Barcelona vs Valencia Prediction - A Crucial Match For The Blaugranas

Next Saturday, 18th of April 2015, a Barcelona hurt in their pride will entertain Nuno Espirito Santo’s super Valencia at the emblematic Camp Nou for round 32 of the Spanish Liga BBVA.

Barcelona had a hard time last weekend, when they visited Sanchez Pizjuan to measure forces with Sevilla. The Andalusian team are an extremely complicated team when playing at home and Barça weren’t able to counter such fact. Despite their good first-half, the Catalan team ended up by sucumbing in the dying moments of the match and allowed Kevin Gameiro to lure in the equalizer on the 84th minute.

Luis Enrique, who was once again criticized by substituting Neymar while still winning 2-1, managed, nevertheless, to rally his troops and, to no surprise, Barcelona smashed Paris SG by 3-1 at Parc des Princes for the UEFA Champions League Quarter-finals last Wednesday. The erratic Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez put up a vintage performance by scoring two goals, thus catapulting his team to an excellent win that has almost certainly granted them a place on the next stage of the competition, as it is quite unlikely that PSG will be able to turn the second-leg match at Camp Nou into something positive.

The upcoming fixture against Valencia will also be far from easy, but Barcelona cannot allow any more setbacks if they want to keep Real Madrid at bay.

As for Valencia, Los Che are having a fantastic season so far and they’ve been proving the pundits who gave them absolutely no credit earlier that they are by far one of the most impressive teams of La Liga right now.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s work at the helm of the team is absolutely remarkable, especially if we have in mind what happened with Los Che last season. Last Monday, Valencia offered absolutely no chance to their neighbours Levante on the Comunidad Valenciana’s derby as they’ve hammered them by 3-0. One goal from Paco Alcacer, other from Feghouli and another from Alvaro Negredo were enough to sink Levante even deeper into La Liga’s table.

The match at Camp Nou will be a huge test for Valencia, who will certainly try to avenge the controversial defeat they’ve suffered at Mestalla back in November.

Despite Valencia’s splendid overall quality, Luis Enrique’s Barcelona are firm favourites to win next Saturday’s clash.

Barcelona

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

Recent Form - WDWWW

Valencia

Stats: W-3 L-0 D-2

Recent Form - WDDWW

Possible Line-ups

Barcelona (4-3-3) - Bravo - Alves - Mathieu - Mascherano - Jordi Alba - Busquets - Iniesta - Rakitic - Neymar - Suárez - Messi

Valencia (4-3-3) – Alves - Barragan - Mustafi - Otamendi - Orban - Javi Fuego - Dani Parejo - André Gomes - Feghouli - Paco Alcácer - Rodrigo

Injury List / Suspended Players

Barcelona

Vermaelen (inj)

Valencia

Pablo Piatti (inj)

Enzo Perez (inj)

Gaya (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Barcelona

Lionel Messi

Luis Suarez

Neymar

Valencia

Dani Parejo

Nicolas Otamendi

Paco Alcacer

Predictable Goal Scorers:

Barcelona

1. Lionel Messi
2. Luis Suarez
3. Neymar

Valencia

1. Dani Parejo
2. Feghouli
3. Paco Alcácer

Half-Time Score

Barcelona 1 Valencia 0

Full-Time Score

Barcelona 2 Valencia 1