Although it is left to the Barcelona a pending match –That Sevilla-Barça on matchday four, on behalf of CONMEBOL and the FIFA Virus–, the situation with which the Barça team and especially Espanyol face the national team stoppage and the derby in which it will lead, on Saturday 20 November at 9:00 p.m., it couldn’t be more antagonistic. With the desperate culés and loying everything to the ‘powers’ of Xavi Hernández, who will debut on the bench that day. And with the parakeets excited by their hopeful return to Primera. And, above all, with both teams tied for points, 17, in the rankings.
La Liga Santander
* Data updated as of November 7, 2021
The data is not trivial, and less if it is compared with the past. For example, with the most recent. The one that shows how Last season there was not even a derby because the distances were so stark that Espanyol played in the Second Division Division. Or the one from the previous campaign, the 2019-20, when at this point Barcelona, with 26 points, I was already 18 to a blue and white squad that only numbered eight. No less shocking is the contrast with the slightly more distant past, that of the last two decades, taking as a reference – since it will be the first derby with him again in the culé presidency – the first term of Joan Laporta.
La Liga Santander
* Data updated as of November 7, 2021
In that period, between 2003 and 2020, the average of points of the Barcelona at this point was of 30, by 16 of the Espanyol. That is, an average distance of 14 units between both teams. From 28 The Catalans came to surpass the parrots in the 2012-13 season, the so-called League of 100 points. And of only two, the minimum, in the 2007-08 academic year, but more due to the merit of the Blue and Whites and their extraordinary start from the hand of Ernesto Valverde: 27 and 25 points added up, respectively.
In more than half of those last few seasons, until 11, Barcelona reached the fourteenth day as leader of the First Division, while the tenth place it had been the average of a Spanish that this year is not far from its figures at all.
Barcelona and Espanyol, after matchday 13
| BARÇA | SPANISH | ||||
| Season | Position | Points | Position | Points | Difference |
| 2019-20 | 1º | 26 | 19º | 8 | 18 |
| 2018-19 | 2º | 25 | 5º | 21 | 4 |
| 2017-18 | 1º | 35 | 13º | 16 | 19 |
| 2016-17 | 2º | 27 | 12º | 18 | 9 |
| 2015-16 | 1º | 33 | 12º | 16 | 17 |
| 2014-15 | 2º | 31 | 12º | 14 | 17 |
| 2013-14 | 1º | 37 | 12º | 15 | 22 |
| 2012-13 | 1º | 37 | 20º | 9 | 28 |
| 2011-12 | 2º | 28 | 9º | 17 | 11 |
| 2010-11 | 1º | 34 | 4º | 25 | 9 |
| 2009-10 | 1º | 33 | 10º | 16 | 17 |
| 2008-09 | 1º | 32 | 17º | 12 | 20 |
| 2007-08 | 3º | 27 | 4º | 25 | 2 |
| 2006-07 | 1º | 30 | 13º | 16 | 14 |
| 2005-06 | 1º | 28 | 14º | 13 | 15 |
| 2004-05 | 1º | 32 | 3º | 23 | 9 |
| 2003-04 | 5º | 20 | 20º | 8 | 12 |
| Average | 1º | 30 | 10º | 16 | 14 |
Without the need to analyze past times, the equality with which the derby is presented is clearly the result of the last six days. At the end of September, Barcelona had already added 12 points, by six from Espanyol. But the dynamics of the Catalans has been of a single win, two draws and three losses –five points–while parakeets have accumulated three victories –one of them, against Real Madrid–, two draws and only one defeat –11 points–.
For all this, they see this derby from the RCDE Stadium as a unbeatable opportunity to perform a ‘sorpasso’ that, although it would be symbolic – for that pending day of Barcelona and for there to be more than half the championship at stake -, it would give wings to the parakeet and I would break a glass ceiling that seemed impregnable in this first section of the 21st century.