El Clásico By The Numbers

I do a segment on my radio show called "Cubby By The Numbers" (Cubby is my 'on-air' name) where I usually present some sort of statistic or other interesting number.  So I decided to start digging into some of the numbers behind El Clásico and thought I'd share some of them here with you as we look forward to Saturday's show-down at Camp Nou.

Win/Loss

In all competitions (excluding friendlies) Real Madrid leads in the win column by a narrow 92-90 margin. Now if you add in friendlies/exhibitions, then the pendulum swings the other way with a 109-96 Barcelona advantage, with the teams tying 48 times within all competitions. Going into the Camp Nou is always a tough proposition, but when it comes to El Clásico, they lead in home wins 72-66. Barca has lost just one of their last seven league games at home vs Madrid - winning five of them. The defeat in that run was a 2-1 loss in April of 2012.

The largest margin of victory goes to Real Madrid with ten goals. They beat Barcelona 11-1 on June 13th 1943 in the Copa del Rey. Barca is second with a 7-0 beating of Real Madrid in 1913 in what was an exhibition match. The most consecutive wins in El Clásico goes to our boys in white with a six-game streak from February 22nd 1962 all the way through to February 28th 1965. Each team has gone through win-streaks of five matches against each other since.

This will mark the first time that Zinedine Zidane and Luis Enrique have met as head coaches, and For Zidane, it'll be his first Clásico as the man in charge. As a player, Zidane has collected three tallies against Barca - one of those coming while Enrique was in Barca's starting XI. In total, they've met five times across all competitions during their playing careers, each picking up a win for their respective club..

Seeing Red

We all know tempers can run hot when it comes to El Clásico. Barcelona knows how to push Real Madrid's buttons for sure. The last four red cards in the Clásico across all competitions have been shown to Madrid players. Sergio Ramos leads the way in being sent off - with three since 2010. His last red came during the second Clásico of the  2013/2014 season in a 4-3 loss at home.

He was shown the red when he took Neymar down inside the box. This gave Barca the chance to go up two goals. But as you can see in the video below, the ref got it wrong. Neymar went down on his own. Not that it wasn't blatantly obvious except to the ref that pulled the card.

All in all six players have been sent off across all competitions, though Real Madrid has found it hard to come back from having someone take an early shower.

Pepe would be shown a red card in the 2010/2011 Champions League semi-final clash that would swing momentum in favor of the Blaugrana. Referee Wolfgang Stark would be the one to issue the card and Barcelona would go on to win that first leg 2-0.

Real Madrid has been a man down for 116 added minutes against their Catalan rivals.

Here's how both teams are doing during the current season.

Yellows

Barcelona: 50
Real Madrid: 53

Reds

Barcelona: 1 (Javier Mascherano)
Real Madrid: 4 (Ramos, Varane, Isco, Kovacic)

Top 5 El Clásico Goal Scorers

1. Lionel Messi - 21
2. Alfredo Di Stefano - 18
3. Raul - 15
4. Cristiano Ronaldo - 15
5. Cesar Rodriguez - 14

BBC vs MSN

In 19 La Liga matches, Messi has scored 14 goals against the Royal Whites - twice as many as Cristiano Ronaldo, though CR7 has featured in six-fewer games.  The MSN combination has scored a total of 20 goals against Madrid in La Liga; while the BBC have only managed 12, and one half of the BB, Gareth Bale, has yet to see the back of the net against Barcelona in La Liga. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I for one will be looking for Bale to open his account this weekend.

171

In 171 matches between the two they have averaged 3.22 goals per game. The most common result is a 2-1 Real Madrid advantage. This has happened 18 times before.