Lionel Messi’s 45th career Clasico could scarcely feel less like his first. On his debut in club football’s most celebrated fixture, he was 18, up against Madrid’s galactico grandees David Beckham, Zinédine Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo, and Raúl.
A hostile Bernabéu stadium, about 80,000 fans, greeted the Barcelona novice with its usual shrill serenade. Only later did the crowd do something never seen before.
Messi’s debut in a Madrid-Barcelona match would be the evening that tens of thousands of Madridistas openly applauded their fiercest enemy. Messi had a small part in the rebellion, setting up the opening goal of a 3-0 away win, but the Pied Piper leading the turncoats was Ronaldinho: electric, mesmerising.
That night in 2005 made an ordinary fan famous for ever, a middle-aged Madrid fan with an everyman name, Juan Sánchez Gómez, Madrid scarf around his neck. Cameras zoomed in on Sánchez standing up from his Bernabeu seat to clap the sophistication of Barcelona’s football as others followed suit.
In the 15 years of Madrid-Barcelona contests since, the unprecedented episodes have mostly involved Messi, 19 times a Clasico winner: inimitable manoeuvres on the ball, impossible dribbles. A Madrid crowd has not yet risen in unison to applaud the club’s most damaging modern opponent. It will not happen on Saturday, either, when the clásico is relocated to a vacated stadium on a training campus, Madrid’s temporary home for the time of crowdless football.
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It will feel eerie, Spain’s super-derby played out before low-rise, empty grandstands in the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium. For millions watching on screens, it will feel elegiac. Unless Messi renews a contract that expires in June, his clásico number 45 will likely be his last.
He is not letting on his intentions for next season, but lets others tease at the idea that, were things to go well tonight, with a Barcelona victory to put them top of La Liga, and in next Saturday’s Copa del Rey final and beyond, the temptation to remain with the club would grow. Messi tried to leave last August, prevented by the €700 million buyout clause he is now free of. He cited a broken relationship with the club board — since replaced — and a team that was “weak”, too easily beaten by anybody “with intensity and drive”.
Madrid, on a handsome run of form, can concentrate drive and intensity into periods of games but the Barcelona they host have been efficiently shaking off their captain’s damning characterisation from last summer. Barcelona are unbeaten in 19 matches in La Liga, where Messi is again the leading scorer. Atletico Madrid, who were 12 points clear of Barcelona in early December, are now just one point ahead and three clear of third-placed Real Madrid.
“We are on a good run and confident,” Ronald Koeman, the Barcelona head coach, said, “but to win against Madrid we need to be perfect, and for the way we attack and for our best movement, we obviously need the best Leo. Let’s hope he can be decisive.”
Zidane, now the Madrid head coach, would not regard defeat as the end of Real’s defence of the league title, but acknowledged the resonance of the fixture. “It’s three points, same as when we play Eibar, but the repercussions, as you know, are not the same.” Zidane’s most recent Clasico as the Madrid coach was the 3-1 Real win at the Nou Camp in October. His last as a Madrid player was Messi’s first.
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Both coaches have timed some touch-and-go returns from injury around the clásico. The defender Gerard Pique is back in a Barcelona match-day squad for the first time in a month.
There will be no Sergio Ramos, Messi’s eternal combatant, because of fitness problems. His contract is also yet to be renewed. Ramos, 35, is on a record career-total of 45 Madrid-Barcelona matches, the same as Messi will reach tonight.
“I hope he has not played his last Clasico,” Zidane said of his captain, and, without quite looking like a die-hard Madridista standing up to applaud the old enemy, said almost the same about Barcelona’s. “As long as Messi is good at Barcelona,” advised Zidane, “he should stay there.”
