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Hello, buenas noches, guten abend, and welcome to live coverage of Real Madrid v Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals. Just as everybody needs a bosom for a pillow, so every football competition needs a clásico: an impossible-to-overhype-but-let’s-bloody-well-try contest between two giant teams. Hell, last weekend there were four clásicos on Hackney Marshes alone!*

With apologies to AC Milan, Joseph Bloggs and others, Real v Bayern is the clásico of European football. This is their 29th meeting and 14th two-legged tie, both Uefa records, and all have taken place in the European Cup or Champions League. In eight of the previous 13 ties, the winner went all the way that season.

It would be unwise to make such an assumption about this year’s tie, given the quality elsewhere in the competition, but whoever emerges from this heavyweight contest will understandably have the whiff of destiny in their nostrils.

Most people have Bayern as favourites: they finished second in the league phase, seven places ahead of Real, and are gallivanting to another Bundesliga title. Real, by contrast, lost to Mallorca at the weekend...