Barca is favourite to win the clasico

With an eight point advantage over Real Madrid it looks like the Catalan giants are favourites to win the clasico on Sunday evening at the Camp Nou. There is a frenzy in the betting shops, especially the ones online and it looks like the bookies’ favourites is Barca.

It looks like the bookmakers are not taking much notice of what happened at the Camp Nou last year when Real Madrid sentenced the outcome of La Liga there with a victorious win.

Gerard Pique, who looked certain to be out of Sunday’s clasico, has been making progress with his foot injury and could play if given the all-clear. Instead of taking a day off as his team-mates did, Pique was seen at Barca’s training ground walking with some difficulty.

If Pique plays on Sunday it will certainly be a boost to the rest of his team mates now that Carles Puyol has been sidelined for eight weeks or so. The defender picked up the sprained foot two weeks ago against Spartak Moscow where Barca won by 3 goals to 2 and hasn’t been in action since then.

Although the Barca medics say that Piqué will need another weeks’ rest, the defender, knowing that Puyol has been sidelined, is trying to speed up the recovery process to be ready for Sunday’s test against Jose Mourinho’s men.

After the match in Lisbon against Benfica, Tito Vilanova did suggest that he would try to get Piqué ready in time for Sunday’s clash.If this was not possible however, then the Barca coach would rely on his two central midfielders in the form of new signing from Arsenal Alex Song and Javier Mascherano.

Other options that Tito Vilanova would have besides Alex Song would probably come in the shape of Marc Bartra, who has recently been promoted to the full Barca squad and young Andreu Fontás from the youth academy who doesn’t feature in the manager’s plans as they tried to look for a way to get him out on loan this summer.