Real Madrid vs. Barcelona: 10 Recent Clasico Legends Who Have Now Moved On

The international break is just about over, and all eyes are turning back toward domestic football this weekend—and that means just one fixture: El Clasico.

Real Madrid host Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu with three points and one place between them in La Liga, with the Catalans slightly ahead at this stage. El Clasico as a standalone game is always a tumultuous, exciting and extraordinary event, but it's equally significant over an extended period of time as a way of showing dominance over one side or the other—or letting hope spring eternal with a surprise victory.

We've selected 10 players, five from each side, who have proved hugely capable of impacting on the biggest club game in the world and who have since moved on and left El Clasico behind.

The criteria for inclusion is pretty simple: The candidates have to have featured in El Clasico inside the last 10 years—so they must have left Real or Barca after 2005-06 season. That means no Zinedine Zidane, among others, who departed the club scene at the end of that particular campaign.

Longevity isn't favoured over short, immediate impact players who were only at the club a few campaigns, but obviously, those who remain at either club over a prolonged period have lots to offer in terms of consistency and quality.

We start with two genuine legends of the game and one from each club: First, former Real Madrid No. 1 goalkeeper and club captain, Iker Casillas.

The World Cup and multiple Champions League winner served his side to the very highest standard for over a decade and a half, at his peak being comfortably inside the top-three goalkeepers in world football. He boasted crazy reflexes, huge self-belief and the adulation of the Madrid crowd.

It didn't end as he would have liked. Form and favour both suffered in the last three years or so before he moved on to FC Porto in the summer, but he was still among the very finest footballers Real Madrid have ever produced or been privileged to have represent them.

Only five players have played more Clasico games than Casillas in the fixture's history.

On the other side of the divide, Xavi Hernandez left Barcelona in the summer after winning the treble in his final year, lifting trophies and receiving adulation from the fans on home soil before heading off to Al Sadd.

Nobody has played more games in El Clasico than Xavi; his 42 appearances for Barca against Real is the equal of Manuel Sanchis and Francisco Gento, stars of yesteryear for Real Madrid.

Xavi displayed the poise, composure on the ball and technical ability in midfield that has defined a generation of football styles, formations and appreciation of how to play. His other attributes—resilience, creativity, leadership—will be missed by Barcelona in seasons to come.

Until recently, Raul Gonzalez Blanco was Real Madrid's all-time top goalscorer. He's already a legend in his own right, even without his exploits in El Clasico. Naturally, though, doing the business against his team's most hated rivals propels him even further up the charts.

Raul scored 15 times in El Clasico, more than any other player bar two: Alfredo Di Stefano and Lionel Messi, two of the greatest players the world has ever seen.

Before moving on to Schalke, Raul won three Champions Leagues with Real, six Liga titles and came runner-up in the Ballon d'Or. He later to moved to Al Sadd and most recently New York Cosmos, where he officially ended his playing career with another title win.

In many fans' eyes, Ronaldinho deserves to be ranked among the games biggest and best names ever; not so much for his longevity, but for the breathtaking levels of play he achieved during his reasonably short spell at the very top.

Few, if any, players could match the ingenuity and technique in possession that the Brazilian managed, and even fewer still could leave the Santiago Bernabeu pitch wearing a Barcelona jersey and be applauded off by the home support.

An outrageously talented individual, Ronaldinho helped spark Barcelona's revival back to the top of European football, and his five seasons with the club saw him named World Player of the Year twice.

Sticking with Brazil but changing almost 180 degrees in terms of style and position, it's former Real Madrid left-back Roberto Carlos.

Built like a tank but as mobile as any sports car, Roberto Carlos dominated an entire flank by himself and allowed the team to add in more creative central players further forward—Zidane, for one—as he powered up and down the wing.

Physicality aside, Roberto Carlos was also an extremely technical player, dribbling and crossing or switching play with venomous passes to the other side of the field with regularity.

His free-kicks were usually abysmal despite having gone down in folklore, but the power and swerve he generated in shots of all kinds made him memorable.

In El Clasico, he found the scoresheet twice, both in victories, and won seven of his 24 games against Barcelona, all told—not a bad record at all.

We turn to a former Barcelona defender now, and one who at times seemed completely at odds with their overall approach to the game, but one whose juxtaposition was perfectly suited to balance out the team.

Carles Puyol was aggressive, rugged, prone to rash tackles and feigning injury and extremely short for a top-level centre-back—yet he was rarely beaten in the air, learned to be a defender who could pass out of defence and captained the side with distinction.

Alongside more refined or composed players, he could help lift the tempo of the game with a big challenge or a powerful header at goal just as much as a surging run forward. He was booked in over a third of his Clasico games and ended up winning 12 of them in 32 attempts. An impressive man, indeed.

Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy wasn't at Real Madrid anywhere near as long as some of the other names on the list, but at his peak, he was one of the world's most deadliest strikers.

His first two seasons at Real Madrid took that period into account, before injury ruined his final two campaigns, and he moved on to Hamburg. Van Nistelrooy scored four times against Barcelona in La Liga in less than two years; Real didn't lose a league game in that four-match period, and it is perhaps indicative that once his injuries hit, Real's form guide in El Clasico took a nose dive.

Powerful, instinctive and able to shoot from anywhere, Van Nistelrooy was as dangerous as they came in terms of pure No. 9s.

Samuel Eto'o was a No. 9, too, on both sides of the divide—but while he never got a chance at Real Madrid, he became a Barcelona icon.

Playing in the centre alongside the likes of Ronaldinho and a very young Lionel Messi, Eto'o's pace and dynamism provided the thrust and verticality that gave the others space to work their magic in—and his finishing ability, at its peak during those years, also came in pretty handy.

Eto'o won 10 of his 20 games against Real over the years and netted four goals in El Clasico, helping Barcelona to three league titles in his five seasons.

Guti Hernandez is an often overlooked part of Real Madrid history: never quite brash enough to be an absolute megastar in the Galactico era, never quite consistent enough with his amazing ability to be an enduring first-team starter.

Even so, he was a huge performer for 15 years, playing over 500 games for the club—plenty of which came against Barcelona. He scored three times against Barca in over 20 appearances, with his blend of audacity and technical brilliance merged with a natural aggression proving a good one for El Clasico.

Guti moved to Turkey for a brief spell after leaving Real Madrid, having won five titles and three Champions Leagues with Real beforehand.

The final spot goes to former left-back Eric Abidal, who left the club in 2013 after six seasons at Barcelona.

Illness and injury stopped him playing consistently for the last couple of those campaigns, but he was a stalwart part of the side beforehand, and his popularity and importance to the squad was visible both upon his comeback from a liver transplant and when he departed.

Tenacious, physical, fast and strong, he was a defence-first player who also provided an overlap option down the flank when he could.

Abidal played a number of times against Real, scoring once, and left enough of a legacy upon his departure from the club to ensure he'd be remembered for a long time afterward.

Follow @karlmatchett