Football’s most celebrated club fixture comes to Las Vegas this weekend, and although it is a pre-season game, all clasicos carry competitive bite.
There’s a fresh aspect to the eternal grudge between Barcelona and Real Madrid, too, dating from their surreal last meeting.
Back in March, at the Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid wore all black, had Luka Modric playing at centre-forward, and, most surprisingly, lost to Barca by a thumping 4-0 scoreline.
It made no difference to the destiny of the Liga title, won at canter by a Real Madrid who had at that stage embarked on an extraordinary set of adventures, comeback after comeback, in the knockouts of European Cup, a trophy they collected for the 14th time in the club’s history after beating Liverpool in Paris.