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El Clásico: Barcelona without Olmo, Real Madrid without Vinícius, kick-off 1:30 am IST Monday
Barcelona host Real Madrid on Sunday with a perfect league record and a growing injury list. Dani Olmo is out for a month and Vinícius Júnior is banned. Date, time in India, team news and what is at stake.
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Barcelona and Real Madrid meet in El Clásico on Sunday, 25 October, at Spotify Camp Nou, and neither will have the player their supporters most want to see. Barcelona lose Dani Olmo for about a month, and Madrid are without Vinícius Júnior, who is serving a ban. Kick-off is at 9 pm in Spain and 8 pm in the UK, which is 1:30 am IST on Monday, 26 October for viewers in India.
The match is on LaLiga's tenth matchday. Barcelona, coached by Hansi Flick, have won every league game this season, and a win would give them ten in a row and a nine-point lead over José Mourinho's side. Madrid have started the league less steadily than their European form suggests, but they come into the Clásico on four straight wins in all competitions, after winning at Sevilla on Sunday and beating RB Leipzig 4-1 on Wednesday night.
This is the 265th Clásico, and Mourinho's first since returning to Madrid and his first against Flick in the fixture. Barcelona have won six of the last seven meetings, scoring 22 goals and conceding 11, according to one preview, and Lamine Yamal is in top form.
Barcelona's injury list
Olmo, 28, went off in the first half of Barcelona's 4-2 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday, their first loss of the season. The club said tests on Wednesday confirmed "an injury to his left adductor muscle", and that it was the result of a collision with an opponent in that game. He is out for about a month. He will miss the Clásico, the league games against Alavés and Atlético Madrid and the Champions League tie with Aston Villa, and could be back after the November international break. He had been injury-free for club and country since January, although muscle problems have been a feature of his career.
A physiotherapist who works with the broadcaster DAZN has said the collision with Vitinha caused the injury and likened it to a "dagger" in the inner thigh. That is expert opinion, not a medical finding by the club.
Fermín López, who replaced Olmo against PSG, is expected to start in attack, ahead of Rodri and Pedri. Eric García is out with a thigh injury and is expected to be absent for three to four weeks, and Andreas Christensen and Roony Bardghji are also out. Jules Koundé is a doubt: he has an ankle sprain that kept him out of the trip to Paris, and the medical staff think he could be back in time.
Vinícius was sent off against Villarreal for pulling an opponent's hair, and the Spanish federation's disciplinary committee gave him a four-match La Liga ban. The ban covers domestic games only, which is why he played against Leipzig, where he started on the left and was replaced with about 20 minutes left. He cannot play again until 4 November.
Madrid are also without Rodrygo, who has a long-term knee injury, and Raúl Asencio, who has a leg stress fracture and could be out for up to four months. Federico Valverde has been playing at right-back in recent games. Yan Diomande, the record signing, came off the bench against Leipzig to score the fourth goal, and Kylian Mbappé scored the third, so the visitors have attacking options even without Vinícius.
What is at stake
For Barcelona the Clásico is a chance to answer the PSG defeat and keep a league record of nine wins from nine. For Madrid, who have not won a major trophy in two seasons and had a shaky domestic start, the match is the biggest test of a recovery that has produced four wins in a row. They are unbeaten in Europe, where Wednesday's win made it three from three, and Barcelona have lost in the competition once.
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