Really? There are another two? Yes - it's time for the Spanish Super Cup clashes between Barcelona and Real Madrid. It's the last thing Jose and Pep want now...
The impressively titled Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport announced ominously on Thursday that the upcoming Spanish Super Cup clashes between Barcelona and Real Madrid had been given a 'high risk' rating.
As both clubs in question were guilty of at least three of these deplorable misdemeanors themselves in the barrage of Clásicos already held in 2011, it's hard to tell whether the Commission was publishing a warning to the supporters in the stands or the participants on the pitch for the matches taking place in Madrid on Sunday and in the Camp Nou three days later.
This weekend's first-leg clash in the Santiago Bernabeu is set to be Clásico number five of what will eventually be an exhausting series of seven Barça v Real Madrid contests this year. As it stands, it's honours even between the two clubs with a victory each and two draws. But despite the fact the two clubs haven't met in the annual contest between the cup and league title winners since 1997 - quite remarkable considering the dominance of this feuding pair - the build-up to these two games has been fairly low key by Spanish standards.
This is partly because Spain is still in the middle of its August super holiday which sees pretty much everything useful for day-to-day survival closed for the month. It's not easy getting one's football juices flowing when one is slumped on a deck chair in 100 degree heat, no matter who's playing.
The other reason is that both Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho would clearly rather not have the distraction of a clash that is normally considered fairly small fry in the calendar and a chance to give some fringe players a run-about before the real business of the league campaign kicks off. With the Clásico being the Clásico, taking such labour-saving measures clearly aren't an option, leaving both clubs having to fire on all cylinders when they should be easing their way through the final weeks of pre-season.
Real Madrid certainly seem to have had an easier time of it than Sunday's opponents over the summer with a pre-season camp in Los Angeles and seven comfortable victories over three MLS outfits, Hertha Berlin, Leicester City and a couple of teams in China that didn't exactly put up much of a fight, with a total of 13 goals conceded between the pair.
The advantage of playing against what was nothing more than cannon fodder in some cases was that it got a slimmed-down Karim Benzema scoring again with the Frenchman banging in eight goals over the summer. Even more remarkably, the normally surly Frenchman has even begun smiling from to time to time too, with Mourinho noting that the striker may finally be beginning to deliver after two very average years with Madrid. "Now he thinks about football the same way I do," reported a pleased Madrid manager after Benzema's two strikes in a 3-1 win over Hertha Berlin.
Barcelona began their pre-season a week after Madrid and without a number of players who were on Copa America duty. This has caused a bit of an issue for Guardiola, who pointed out that Thursday - three days before the match with Madrid - was the first time that he was able to have his whole squad back together again.
The Barça coach was also unhappy at a pre-season tour of Germany and the US that saw just two wins from six in hot, humid conditions which impacted his ability to run practice sessions that didn't leave his players as desiccated husks. "Before we had pre-preseasons, now we do tours," lamented Guardiola.
The one advantage the Barça boss has over Madrid is that the manager didn't have a lot of of new players to integrate into the side with Alexis Sánchez (at time of pre-Cesc writing) being the only addition. Instead, what Guardiola was able to do was give was a long summer of rest to the likes of Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández for the first time in three years after Spain's involvement in Euro 2008, the Confederations Cup and the World Cup in 2010. This could be vital in another long campaign, when taking into consideration how the Barça team seemed to run out of steam in the second half of the campaign.
It's unlikely that Alexis or any of Madrid's five new signings will be starting Sunday's first Super Cup game, with experimentation not being on the agenda for either coach and familiarity being the safest approach.
Neutrals will be wanting the decreased pressure surrounding the clash - certainly in comparison with a Champions League semi-final - to produce a wonderful footballing spectacle between two supremely gifted sides. Supporters of the two clubs ill simply be wanting their team to win at any costs.
