With El Clasico Looming, It's the Media Frenzy That Comes First

It's already brewing. In the coming days, it will reach a crescendo. By the weekend, it will be fever pitch. 

El Clasico is looming. 

Let the Spanish media's hottest week begin. 

Indeed, four primary outlets—pro-Madrid Marca and AS, and pro-Barcelona Sport and El Mundo Deportivo—and a smattering of others will all have their say, driving the morbo, the tension between the two clubs, as explained by Dermot Corrigan of ESPN FC, ahead of world football's biggest game. 

Battle lines will be drawn. Players will be celebrated. The teams' cases will be put forward. And the opposition will be poked, prodded and antagonised—as we've already seen—as "a kind of footballing fundamentalism," as it has been described by Sid Lowe in his outstanding Fear and Loathing in La Liga, is fuelled.

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Among the respective fan bases, the publishing battle will drive hope, expectation, confidence and even arrogance. It's also likely to stir the perception of the clubs' identities, the way they contrast, their differing ideologies and all the misconceptions and inaccurate generalisations that have come to surround this rivalry.

And for the neutral, it will be week-long entertainment.

In the capital, the build-up has already commenced in full. In Catalonia, it's still warming up and will begin in earnest on Thursday, once the midweek Champions League meeting with Manchester City has passed. 

On Monday, Madrid-based El Confidencial, as explained by Corrigan, appeared to get it started, running a story that claimed some of Neymar's Barcelona team-mates—"unnamed team-mates"—weren't happy with his reaction to being substituted at Eibar on Saturday. 

Sport and El Mundo Deportivo (both links in Spanish), reacting to Cristiano Ronaldo's body language during Sunday's win over Levante, responded with, "Madrid wins, Cristiano loses," and "Tantrums d'Or," respectively. Sport then used bold text to emphasise its point that Real Madrid fans were "annoyed with his constant individualism."

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At Marca, Spain's biggest-selling daily newspaper, the early theme is solidarity. 

"Real squad right behind Ancelotti," wrote J.L. Calderon on Tuesday, indicating Real Madrid's players are "100 percent behind" their embattled manager, Carlo Ancelotti. 

The same sentiment is expressed in Jose Felix Diaz's piece titled, "Ronaldo always bounces back."

Then came a sort of rallying cry. A suggestion that Real Madrid, despite indifferent recent form, have been waiting for El Clasico.

"A stellar line up," Calderon's next headline read, accompanied by the sub-heading, "Ancelotti brings out the big guns for Barca," and followed by an opening line that reads: "Star goalkeeper, star defence, star midfield, star attack and no change of approach." (Never mind that the same outlet suggested a change to the approach was necessary as recently as last week.)

There's also an elaborate graphic, featuring statistics, depicting Real's strongest lineup in the way a club's Team of the Century might be displayed.

And it will only increase as the week continues; the support from both sides will grow louder, the messages more passionate. 

But, as Lowe explains, don't take any of it too seriously:

"

Within Spain, the media are cause and consequence, digging the trenches deeper. The sports newspapers claim varying degrees of objectivity when none should claim any at all. El Mundo Deportivo and Sport are openly pro-Barcelona; Marca and AS are pro-Madrid. Sometimes as much propaganda outlets as papers, they tend to see themselves as an arm of their clubs, increasing the pressure at institutions where winning is no longer an objective but an obligation. The director of a Catalan radio station publicly applauded the decision to cheer Madrid's European opponents as an 'ingenious' way of getting closer to supporters. Never mind getting closer to the truth. 

"

To understand just how partisan some of the coverage is, it's worth reading Lowe's recent La Liga season reviews (you can find them here: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014), which all feature a bunch of the most revealing media quotes from the respective campaigns. 

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Naturally, we're likely in for more of that this week, as we prepare for another Clasico this coming Sunday.

Another fierce and enthralling battle between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the Camp Nou—one that will, as always, have a big say in the destination of the league title by season's end. 

But as you observe the likely media frenzy unfold in Spain, both in the lead-up to El Clasico and during the reaction to it in its aftermath, it's worth remembering former Barcelona sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta's quote: "We demand precision, accuracy and neutrality, but with one caveat: that it's in our favour."