El Clásico on the map: where Barcelona and Real Madrid have met, from 1902 to Jeddah

Barcelona host Real Madrid at Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday 25 October, at 9pm local time, in the tenth round of La Liga. It is José Mourinho's first Clásico back as Madrid's coach, against Hansi Flick's champions, and it is played in a stadium that is still only partly built. By La Liga's count the two clubs go into it level: 264 official meetings, 106 wins each and 52 draws.

The fixture has travelled a long way to get here. Its first game was played on a Madrid racecourse. Since then Barcelona and Real Madrid have met in Valencia, Seville and Zaragoza, in Venezuela, in four American stadiums and, most often of late, in Saudi Arabia.

A racecourse in Madrid, 1902

The first meeting was on 13 May 1902 at the Hipódromo de la Castellana, Madrid's racecourse, in the semi-final of a cup held for King Alfonso XIII's coronation. Barcelona won 3-1. According to ESPN Deportes, about 2,500 people watched, women got in free and men paid 50 céntimos. The racecourse was demolished in 1933; its site is now the Nuevos Ministerios government complex on the Paseo de la Castellana, less than a mile from the Bernabéu.

The first league Clásico came on 17 February 1929, in the second round of the first La Liga season, at Les Corts, Barcelona's ground from 1922 to 1957. Madrid won 2-1. In Madrid, the old Chamartín stadium saw the most lopsided result in the fixture's history: on 13 June 1943, in a cup semi-final second leg, Real Madrid won 11-1, after leading 8-0 at half-time. Barcelona had won the first leg 3-0.

The two homes

Both clubs then built the stadiums the rivalry is known for. Madrid's opened on 14 December 1947 beside the old Chamartín and took the name Santiago Bernabéu in 1955, after the club's president; since November 2025 it has been branded simply "Bernabéu". No ground has hosted more Clásicos. Camp Nou opened on 24 September 1957, less than a mile from Les Corts, and its first Clásico, in February 1958, ended in a 2-0 win for Madrid.

After the 2022-23 season Barcelona moved out so Camp Nou could be rebuilt. They played two league Clásicos at the Olympic stadium on Montjuïc, losing 2-1 in October 2023 and winning 4-3 in May 2025. They returned home on 22 November 2025, beating Athletic Club 4-0 in front of about 45,000 fans.

The first Clásico at the new Camp Nou, on 10 May 2026, decided the title. Marcus Rashford scored from a free kick in the ninth minute, Ferran Torres added a second in the 18th, and the 2-0 win gave Barcelona their 29th league title with three games to spare. Flick's father had died hours before kick-off. "It was a tough day for me to start," he said afterwards. "But my team is fantastic. It is like a family." Frenkie de Jong called the title "more special for winning it at home against Madrid".

The ground is not finished. Its capacity has been 62,652 since March. The club's treasurer had told members it would reach 75,000 this season, but Spanish outlets reported on 30 September that the third tier will stay closed this season, because the city council will only license it as a whole. Barcelona plan to move back to Montjuïc for the first half of next season while the roof goes on, and to reach about 105,000 seats before the 2028-29 season, at a total cost the treasurer put at almost €2 billion.

Neutral ground: eight cup finals

The clubs have met in eight Copa del Rey finals and won four each. Mestalla, in Valencia, has staged four of them, which is fitting: it sits almost exactly halfway between the two, about 185 miles from Camp Nou and 189 from the Bernabéu.

The first was in June 1936, the last final before the Spanish Civil War and the goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora's last game for Madrid, who won 2-1. Barcelona won the 1990 final 2-0. Julio Salinas, who scored their second goal in injury time, later said: "I think if we had lost that final, Cruyff would have been sacked." Madrid won the next two at Mestalla: in 2011 through Cristiano Ronaldo's extra-time header, and in 2014 through Gareth Bale's late winner after a run of more than 50 metres.

Not every final was on truly neutral ground. In 1968 the final was played at the Bernabéu itself, and Barcelona won it 1-0. It is remembered as the bottle final: their goalkeeper, Salvador Sadurní, said "so many bottles were thrown at me from the stands" that glass bottles were later banned from Spanish grounds. In 1974 Madrid won 4-0 at the Vicente Calderón, Atlético Madrid's home.

In 1983, at La Romareda in Zaragoza, a late header from Marcos won the final 2-1 for a Barcelona side with Diego Maradona in it. The most recent final was in April 2025 at La Cartuja in Seville, where Jules Koundé's goal in the 116th minute gave Barcelona a 3-2 win after extra time.

Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the United States

The first Clásico outside Spain was played in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, on 30 May 1982. The tournament there was built around a Barcelona-Real Madrid final, but both lost their semi-finals, so the organisers added a third-place play-off to give fans the game they wanted. Madrid won it 1-0, through Vicente del Bosque.

The United States followed with four summer friendlies, all won by Barcelona: 3-2 in front of a sell-out crowd at Miami's Hard Rock Stadium in 2017; 1-0 in Las Vegas in 2022, from a Raphinha goal; 3-0 in Arlington, Texas, in 2023, in front of 82,026, a record for a club game at AT&T Stadium; and 2-1 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in 2024, after lightning stopped play for more than an hour.

The first competitive Clásico abroad came in January 2022, at the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia: Madrid won a semi-final in Riyadh 3-2 after extra time. Since then the two have met in four straight Super Cup finals there. Barcelona won 3-1 in Riyadh in 2023 and Madrid 4-1 a year later at Al-Awwal Park, with a Vinícius Júnior hat-trick. In Jeddah, Barcelona won 5-2 in 2025 and 3-2 in January this year, with Raphinha scoring twice in front of 60,326.

Back to Camp Nou

On 25 October the rivalry returns to the ground where it decided last season's title, with the wins level and the third tier still closed. Wherever you are watching from, it is a long way from a racecourse in Madrid.

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