The El Clasico date and time for the first meeting of the 2026/27 season are now set: Barcelona will host Real Madrid at the Camp Nou on Sunday 25 October, with kick-off at 9pm CET — 8pm in the UK.
The scheduling was reported by Fabrizio Romano and carried by Managing Madrid, with Mundo Deportivo also reporting the date and slot as confirmed. It hands Los Blancos the standard Sunday-night showpiece window, the one La Liga reserves for the fixture that empties the streets in both cities.
El Clasico date and time: the details
Venue: the Camp Nou. Date: Sunday 25 October 2026. Kick-off: 9pm CET, 8pm UK time. Supporters in Britain should note that the clocks go back that same morning, so the one-hour gap between Barcelona and London holds either side of the change.
A late-October Clasico is early enough in the calendar that neither side will have shown all of its hand, and late enough that the table will have started to mean something. It also lands after two international breaks, which has historically been a mixed blessing for a Madrid squad that spends September and October scattered across four continents.
Two sides who have not dropped a point
Both clubs arrive at this one in rude health. Real Madrid sit top of La Liga after a spotless start under Jose Mourinho, who took charge at the Santiago Bernabeu in the summer and has yet to lose a league match — the 2-1 win over Espanyol was followed by a 4-1 dismantling of Real Sociedad in which Kylian Mbappe helped himself to a hat-trick. Managing Madrid note that both Madrid and Barcelona have opened the season with three straight wins, which tells you consistency is likely to decide this title race rather than one afternoon in Catalonia.
Mourinho’s side will travel with a squad that looks meaningfully different to the one beaten on its last league visit to the Camp Nou — a 2-0 defeat, as Managing Madrid recall, in a game that had little riding on it by the time it arrived. Marc Cucurella, Bernardo Silva, Ibrahima Konate and Denzel Dumfries have all come in, Federico Valverde has taken the captaincy, and the spine of the team is younger and, on the evidence of August, considerably better organised.
What Madrid have to get through first
Before Catalonia, there is a full month of football. Los Blancos resume La Liga away at Real Betis once the international window closes, and the Champions League league phase begins in mid-September — a run we mapped out in our guide to Real Madrid’s September fixtures, which includes the derby against Atletico Madrid. The European opponents drawn last week are listed in our Champions League draw breakdown.
The treatment room will also look different by 25 October. Eder Militao is working back from hamstring surgery with a target of late September and Raul Asencio is due around the middle of this month, while Ferland Mendy and Rodrygo remain long-term absentees — the Brazilian is not expected back until early 2027, so he will miss this Clasico.
One for the calendar
For now, though, Madridistas have a date. Sunday 25 October, 9pm CET, the Camp Nou, with Mourinho walking back into the fixture that defined the noisiest stretch of his first spell in Spain. Whatever the table says by then, that alone guarantees a week of build-up.
