Barcelona v Real Madrid: La Liga title on the line in clásico – live

Sid Lowe has previewed a crucial Clasico.

double quotation markThis is a crisis that is cultural. When Vinícius Júnior stormed off having been substituted towards the end of the clásico in the autumn, threatening to walk straight out of the team, it brought the disconnect between him and Xabi Alonso into the open and in doing so made it irretrievable. He was not entirely alone in feeling that: Valverde too had made his discontent public. Nor, though, was the feeling unanimous. “It’s not the manager’s fault,” Tchouaméni had insisted, blame instead lying inside the dressing room, sides starting to be taken.

About that quiet week, it’s got to the stage where Jose Mourinho, just the man to calm things down, is in line for a return.

Been a quiet week at Real Madrid? Well, even by the standards of the soap opera that is the world football’s equivalent of the Borgias, it’s been chaotic. On Thursday a fight with Aurélien Tchouaméni at Valdebebas left Fede Valverde bleeding and with what a club communique described as “craniofacial trauma”. Kylian Mbappe is missing, too, his popularity rating down at absolute zero. What’s worse is that Barcelona can clinch a second successive Liga title with a draw.