(This was the sight that greeted Atlético at last year’s derby in the Bernabéu – it says, “your worst nightmare: a derby every night.”)

Some fun facts heading into the derbi madrileño:

– the only Madrid-Atleti game that Iker has played in and lost was his very first one, back on Oct. 30, 1999.  In that game, Iker came in for the sent off Bizzarri and Madrid lost 1-3, but none of Atleti’s goals came while Iker was on the field.  Iker has played in 18 of these games, with 11 wins, six ties and one loss.

– that streak of 17 non-losses against Atleti is the longest derby streak in the Liga.  The previous record was 15, held by Real Sociedad against Athletic between 1993 and 2000.

– coincidences: last season, Madrid also faced Atleti on Nov. 7, in jornada 10, and immediately after a Madrid visit to San Siro that ended in a tie.

– Atleti has only won twice against Madrid in their last 34 games (32 in the Liga and two in the Copa del Rey).  The last time Atleti won against Madrid was in the 1999-00 season, which ended with Atleti being relegated to the second division, and Madrid lifting the Champions League trophy in Paris.

– this will be the first derby without Raúl in 15 years.  Raúl has only missed one of these derbies (out of 28) since he debuted in the 1994-95 season, precisely in 1995 when he was on U-20 national team duty.  He’ll watch the game on TV, as will Míchel Salgado (go here to have a listen to his conversation with El Larguero last night – as always, Míchel is extremely well-spoken and interesting).

– between minute 38 and minute 42 of the second half is when the most goals have been scored in the history of the match-up, a total of 40, or 9% of the total.  That means that you should be glued to your television screens at 22:37 on Sunday night.  However, it’ll be alright to get up for a drink or snacks between 22:05 and 22:10, since that’s historically when the least amount of goals have been scored (15).

(And when last year’s game ended with a 3-2 victory for Madrid, this sign came up: “10 years without winning a derby… the nightmare continues.”)