Barcelona v Real Madrid - El Clasico Betting Preview, Odds

Gambling911.com is happy to bring you this Barcelona v Real Madrid – El Clasico betting preview as this is one for the ages.  We are here in beautiful Madrid, Spain, where the country is set to shut down later on Monday to watch this amazing game.

Jonathan Cordingly of William Hill writes:

Undefeated in all competitions, table topping Real Madrid (12/5) have gelled far quicker than most people expected. I'm sure we all thought Jose would shore up the defence but, bar the odd one goal win, Los Blancos have been superb going forward with 33 goals scored in 12 La Liga games.

So many goals are not what the world expects from a Mourinho team, but Ronaldo (7/2 to score first, 10/11 anytime) and Higuain (13/2 to score first, 7/4 anytime) are responsible for 21 of them and Benzema (8/1 to score first, 11/4 anytime) has started to blossom recently.

Ozil (14/1 to score first, 11/2 anytime) and Di Maria (11/1 to score first, 4/1 anytime) have both also been impressive in white, but a better player than all of them can arguably be found in Barcelona's Lionel Messi (7/2 to score first, 10/11 anytime), the current FIFA World Player of the Year.

While he currently has one goal less than CR7 in La Liga this season, some of Messi's 13 league goals have been out of this world and Barcelona (11/10) would be no higher than third in the standings if not for most of them: For several weeks, Messi scores first and Barcelona wins (11/2) consistently yielded profit for punters.

David Villa (6/1 to score first, 13/8 anytime) has, however, started to find the net with more regularity than he did in the early games and will have a point to prove against a Real team who's president deemed him not to be a big enough name to buy a couple of summers ago, while Pedro (9/1 to score first, 3/1 anytime) scored twice in Barcelona's 3-0 away defeat of Panathinaikos midweek and once in the Catalans amazing 8-0 away defeat of Almeria last weekend.

Cordingly also believes that Barcelona will overrun Real Madrid in midfield.

ESPN.com reports that the key battle for Barcelona v. Real Madrid will be Lionel Messi v Cristiano Ronaldo.

The two most devastating players in the world on current form may not cross paths too often in the course of the 90 minutes on Monday, but they are certainly likely to play a role in deciding the outcome of the match. Ronaldo's remarkable 20 goals in 19 games should leave him head and shoulders above the rest as La Liga's best player. But then there is Messi. It appears the Argentina star took Barca's failure to win the Champions League and his nation's World Cup disappointment to heart and he has made a scintillating start to the new campaign. Messi also has 20 goals to his name but his have been amassed in just 16 games, with 15 of them coming in the past nine matches. Both players are capable of the sublime and are in sensational form, but Ronaldo is the man with the most to prove in this fixture, having been overshadowed by Messi in both encounters last season.

Lionel Messi has averaged a goal every 81 minutes for Barcelona, with 64.12% of his attempts finding the target. Cristiano Ronaldo's record is also impressive, but his goal every 91 minutes still falls short of Messi.

Odds for this game were Barcelona (2.10), Real Madrid (3.50) and the draw (3.30).  ESPN.com predicts a DRAW.

- Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com