Football has many classics, but only one Gran Clasico

WHEN Real Madrid beat Barcelona in the 2002 Champions League semi-final, the worldwide TV audience was estimated at 500 million. When Barcelona ran riot last November, 400 million watched on the box and countless millions more on laptops round the world.

Tonight’s match could effectively decide the league and is just the first of four such clashes in the space of 18 days. With a glittering array of players and the world’s two most coveted managers going head-to-head, this has to be the Mother of all Gran Clasicos. But it is a fixture with a titanic history.

Down the years, the rivalry has produced the tightest contests and the most one-sided games imaginable, including the first Gran Clasico of all, the cup semi-final of 1943.