This is occasionally—OK, almost never—called El Otro Clásico. It’s a bit of a nod to the fact that these two clubs, BARCELONA and ATLÉTICO MADRID, have a shared enemy that they each hate more than their opponent here. Barça’s beef with Real Madrid is the Clásico, Atléti’s feud with their crosstown neighbors is a proper derby.

This match is just a meeting of two of Spain’s great institutions, a fixture that’s spawned wild scorelines and decided league championships. In this case, it’s a meeting of first and second in La Liga, and they’re tied on 38 points.

Joining us to preview the festivities is Ian Darke, the legendary commentator who’s called matches across the world in the Premier League, the Champions League, and the World Cup. American fans might know him as the soundtrack to Landon Donovan’s famous goal against Algeria in 2010, but he’s also called some of the biggest matches in club football—like this one. He’ll be behind the mic for ESPN on Saturday at 3pm Eastern Time, but first he’s here with us to look ahead to the match—and look back on that time he and Steve McManaman stuck around the Camp Nou until 2am drinking beers with the locals!

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Have you seen the news? Manchester City are losing football matches. A lot of them. They lost to Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday, their seventh defeat in 10 matches across all competitions. They lost to Bournemouth, Sporting Lisbon, Brighton, Tottenham (twice), Liverpool. They’ve won just once since October 27.

It’s almost unspeakable turmoil for a Pep Guardiola team, unprecedented in his career across the Premier League, the Bundesliga, and La Liga. On the question of how the champions of England can dig themselves out of it, the Catalan does not seem to have the answers. He was clawing at his own nose. Now he’s shell-shocked on the sideline.

Of course, no City scandal can compare to Manchester United's state of affairs. They’ve been a disaster for a decade, cycling through players and managers and—just recently—sporting directors without much to show for it. That FA Cup victory over these opponents back in May seems a long ways away now, and the decision to re-hire Erik ten Hag on the back of it has been confirmed as a calamitous one.

Now they’ve got another promising young coach in Ruben Amorim, but he’s fast discovered the scale of the task here. The Red Devils have lost two on the bounce and slipped to 13th in the Premier League. Considering the sheer amount of money spent, the players trotting out onto that Old Trafford pitch are simply not good enough. This Sunday, they’ll trot out across town at the Etihad, and their best hope is that their opponents are in their own kind of disarray.

Joining us to preview this peculiar Manchester derby is Adam Monk, a presenter for FourFourTwo, DAZN, and BBC Manchester who's a devout City fan.

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EVERTON host LIVERPOOL at Goodison Park for one of the great old rivalries of English football.

Liverpool are flying coming into this one—or at least they were. Top of the league (and the new Champions League table), they did have a blip in midweek with the draw at Newcastle. Everton are reeling as usual this season, though they did smash Wolves 4-0 on Wednesday. Can they take heart from that, and learn a bit from Newcastle’s approach against these opponents just a few days ago, to disrupt Arne Slot’s title-chasers and snatch the points for themselves? After all, it was defeat in this fixture seven months ago that derailed Liverpool’s last title challenge.

Joining us to muse on that question is Stephen Warnock, an analyst and co-commentator for the Premier League on NBC here in the U.S. and for Sky Sports and more over in the U.K. An accomplished left back at the top level in England, he also started his career in the Liverpool academy and broke through into the first team, so he’s walked out onto that pitch at Goodison for this very fixture. He shares some derby memories and some insight into how this one might shake out.

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