We sneaked through with a very nerve-racking ordeal with a victory and it is on to face Barcelona yet again.  Perhaps the surprisely stern test against Mallorca was just the recipe for the proper motivation heading into battle against our mortal enemy.  It would have been all to easy to stroll through the islanders and enter the Copa Del Rey clash with hopes sky high, but a more measured and realistic attitude is likely to pervade the Madrid camp after just barely avoiding the upset.  So despite the fact that it looked like the team was already looking forward as early as yesterday evening, we will now look towards the upcoming clásicos and identify who is HOT and who is NOT.

Hot

Ángel di María- Despite not making an appearance in the Mallorca match due to his recent recovery from injury, it was a minor injury and every expectation is that he will be fit for the start against Barcelona.  Ángel is just the type of player to have a hot streak at just the right time and if Mourinho plays around with the formation like the papers have been suggesting, then the noodle will likely be crucial to the success or failure of this experiment.  Combine this theory with the reality that the Argentine was viciously effective in our match against Sevilla and you have a comfortable spot in the hot column for a player that didn't even make an appearance yesterday.

Iker Casillas- This is an odd one, but I hope you will humor me here.  Iker had a shockingly poor game against Malaga, and most recently his match against Mallorca resulted in goal (although he admittedly played the ball correctly) being scored on him.  So why then does he find himself in this half of the list: a simple, but superstitious reason explained with an analogy: as you stop by the roulette table and watch as it lands on 0, only an absolute fool would bet on green the next spin around and that is the same as betting on a poor performance from Casillas.  He is so frequently excellent that poor performances come as a surprise for the captain, what is almost unheard of is poor performances bunching for him, and thus it is safe to say that the saint will falter again some day, but it isn't likely to be in the month of January.

Karim Benzema- Our best attacking option last time we faced Barcelona is likely to reclaim this title.  The French striker has repaid the faith shown in him ten fold by now and continues to progress.  It is not beyond reason to think that he might become the best striker in the world in the coming years and scoring a goal or two against Barcelona would just be another step on this journey.  What makes him truly impressive is that he has fostered the ability to be cool, clam, collected on the ball while still being fiery on the pitch as seen in the shoving match against Mallorca.  When the Frenchman first arrived he was timid on the pitch and nervous on the ball, hard to even remember those days now huh?

Gonzalo Higuaín- This has not been El Pipita biggest season for Real Madrid.  He is no longer the guaranteed starter up top with Ronaldo and he has the Frenchman's strong performances to thank for that.  With that said, if Higuaín had a super power it would be the power to score absolutely crucial goals at will- wait what am I talking about, he DOES have that super power.  No longer than shaggy haired Argentinian kid that you guarantee will fluff a chance or seven, he is now the kind of player that magic's up a goal not with supreme trickery, a blistering shot, or incredible pace... but just seemingly out of thin air.  Ruud must be proud.

Raphaël Varane- What a buy!  I will admit that at first I was uncertain as to whether or not he would be a real upgrade from Garay.  I will now admit that I was wrong.  As long as he avoids shattering his confidence, an issue Mourinho is surely aware of, then we have a true superstar in the making- I have heard anecdotes of announcers referring to him as a 26 year old because SURELY and eighteen year old freshly purchased defender couldn't be that confident and smooth.  He might not get the start against Barcelona if Mourinho wants to protect his confidence, or he might have earned the right to prove any remaining doubter wrong.

José Callejón- Has an absurdly impressive goal to minute ratio in La Liga and showed the Mister that he was willing to play defense.  Granted his defense left a little bit to be desired, but industry is much tougher to teach than containment and closing down.  He might be the X-factor.

Not

Cristiano Ronaldo- There has been a lot of discussion about the Portuguese star lately and he hasn't done too much to silence his critics.  This too will pass, as Cristiano will eventually score a stunning goal (like he almost did with that dipper) or bring about a tremendous assist and will get back into the good graces of the Bernabéu faithful.  Until he does, it will not be pretty- lucky he still has his looks, his money, and his tremendous footballing skills to help him sleep at night.  If I were writing a movie script, this would be the point where Ronaldo scores a brace and goes on to unseat Messi as the king of football.

Ricardo Kaká- the other hyper expensive footballer doesn't have the same sort of laurels to rest upon.  Yes he was a fantastic footballer before he got here, and he has shown some wonderful moments for us, but one must seriously wonder if the Kaká experiment will go down as an utter failure.  He just looks incapable of finding a way to play a new post-injury game.  He will likely never have that extra juice of agility that made his dribbling divine, but now he just ends up dribbling into trouble and coughing up the ball 9 times out of ten.  I hope he proves me wrong, but the Brazilian's stock just keeps plummeting.

Álvaro Arbeloa- Once the most dependably above average player on the squad, lately Arbeloa was put in a string of vaguely sub-standard performance.  Granted none of these were truly terrible displays, but when your value as a player is that you can consistently produce 7.0's, if you turn out a couple 4.5's and 5's there are precious few 9's the balance them out.  Hopefully he is just getting it all out of his system now.

Luke-warm

3 back defense- The rumor is that we might play with this formation against Barcelona, which we should have the personnel to pull it off.  This could be a master stroke, it could be an abysmal failure.  Or it could not happen at all and just be a result of Mourinho playing media games.

Sami Khedira- Could have been in the Hot column if not for an unfortunate incident where he was viciously cut down in what should have been a penalty in all honesty.  He was just starting to really hit a purple patch, including a very important goal, but now will be relegated to the sidelines for a few weeks.

So who did I forget, who did I foolishly include?  You tell me!

If you liked this column, then you'd love to listen to our pre-Clásico podcast, since Aaron was on it! And if you'd like to read more about this Real Madrid vs. Barça, then check out the following posts: written Q&A, Karan's views about another Clásico and tactics analysis, Ankit's approach to this Clásico, ZeusZidane's insights regarding our right back problem and Apakshit's preview.