October\u2019s 2-1 Clasico triumph over Barca<\/a>.<\/p>\nBarcelona team news, focus<\/p>\n
Gavi and Andreas Christensen remain long-term absences, while Marc-Andre ter Stegen has picked up a new injury and may be headed out of town anyway.<\/p>\n
Barca have had to spread the attacking responsibility around as several big names have missed time including Raphinha, who has come back with a vengeance and has nine goals and four assists in just 1,011 minutes. Lamine Yamal is leading the way but Fermin Lopez and Marcus Rashford have been good contributors, Robert Lewandowski has nine goals in just 945 minutes, and leading scorer Ferran Torres. Dani Olmo and Roony Bardghji have also been good in limited time.<\/p>\n
Eric Garcia and Pedri are having terrific seasons and should be key performers whenever they\u2019re available.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid team news, focus<\/p>\n
There are four recent question marks, though the fact that Kylian Mbappe has traveled to Jeddah is a new, good question given he was not expected to play a role in the Spanish Super Cup. Antonio Rudiger (knee), Marco Asensio (knock), and Rodrygo (hamstring) are the other worries.<\/p>\n
Mbappe has 29 goals in 24 games this season and no other player has more than five, so he\u2019d be quite the help. Vinicius Junior and Arda Guler both double-digit goal contributions but the attack has not been elite aside from Mbappe this season. Jude Bellingham has found a bit of form with a goal and an assist in his last three contests, but so far this season has been a disappointment as he\u2019s been living off reputation since his incredible 2023-24 campaign in Spain.<\/p>\n
Barcelona vs Real Madrid prediction<\/p>\n
The \u201canything can happen\u201d cliche seems apropos here, and Barca\u2019s extra day of rest after a comfortable win gives them a leg up even before considering Real\u2019s injury status. Xabi Alonso could use a win and a trophy, but perhaps this isn\u2019t the time for him. Barcelona 2-1 Real Madrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Historic rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid collide when the Spanish Super Cup hits \u2014 checks notes \u2014 Saudi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-401576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}