Athletic Bilbao vs FC Barcelona Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

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Joel Amorim Aug 18, 2015 @ 02:45 am

Next Sunday, 23rd of August 2015, the current Spanish champions Barcelona will travel to the Basque Country to measure forces with Athletic Bilbao at San Mamés for the first round of the Liga BBVA.

Barcelona won everything they were involved in last season, but they do not seem to be starting the new campaign off on the right foot. A goal from Messi and 71% of ball possession weren’t enough for Barça to overcome Athletic at Camp Nou last night and to mitigate the four-goal disadvantage carried over from San Mamés. The Spanish champions were once again AWOL in defence at Camp Nou and allowed the visitors to create several chances to score throughout the match.

Not a single win in two official matches is not a thing that Barcelona supporters are used to, but if one looks at what happened in both matches against Athletic, one must say that the Basque team deserved to lift the trophy.

Next weekend, Barça will have the opportunity to avenge what happened last Friday at San Mamés, but the match will surely not be easy. The absence of Neymar and the fact that Xavi is not in the locker room anymore is probably affecting the team at the moment and Luis Enrique himself, since the former Barcelona’s captain was the manager’s wingman and an extension of his voice inside the pitch. The Asturian manager will not be able to rely on the services of Pique, who was sent-off last Monday night, and it is not yet certain if both Jordi Alba and Neymar will recover in time from their respective injuries.

As for Athletic, after a fairly uninspired pre-season campaign, the Basque team proved, and against Barcelona, that they are far from being pushovers and winning the Spanish Super Cup was a well deserved prize for them.

Ernesto Valverde caught Barcelona by surprise in his tactical spiderweb and, at the same time, exposed the Catalan team defensive frailties when facing a counter-attack driven opponent. There aren’t many new faces at Athletic’s team so far this season, but such thing doesn’t mean that they aren’t a team to be feared. Eneko Boveda, who arrived from Eibar, Gorka Elustondo, who was part of Real Sociedad during the last nine campaigns, Javier Eraso, who arrived from Leganes, and Sabin Merino, who played for Bilbao’s reserves’ team last term, are so far the only new summer arrivals.

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