Barcelona & Real Madrid
Spain’s two biggest clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid, are back in action on Sunday.
Barcelona began round seven of the La Liga season in first place. They welcome Las Palmas to the Camp Nou this weekend.
As for Real Madrid, they are seven points behind Barca. Espanyol visit the Santiago Bernabeu tomorrow.
The Neymar affect
As September comes to a close, Real Madrid have been busy with a significant amount of housekeeping over the past 30 days.
Much of that housekeeping seems to be a reaction to what happened to Neymar in the summer.
Barcelona were caught out cold as the Brazilian up sticks and joined PSG in the summer.
PSG met Neymar’s 222 million euro price tag – something which Barcelona never saw coming.
Neymar’s move to Ligue 1 set off alarm bells at Real, who have quickly moved to lock down their stars to new deals.
In the past month, a group of Madrid’s best players have agreed new contracts. Those contracts have significantly raised the players release clauses.
Karim Benzema now has a €1 billion exit clause, while suitors will have to stump up €700m to get either Isco or Marco Asensio out of their deals.
A full summary of Real Madrid’s recent contract extensions are below.
PSG 6 – Bordeaux 2
PSG scored six on Saturday in Ligue 1, and Neymar bagged a brace.
The Brazilian put the table-toppers in front after just 5 minutes with a sumptuous free-kick.
Edinson Cavani soon made it two, courtesy of an assist from the Brazilian, before Thomas Meunier ended the clash as a contest with just 21 minutes on the clock.
But the goals didn’t stop there, with Neymar having helped himself to another after 40 minutes from the penalty spot.
Julian Draxler and Kylian Mbappe found the net to round off PSG’s scoring.