Real plans a cautious clásico

A day ahead of the first league clásico silence reigned at the Santiago Bernabéu. José Mourinho, as is his wont, sent his right hand man Aitor Karanka to face the media and apparently placed a gagging order on his players. Perhaps chastened by last season's excesses in defeat, Mourinho has elected to keep his counsel before a match that represents his best chance yet as coach of Real to record a league win over Barcelona.

Although Real has only once got the better of its arch-nemesis in 11 clásicos since Pep Guardiola took charge at Camp Nou in 2008, the capital club is in better shape going into Saturday's key encounter. Mourinho's side has won 15 consecutive matches and leads Barça by three points in the table with a game in hand. A win in the Bernabéu and another in Seville next weekend would hand Barça the onerous task of overturning a nine-point deficit in the second half of the season.

For the first time under Guardiola, the pressure is on Barça to carve out a victory. "We are not going to settle for a tie," said Karanka.

At Friday's press conference, Karanka revealed Real's game plan, an anticipated 4-3-3 to shore up the midfield that will leave Mesut Özil on the bench at kick-off. Saturday's expected line-up is exactly the formation, with the same personnel, that Mourinho switched to at half time in last season's 5-0 drubbing at Camp Nou in a damage-limitation exercise, Lassana Diarra entering the fray alongside Xabi Alonso and Sami Khedira, with Cristiano Ronaldo, Ángel di María and Karim Benzema in the front line.

Nonetheless, the damage was already too grave on that occasion and Real shipped more goals in the second half than the first. The key to Saturday's encounter will be to avoid conceding first - Real hasn't come from behind to win a clásico in the Bernabéu since 1988.

The game, at least, should be a fairly fluid one; the referee, David Fernández Borbalán, oversaw the pulsating Spanish Supercup second leg in Camp Nou in August, which Barça won 3-2. Although he brandished eight yellows in open play and three reds in the final minute mélee between the benches, the match was a far cry from the stop-start pedantry of last season's underwhelming clásicos. Borbalán has officiated four Real matches; three away ties and one home win.