Gripes, grievances and… Goebbels?

El Clásico is more than a match. That is, the encounters between Barcelona and Real Madrid, while ostensibly about football, tend to collect all manner of drama, controversy and animus before — and after — the 90 minutes played twice per season in La Liga.

And yet, even by its typical standards, the build-up to Sunday’s showdown at Camp Nou (3 p.m., TSN) has been especially rancorous. From organized labour to name-dropping Joseph Goebbels, there’s not much this Clásico hasn’t touched on, and it’s still some time away.

Rather importantly, it should be noted that, yes, the two sides will actually face one another as scheduled. This was only confirmed Thursday, when it was determined that a workers’ strike would not prevent the game going ahead.

Approximately 60 of Barcelona’s seasonal employees are participating in the action, which began midnight Friday and will extend into Monday. They’re concerned about worsening conditions and task overload caused by understaffing. It’s just the latest organizational issue at a club that seems to lurch from one to the next.

Incidentally, these workers help organize events such as El Clásico, so it won’t be surprising if kickoff is somewhat delayed.

Goodness knows Real Madrid could use those few extra minutes.

In his press conference following Wednesday’s 4-1 defeat of RB Leipzig in the Champions League, Madrid manager José Mourinho remarked that his players would have 24 hours less rest than Sunday’s opponent — a pre-emptive excuse in the event of a Clásico loss.

Inevitably, his claim infuriated Barcelona’s partisan press, with city-based Mundo Deportivo pointing out that while Madrid had played its midweek match in the Spanish capital, Barcelona had travelled to and from France for its appointment with Paris Saint-Germain.

The tabloid also compiled data from the last eight years to reveal a grand total of 26 rest days between Champions League engagements and Clásico matches for Madrid, and just 23 for Barça. It was a ridiculous exercise, but it showed how hot the blood can run when these archrivals go head-to-head.

Not that Mourinho will care. His persecution complex is well-known, and if anything the paranoia has only grown since returning to the Bernabéu, where he won the title in 2012 and the Copa del Rey in 2011.

Given his boss, it’s no wonder.

Next month, Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez will appear in court for a conciliation hearing with Barcelona lawyers. Essentially, it’s a chance for him to clarify some previous comments before the Catalan outfit pursues a criminal complaint for slander.

At issue is Pérez’s outburst back in May, when he repeated allegations — and with some gusto — that Barcelona had bribed Spanish officials for nearly two decades, beginning in 2001. He was referencing the so-called “Negreira Case,” in which former Technical Committee of Referees vice-president José María Enríquez Negreira did, in fact, receive more than €7 million (C$10 million) from Barça, purportedly for consulting on refereeing reports.

Perez raged that there was “no precedent for this in the history of world football” and claimed he was owed an additional seven titles that had “been stolen” from him by Barcelona. He added that La Liga — the “perennial enemy” — had also conspired against Real Madrid.

Now, Spain’s constrictive statue-of-limitations law prevents further investigation into the Negreira Case, although La Liga president Javier Tebas stated in February that it was “already clear” that Barcelona hadn’t bribed referees.

The two clubs then traded accusations that the other had been closer to the regime during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.

Never one to let things lie, Tebas couldn’t resist a jibe at Madrid’s paranoia, which he posted on X was fuelled by grievance, suspicion and finger-pointing. Then he dropped a doozy, writing that Madrid’s approach to media manipulation evoked “propaganda mechanisms exploited by Goebbels” — Goebbels having been Nazi Germany’s leading propagandist.

Madrid responded by demanding Tebas resign, but the latter’s off-colour comparison could see him ousted from his role, anyway.

More than a sporting, social or even political rivalry, El Clásico has become a venue of hatred, at least in the background. At pitch level, there’s simply no way the match can live up, or down, to everything happening around it, and thank goodness for that.

winnipegfreepress.com/jerradpeters