La Liga
Real Madrid will keep its first place. Its lead has melted to just one point after the last round, in which it surprisingly lost 0:1 as a guest to Espanyol. During the week, it barely won as a guest against Leganes with 3:2 in the cup tournament and it doesn't seem to be in top condition before this important derby. Ancelotti will have to experiment in defense due to the injuries of Carvajal, Alaba, and Rudiger. Mbappe and Bellingham are also still questionable and missed the match against Leganes. Otherwise, Real lost at home this season to Barcelona and Milan, but won all its other home matches.
It is precisely Atletico Madrid that will try to return to the top, where it was recently, with a potential victory in the derby. As a guest at Real, it has not won since 2016 in La Liga, and five out of its last eight visits here ended in a draw. Atletico recently stumbled in its visit to Leganes, but quickly returned to the winning path. There was an extra day for recovery before the derby, as it played on Tuesday for the cup, when it beat Getafe 5:0 at home. Atletico will be without Robin Le Normand in defense, but there are no other problems around the lineup for Diego Simeone, and he has repeatedly shown this season that he has depth in his team.
Forecast: both teams to scoreIt won't be anything new if there aren't many goals in the derby, but in this case, I think we will see at least one goal for both teams. Real Madrid has enough players to achieve this goal, but defensively things don't look good and it is definitely capable of conceding a goal. Considering the intensity and importance of the clash, I also expect at least 5-6 cards in the match.
This text is an AI-assisted translation in English. Link to the original source in Bulgarian ➔
