El Clásico. It’s the biggest show on earth. Whether you like football or not, it dominates the news in Spain. El Clásico is a show, after all. There’s much more going on than just the football. And the show begins long before the first ball is kicked.

It’s pantomime season after all. And while there’s no such thing as pantomime in Spain, you wouldn’t know it from scanning the front pages of the daily sports papers. As we know, every pantomime needs a villain, but the colours he wears tend to be different depending on whether you’re watching from Madrid or Barcelona.

El Clásico subplots

Así evadía impuestos Cristiano Ronaldo, declared Barcelona based Sport yesterday. This is how Cristiano Ronaldo avoids paying taxes. It comes with a photo of CR7 himself looking all Machiavellian, sat on a sofa.

‘He’s behind you!’

The view in Madrid is different, of course. Marca and AS had no stories about Cristiano’s tax issues. They were too busy analysing Barça’s 1-1 draw in the cup at lowly Hercules.

That result was just one more in a series of results and performances unbecoming of Barça’s recent history. After escaping with a fortunate draw against Real Sociedad in the league on Sunday, the headline of the other Barcelona sports paper, Mundo Deportivo, was Así No. Not like this. Gerard Pique, Mr FC Barcelona himself, declared it would be very difficult to win the league with the attitude displayed in that game.

Over the page, the player ratings out of 5 stars made for grim reading, with players like Sergi Busquets, Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez all getting a solitary star. It doesn’t take much for a crisis to emerge at FC Barcelona, but this feels like the closest they’ve come to one in two years.

Familiar pre-xmas Barça blues

Before Christmas in 2014, many fans in Camp Nou were calling for the manager Luis Enrique to be sacked. Six months later he’d won the league, the cup and the Champions League.

In Madrid things are a bit rosier. Though Real didn’t play particularly well last weekend either, they managed to beat Sporting and, still unbeaten, stretched their lead over Barça at the top of the table to six points. Ronaldo has even started scoring again. And if there’s one team he enjoys scoring against most, it’s Barça. His ‘calm down everyone, I’m here’ gesture after scoring at Camp Nou is guaranteed to be greeted by a comprehensive assortment of Spanish and Catalan swear words.

Barça’s fans had to endure it last year, with only a few minutes of the game left. Madrid went on to win 2-1, forcing Barça to have to work a bit harder to win the league. That Madrid haven’t won the league since 2012 seems incongruous for a team of their stature and their form so far this season makes it look like they’re determined to put that right. After all, they’ve won two Champions League trophies since that title win in 2012. They can afford to focus on the league for a season.

Every year, El Clásico seems to get bigger. Unmissable. And this one really is. All over the world. The 4.15pm kick off time is no accident. Timed so that fans in both the US and the Far East can tune in, millions of eyes across the world will be fixed on this one game.

There are matches, and then there are MATCHES

Tomorrow will be my fourth Clásico, and I can’t wait. You can feel the history of the game even on the way to the stadium. Supporters walk a bit faster than usual. Hundreds of mopeds buzz around Les Corts, with fans waving their scarves and chanting when stopped at a red light. The sound of horns is deafening.

Then, once inside the stadium, you notice a folded sheet of paper on your seat that will help form a mosaic as the players emerge onto the pitch during the playing of ‘Cant Del Barça’; the club song. At that moment the steep stands transform into a pulsating piece of art. It’s then when you know for sure that you’re not at just any other game. As Sergio Ramos tweeted yesterday, ‘hay partidos y PARTIDOS’. There are matches and then there are MATCHES. This is the latter.

Two years ago, Barça arrested their Christmas slump with a stirring victory over the other Madrid team; Atletico. It was that game which gave Barça the belief that they could win the treble. It could be that they need another performance like that one tomorrow. While in Madrid, they will feel like the balance of power has shifted from Catalonia and will be determined to prove it.

Whatever happens tomorrow, at least we know that on Monday morning the pantomime villains will almost certainly be wearing different colours again. It all depends on where you’re watching the show, and which paper you read.