Barcelona Will Try To Put An End To Winless Drought As It Hosts “El Clasico”

Barcelona FC will host Real Madrid on Saturday as the two rivals renew the “Clasico” as part of week 14 in the top division of Spanish football.

The most important derby of Spain will be a key match for both squads, but the sense of urgency is bigger for Barcelona because they trail the “Merengues” by six points after just 13 games played.

Making matters worse, the Catalans come off two straight draws: one at home against Malaga and one against Real Sociedad on the road.

Barcelona’s coach Luis Enrique and the players know they will have to perform a lot better when they face Real Madrid if they don’t want to lose any more ground to the leaders and go winless for a third straight La Liga game.

Real Madrid has yet to lose a game in the domestic league and if they win their lead on the table could jump to nine points. Even though it’s still early in the season a nine-point lead could be difficult to overcome even for a club like Barcelona and would be a step in the right direction for Real Madrid to put an end to a four-year championship drought in La Liga.

The Real Madrid staff feels good about their chances despite suffering key injuries in recent weeks, such as the one suffered last week by Welsh striker Gareth Bale. Part of that, is the current form of Cristiano Ronaldo, who has scored five goals in the last two games played by the club.

On top of that, Cristiano has already scored 51 goals this season in both national duty with Portugal and the games with Real Madrid. With his two goals against Sporting de Gijon Ronaldo managed to score more than 50 goals for the sixth straight year, becoming the first football player to ever achieve that.

These are the scoring numbers of Cristiano in the last six years: 2011 (60), 2012 (63), 2013 (69), 2014 (61), 2015 (57) and so far this year 51. The Madrid striker will have plenty of opportunities to increase his tally before the end of the year as the team still has games left in both domestic and European competitions.

Should Cristiano’s score any goals against Barcelona at Camp Nou, he will not only increase his personal numbers, but the probabilities of him beating Barcelona’s Lionel Messi to win the Balon d’Or; the award given by the prestigious magazine France Football to the best footballer of the world every year.