It’s been a long time since we can recall being this excited about an El Clasico game. Real Madrid has won five and drawn one of the previous six meetings, but Barcelona under Xavi finally looks capable of competing against Real Madrid.
Both teams have picked up exactly 13 points from their previous five league games, it’s all to play for this Sunday. Here is what you need to know for your soccer picks.
Sunday, March 20, 2022 – 04:00 PM EDT at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu
Real Madrid is back in form having won their previous five games, scoring 14 goals along the way, and conceding only twice. Karim Benzema and Luka Modric inspired an iconic comeback in the Champions League against PSG, a game in which they conceded a first-half goal that stood and also allowed 3 offside goals in the game.
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Despite being second best over the two legs, they had 20 minutes of Benzema and Modric inspired magic and a 20-minute hat-trick from the Frenchman was enough to seal the fate of PSG, seeing Madrid advance to the quarter-finals yet again.
Unfortunately for Madrid, Benzema limped off against Mallorca last time out and is a concern to be fit for this El Clasico. Benzema is the top goalscorer in the league with 22 goals, and the second top scorer in the league is also a Madrid player by the name of Vinicius Jr., who has scored 14 goals this season.
Let’s start this off with a rumor. There is reports that Lionel Messi is very unhappy with PSG and is looking for an imminent return to the Catalan giants. It helps a lot that his former teammate is now in charge there and seems to be turning things around, a bit of a Barcelona renaissance if you will.
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Under Xavi’s leadership, this team now seems to be back to their former selves. Although let's be real, there’s no way they will be able to build the sort of team they had from 2009 to 2017 roughly, but good enough to be able to challenge for league titles on a regular basis and put it up to Real Madrid in El Clasico.
The investments of Adama Traore, Ferran Torres, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have been money well spent so far. All three have lived up to their price tag so to speak.
Barcelona has picked up the most points in the league over the previous 10 games and has been solid on the road in recent games. Although we do believe they will be focusing on the Europa League tie as winning the Europa League is much more possible than chasing down a 12 point deficit to Madrid with just under 10 games remaining.
Barcelona, unfortunately, has to play a very important Europa League game on the road in Turkey on Thursday night, meaning they come into tonight’s game having had much less rest than the hosts Real Madrid. If it wasn’t for this fact, we would give Barcelona a much better chance of winning here.
The La Liga odds reflect the fact Barcelona has a tough game on Thursday as they are as high as +290 to win here. If they had the same number of days rest as Madrid, we feel the top sportsbooks would have priced them up around +220/230.
The one concern about Madrid being made favorites is we would feel we are not getting any value at +105 for the home team to win if Karim Benzema is declared to be unfit to play. So if planning on betting on Madrid, we advise waiting to see the official line-ups.
Although we are laying juice, we think the over 2.5 at -140 is the best play here, even more so if Benzema starts but even without him, we like goals. To get the better value we are going to take both teams to score and over 2.5 goals at -110 and as a sort of hedge bet, we are playing the 1-1 correct score at +600 with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
We predict Barcelona will come into this game with a nothing to lose attitude and although it is set to be a tight game, an early goal will open this game right up. Either team to win 2-1 is how we see this one ending up.
Soccer Pick: Both Teams to Score + Over 2.5 Goals (-110) at BetOnline
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.