Tricky test for Barcelona in Copa del Rey clasico against Real Madrid

A week after suffering a fourth elimination from a European competition in a single year, probably the last thing Barcelona would want is a trip to the home of their fiercest rivals.

Even worse, this evening’s clasico, the Bernabeu leg of Real Madrid and Barca’s Copa del Rey semi-final, coincides with a spate of injuries to their most potent attacking players.

There will be no Ousmane Dembele or Pedri because of injury and almost certainly no Robert Lewandowski, who withdrew from last weekend’s dispiriting 1-0 defeat at Almeria with a thigh problem. That trio have been the club’s three highest scorers so far in a season that has lurched suddenly, since giving away a lead against Manchester United and losing their Europa League qualifying tie, into uncertainty.

Barca remain cushioned at the top of La Liga, but confidence at Camp Nou is notoriously brittle: this is a club that has conspicuously failed in most of its high-stakes matches in the last 18 months.

They have been twice knocked out of the Champions League at the group phase by the combined might of Bayern Munich, Benfica and Inter Milan; they have exited the Europa League to Eintracht Frankfurt and United.

And the recent record in clasicos is ominous. Madrid have won five of the last six staged on Spanish soil, the exception a surprise 4-0 win at the Bernabeu last March when Madrid were already well on their way to wrapping up the Liga title.

Xavi Hernandez, the Barcelona manager, finds himself looking to avoid a run of three successive defeats, an unprecedented sequence in his 74-match period in charge.

But he spoke of tonight’s assignment as “a golden opportunity to win a trophy”. He may find himself saying the same ahead of clasicos again and again in the