(PRESS RELEASE) -- With Real Madrid and Barcelona scheduled to meet in the Copa Del Ray final on 16th April, this fixture could be labelled as a warm up. However, given how close it is at the top of the La Liga table, this match could be a lot more than that and go a long way to decide where abouts the title is headed this year.
Both sides have now secured their places in the quarter finals of the Champions League, with Barcelona knocking out English heavyweights Manchester City and Real Madrid coasting past Schalke 04 9-2 on aggregate, so they can put that aside and shift focus back to the league.
Recent history makes the outcome of the match very hard to call given that Real have won 3 of the last 6 ‘El Classico’s’, Barcelona have won 1 and there has been 2 draws. However one that is almost certain is that both teams score (1/2). The last time that one of the sides failed to score was in November 2010, when Barcelona ran out 5-0 winners.
Looking at current form, it is hard to predict anything other than a Real Madrid win given that they have won 23 out of their last 24 La Liga games at home, and you can get this at (6/5). However it is not often that Barcelona are seen as the underdogs and at odds of (21/10) to win then there may be some great value in this, especially given Lionel Messi’s return to his self-imposed high standards with a hat trick against Osasuna last weekend.
Talking of Lionel Messi, he will be looking to outscore Cristiano Ronaldo who himself is in devastating form this season, having scored 41 goals in 37 appearances. Both forwards have a fantastic chance at being the first goal scorer bet365 recognises this with their odds of (3/1) for Ronaldo & (15/4) for Messi.
One final sugegstion, given that we’ve established that both teams usually score, would be to utilise the market recently added by
bet365 Sportsbook & Racebook, ‘BTTS + Result’. The odds on both teams to score and Real Madrid to win at (13/5) are far more favourable than the outright win, where as you can get Barcelona to win and both teams to score at (4/1), which represents great value.
Overall, given the strength of both squads, this is a very tough game to predict and it should provide some fantastic in play options! Be sure not to miss out on anything by streaming the match live on bet365 and taking advantage of some of the fantastic promotions that are on offer.