The greatest rivalry in world football is in a fist. Very even. There is no better proof of this than looking at the numbers. This Saturday (4:15 p.m., DAZN), Real Madrid and Barcelona will play their 255th official Clásico. For now the balance is positive for the whites, who have reached 102 victories against their greatest rival. It is the first team in the world to beat Barcelona more than 100 times. The blaugranas, for their part, are very close, sniffing out a surprise that they already gave, but lost: so far they have won 100 Clásicos. The balance of ties is much lower: 52.
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Today, so does Real Madrid. The whites have scored 420 (an average of 1.64 hits per game), while Barcelona has scored 411 goals (1.63 per evening). The first confrontation between the two teams took place in 1902, with the Coronation Cup as the venue. It was on May 13 at the Castellana Racecourse and with a ticket to the final at stake. Barcelona won 1-3 (they lost the final against Vizcaya) and the chronicles of the time report that around 2,000 people witnessed the match. The white team, then called Madrid Football Club, fell to the match for third and fourth place, where they beat Espanyol (3-2), a victory that gave them the first official trophy in their entire history: the Copa de la Gran Peña of 1902.
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Messi and Cristiano, during a Clásico at the Bernabéu.SERGIO PEREZREUTERS
Since that day, 254 more Classics. During the sixties, Madrid was the master, almost tyrant, of the classics. So much so that in 1965 he surpassed his greatest rival by 16 victories (48-32). However, over the years, Barça has gotten closer… until 2012 when they evened the balance. And there was a surprise: in 2019 they took the lead in the series for the first time since 1932. But Madrid has regained the lead of the race and enters this Saturday’s match with a margin of two wins (102-100). The top scorer in the history of the Classics is Messi, with 26 strikes. They are followed by Cristiano and Di Stéfano, both with 18. Legends in the game of legends.