With just under 48 hours to go before the big match I thought I’d take a look at some of the recent games between the two clubs at Camp Nou. Having come to live in Barcelona in 1989 I soon became used to Barça winning this fixture. Apart from a 1-1 draw in the 91/92 season Barça won the game every year until the 99/00 season when Raul scored a late equalizer.

In the 90s Barça had some great wins, three times Barça won the game 3-0 but the greatest of all was in the 93/94 season when Barça won 5-0 with a hat-trick from Romario, including a fantastic opening goal. In the current decade things have not been so easy.

In the 00/01 season Barça won 2-0 with goals from Luis Enrique and Simao. The game was memorable for Carles Puyol’s marking of Luis Figo who was returning to Camp Nou for the first time as a Madrid player. Figo didn’t dare take the corners that day and Puyol had him in his pocket for 90 minutes.

A year later Madrid looked likely to win when Zidane put them in front but a mistake by goalkeeper Cesar allowed Xavi to equalize and the game ended 1-1. In the 02/03 season there was another draw, this time 0-0, but the game will always be remembered for the Camp Nou crowd’s reaction every time Figo tried to take a corner. This was the first time Figo and been brave enough to go close to the crowd and they threw everything at him, including a pig’s head! I normally find this kind of crowd behaviour to be completely out of order, but Figo was a traitor who sold Barça out for money, and I’m afraid to say he deserved everything he got. Unfortunately the crowd reaction led to the game being stopped by the ref for 15 minutes and the stoppage probably didn’t favour Barça.

The following year saw Madrid’s only league win since 1983, Rijkaard and Ronaldinho were in their first season and Barça had not clicked yet. To make matters worse Ronaldinho was injured for the match. Roberto Carlos and Ronaldo scored for Madrid before Patrick Kluivert pulled a second half goal back for Barça. Madrid held on to win 1-2.

In the 04/05 season Barça gave Madrid a footballing lesson, winning 3-0 with goals from Eto’o, Van Bronckhorst and a Ronaldinho penalty. The first goal came after a terrible mix-up between Roberto Carlos and Casillas which allowed Eto’o to nip in and score against his old club. Eto’o was superb that day  also winning the penalty for Ronnie’s goal, when he was brought down by Guti.

In 05/06 Barça were expecting to win easily as the team was in fantastic form. Ronaldinho put Barça ahead from the penalty spot after Roberto Carlos was harshly judged to have fouled Van Bommel. When Roberto Carlos was sent off it looked like Barça would win easily, but Casillas saved everything and Ronaldo broke away to score an equalizer in the second half.

Last season’s game was another epic match, Madrid took the lead three times only for Leo Messi to equalize each time. Barça were not helped by the 3-4-3 formation that Rijkaard was testing at the time or by having Oleguer sent off just before half time. However, Messi saved the day with his memorable hat-trick and Barça might have won if the referee had seen a last minute penalty on Ronaldinho. 

So, in the last six seasons Barça have won only once, let’s hope we can get back to winning ways this Sunday. The latest news is that Guti could well miss the game through a strained ankle he got in training today. A shame really as Guti is probably the number one hate figure at Madrid (unless you include Pedja “don’t touch my hair” Mijatovic). If Guti plays you can be sure the decibel level of the crowd will increase just that little bit more.