LaLiga betting tips: El Clasico preview

Recommended bets: La Liga

3pts Real Madrid to win and both teams to score at 12/5 - Zidane's men are marching towards European and domestic domination but his defence has just one clean sheet in 13

1pt Real Madrid to win from behind at 8/1 - They've shown their resilience by coming from behind in their last three games plus their last El Clasico victory

Real Madrid can all but secure the LaLiga title and consolidate their superiority over great rivals Barcelona with a victory on Sunday evening. 

Zinedine Zidane’s side have battled their way through the most chaotic of campaigns but are on track to win Europe’s top competition and the league double for just the third time.

Remarkably, they have not achieved that feat since the 1957/58 campaign, but they will be solely focused on securing domestic success on Sunday, having failed to win the league since 2011/12.

Barca have won the it three times since but their hopes will look bleak if they fail to repeat last season’s Bernabeu triumph, when it was the Catalans who pulled six points clear at the top of the table.

The roles have very much reversed since then and Barca will, in the context of their relentlessly successful history, slump into crisis with another disappointment, having crashed out of the Champions League midweek.

Real, meanwhile, did what they do best in scrapping through in extra-time against Bayern Munich and are now just 13/8 to become the first side to defend the Champions League in its modern format.

Barca’s chances on Sunday are also dented by Neymar’s suspension, while Real should have Gareth Bale back from a minor injury and Dani Carvajal also available again.

The aforementioned sees Real Madrid head into the clash at marginally odds-against, with Luis Enrique’s men top priced at 12/5.

Cristiano Ronaldo (18/5) heads the first goalscorer betting following his midweek hat-trick while Lionel Messi is sure to tempt plenty at as big as 5/1 to break the deadlock.

Neither found the net in the reverse fixture as Luis Suarez (also 5/1) opened the scoring before 10-goal centre-back Sergio Ramos levelled late on, as he so often does.

The big outsider in the market is ‘no goalscorer’ a 25/1 chance to happen for the first time in this fixture in 41 encounters, with just a solitary clean sheet registered between them in 21 clashes.

That, combined with Real’s modest tally of 10 clean sheets in 50 games points us in the direction of the ‘win and both teams to score’ sub-market, where we can double the price on the hosts.

That’s where my money will be going as, while there’s so little between these immense sides, Real have an aura of invincibility about them right now to prevail in the most pivotal of clashes.

The Madrid side have also shown resilience, winning their last three games from a goal down, and 8/1 about another win from behind also looks worth support given the attacking talent on display.

 Posted at 1640 BST on 21/04/17.