By Diego Santos
Soon, the world of football is going to face one the hottest weeks in Spain. La Liga´s “ElClásico” (“The Classic”) match will take place on the weekend of 17th of April.
Santiago Bernabéu Stadium will be the venue where Mourinho’s Team will have to provethat they are still up for a fight in the regularity tournament, and the battle against Barcelona will be, if not the last, the most important one.
If Real Madrid loses, they will be by far out of La Liga, and as it has been happening for someyears now, once again, it will come to show that Real Madrid’s cash is not enough to stopBarcelona FC’s crew.
Even with a hypothetical victory of Real Madrid against Barcelona, la Liga is a far awaydream, as Barcelona is today 7 points ahead and this is a huge distance to cut with thestrongest club of the last decades in Europe.
Luckily for Real supporters, they will have a chance for revenge. After 10 years withoutwinning, they will play The Spanish Kings Cup final only 3 days later. This means that on 20thApril, football will present us with same characters, but a different scenario.
Real and Barça will face each other again in Mestalla, Valencia´s stadium. This time morethan the Cup it at stake, being honors sometimes a more important prize in gentlemengames.
In a face to face 90 minutes, with a trophy as reward, the battle is served. If the match is a“Clásico”, the pressure is multiplied by x5. The pressure is even higher if it is a match whereMourinho wants to show Guardiola that he is the best coach in the world.
It will be a pressure cooker, death or glory; the score will not leave anyone indifferent.Barcelona´s victory would mark the club’s golden époque and the continuation of thenightmare for Real Madrid, who has been waiting for a chance to win a tournament for thelast two years- a very long time for the club that was chosen as the “World’s Best XX Century Club”.
If Real wins, it would be the beginning of Barça’s loss of hegemony in Spain, the end of cycleas the Spanish say. This would meanthat anything can happen from now on, and that isexactly that Real Madrid is looking for, a fresh new start.
Even if it is too soon to know, a hypothetic qualification round, between Barcelona and RealMadrid, in quarter of finals of the Champions League, will place two more derbies (12 and26) in April. If this really happens, Spain is going to burn. But to know how fanciful destiny is,we still have to wait till 18th March.
