Mitch Freeley

Michael Laudrup is perhaps best placed to give an insight of how a player feels heading into an El Clásico encounter. The Danish playmaker represented both Barcelona and Real Madrid, winning five La Liga titles in seven seasons in Spain. Ahead of the match on Saturday, beIN SPORTS sat down with the now Al Rayyan manager to get his thoughts on playing in one of the biggest matches in world football. 

“It’s very easy to be motivated for these game because you know, everybody wants to win wants to win this game. Every fan, every player everyone in the club wants to win this game” admitted Laudrup when asked about the motivation as a player heading into El Clásico. 

Laudrup joined Barcelona in the summer of 1989 and was an integral part of Johan Cruff’s dream team that go on to dominate La Liga and lift the clubs first ever European cup in 1992. Laudrup added that in the matches before the big game where harder to play.  “Actually I think it was more difficult the games in between for the last couple of weeks because everybody was talking about the Clásico, sometimes forgetting that we had one or two games in between.”

“So the buildup already starts a couple of weeks depending on how important the Clásico is. It starts some weeks before and you build it up like that.” 

The playmaker epitomized the free-flowing football under Cruff and scored a memorable volley to open the scoring in a 2-1 victory during the 90/91 season. Laudrup reminisced that as a player, you do realise you are taking part in a special match. 

“On the day it’s an important game and you feel as a player that today is something special and you build it up. Then you come onto the pitch, and you then start playing, and then it’s a game more or less like the rest.”