-to-head comes into play, rather than goal difference. And given that Barça won the first league Clásico 4-0, head-to-head favors them, barring a truly remarkable result Sunday.
If it’s a draw
A draw would leave Barcelona at 80 points and Madrid at 76, maintaining that four-point margin with three games left. Madrid would need Barça to drop five points in those games — because of Barça’s likely head-to-head advantage, if the two teams end tied on points — which see them play Espanyol (away) and two Champions League-chasing sides in Villarreal (home) and Athletic Club (away). It’d be unlikely, but not impossible.
As for Madrid, they have three theoretically winnable fixtures against Mallorca (home), struggling Sevilla (away) and midtable Real Sociedad (home). So a draw would leave Barça as clear favorites, but Madrid very much still in the race.
If Madrid win
If Madrid win, the title race will be blown wide open. Barça would stay at 79 points and Madrid would climb to 78 with three games left. And again, on paper, Madrid’s fixtures are significantly more favorable than Barça’s.
Despite all their problems, you’d expect Madrid to get results against Mallorca, Sevilla and La Real. But Barça travel to an Espanyol team that has lost only one of its past 12 home games — albeit the last one, 2-1 to Real Betis — and then face two genuinely good sides in Villarreal and Athletic. And if Madrid were, somehow, to beat Barça by four or more goals (stay with me here) then Barça would lose their head-to-head advantage, too. — Kirkland
Race for the Pichichi
Lewandowski has risen to the challenge of Kylian Mbappé’s arrival in Spain supremely. After winning LaLiga and the Champions League last season, the signing of Mbappé was supposed to take Madrid to another level, even further out of the reach of Lewandowski and his Barça teammates.
The opposite has proved true, though, as Lewandowski has spearheaded a Barça attack that has scored 91 goals in 34 games — 22 more than Madrid. The Poland striker has netted 25 of them and, for large parts of the season, has looked like a shoo-in to win LaLiga’s Golden Boot — known as the Pichichi — for a second time.
However, a subplot to the title race has developed in recent weeks as Mbappé roared back. He has 24 goals in his debut season in LaLiga after last weekend’s brace, while Lewandowski was sidelined with a hamstring injury. A gap that was as big as eight goals at one point is now only one.
Mbappé has benefitted from more penalties (six to Lewandowski’s three) and played more minutes than his Barça counterpart (2,557 to 2,454), but he has also scored some crackers. Four of the Frenchman’s efforts have come from outside the box, while seven of Lewandowski’s have been predatory finishes inside the 6-yard area. His only goal from outside the box, coincidentally, came against Madrid in the reverse fixture.
Now, the two forwards who are separated in age by 10 years face a four-game shootout to win the Pichichi. Of course, winning LaLiga is the main aim, but any striker who says they’re not also driven by individual accolades is probably lying. It’s that ambition that has driven Lewandowski and Mbappé to this point. — Marsden
