El Clasico Spotlight on Yamal and Mbappe as 40 Cameras Are Dedicated to Coverage

Spanish football's biggest fixture, El Clasico, is set for an unprecedented television production. Sunday's match between Barcelona and Real Madrid will be covered by up to 40 cameras, including dedicated coverage of the two superstars, Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe, a day before the Ballon d'Or winners are announced.

The cameras will be placed across Camp Nou Stadium as part of a television production plan that includes ultra-high-definition filming, slow-motion replays and individual player tracking techniques, Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo reported.

Spain's top-flight La Liga classifies matches involving Barcelona or Real Madrid as "Category A", requiring at least 22 cameras for coverage. Major matches like El Clasico or the Madrid Derby carry a higher "A+" rating and require 35 to 40 cameras, distributed according to a pre-defined shooting plan that sets out their locations and coverage angles.

The details are also made available to the referees' technical committee and the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology team, advising them of the available image sources for reviewing refereeing decisions.

The announcement of expanded coverage follows controversy in the Real Madrid vs Sevilla match on Sunday, which saw an off-the-ball clash between Real Madrid midfielder Adra Guler and Sevilla's Peque Fernandez in the 24th minute. Despite 26 cameras being used during that match, none of the available angles provided a clear enough picture to determine the nature of the contact between the players — reviving the debate on whether television coverage can provide the angles required to decide in controversial cases.

However, using more cameras does not guarantee that all events will be clearly filmed; it depends on the location of the equipment, the direction of the lenses, and how close the event is to the angle being filmed by the camera.

Anticipated coverage includes cameras with long-range and cinematic lenses, with images produced in "4K" resolution compared to "full HD". This allows the television director to choose between multiple angles during the game and replay important shots in clearer detail, especially goals, dangerous opportunities and collisions inside the penalty areas.

Additionally, cameras will be installed behind the two goals, as well as equipment capable of capturing fast shots and replaying them in slow motion.

Such scale is not new for El Clasico. During a 2017 edition, the Spanish league used 40 cameras mounted on cranes and carried by helicopters, as well as slow-motion cameras dedicated to tracking Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. More than 400 specialists in photography, directing and television production were involved.

In 2016, El Clasico experimented with 360-degree replays using a system based on cameras distributed around the stadium to produce three-dimensional images, allowing the director to show some scenes from virtual angles that are difficult to obtain using a traditional camera.

So alongside the battle on the pitch, this El Clasico will also showcase a battle of technology. Every move by Yamal and Mbappe will be captured by dedicated cameras, and hundreds of millions of viewers around the world will see a broadcast clearer and more dramatic than ever before.