Barcelona v Real Madrid (Spanish Supercup 2012, 1st Leg)

The football season may have been back for more than a week officially, but we’re really back in the zone with the first El Clasico tonight between the footballing feast that is Barcelona and Real Madrid in the Spainish Supercup. So often these season openers are not seen as hugely important affairs but no El Clasico is a dead rubber and more often than not this has provided an important pointer towards the prospects of those for the season ahead and last season these two played out 6 matches of the highest quality last season.

Real Madrid looked off the pace according to some when drawing with
Valencia

In those games, both teams scored on all 6 occasions and all 6 games had 2.5 or more goals in them, so understandably both outcomes are very short in the betting. For that matter, so too are Barcelona, presumably on the basis of the far more impressive start that they had visually when trashing Deportivo 5-1 at the weekend while Madrid were held to a 1-1 draw with Valencia. This game being at the Camp Nou, Barcelona are understandably favourites but a best price of just 8/11 (in from 5/6 earlier this week) looks a bit too short for comfort even with the might of the hosts home attack.

Barcelona ripped through Depor but it was nothing more than we expected of them against routine opposition and Madrid will present a far more physical challenge for them tonight around all areas of the park. Some have commented on Madrid being lacklustre in their opening game but there’s a wide gulf between Depor and Valencia while Madrid had several decent chances to win the game which were cleared by a stubborn (and excellent) rearguard effort.

This time around a much stronger challenge is expected and if Barcelona are to win I expect Madrid to score in the process, so the home team to win without a clean sheet at 11/5 with Coral seems to be the way to go, along with a cheeky bet on a 3-2 win to supplement that, an exact replica of the score in this game last season. Real have scored exactly two goals in 4 of their last 6 meetings with Barca, three of those coming here, and they themselves look a little bit at 11/2 to win while conceding as well, which makes more appeal in price terms than the 6/4 being offered on over 3.5 goals.

Advice

1 pt Barcelona to win and concede (11/5 Coral)

1 pt Real Madrid to win and concede (11/2 Coral)

1 pt 3-2 Barcelona (20/1 general)