It’s the final game before yet another set of international fixtures, and this time its back at home. Live from 5pm local time, it’s Barcelona against real Valladolid. Heading into the game this afternoon, were in good spirits. Beating Rayo Vallecano in midweek. Not only was that one of our bogey matches, but the performance, especially in the second half was brilliant. Dani Olmo made his long overdue debut and made an incredible impact on the game. One thing however that really has put a damper on the mood is the injury to Marc Bernal.
For years we’ve been looking for the player that could come in and take over from the legend Don Sergio Busquets. We’ve tried different players and none of them have worked. But Bernal has been different. He’s made that position his own already. And his presence has been noticeable on the team. Sadly for him and for the rest of the team, during the ridiculous 10 minutes of added time on Tuesday, he suffered a horrible injury. Tearing his ACL in a challenge with a Rayo player. Which now means he’s out for a year. You have to think that if we didn’t play all that amount of extra time, it wouldn’t of happened. It’s a huge blow and yet another obstacle that Flick has to get past.
A Quick Look at our opponents:
When it comes to Real Valladolid, they’re one of the 3 recently promoted teams in the league.
Valladolid have won 1, drew 1 and lost the other one of the first 3 games in the league. Meaning that they are comfortably mid table at the moment. Again, much like the other games we’ve played so far, its always difficult to get a real feeling of how everyone is playing, but 4 points from their first 3 games isn’t bad at all, especially for a newly promoted side.
Predicted lineup:
As I mentioned earlier, we are sadly going to be without the presence of Marc Bernal for the remainder of the season. So when it comes to the double pivot position, at the moment, we are very limited. Gavi and Frenkie are still out, with the latter nowhere near to being back. No one even knows what is really wrong with Frenkie. So the most likely duo for tonight’s game will be Casado and Pedri. With Dani Olmo playing just behind Lewandowski. Lamine Yamal could get a rest tonight after playing quite a lot over the first few games, even Raphinha too.
Balde had a rest against Rayo so he’s expected to get back into the starting lineup. For me at least, I would love to see Pedri, Fermin and Olmo in the same lineup. Ferran needs to be dropped too. I think Flick has been fair at giving him a chance but he hasn’t clicked into life just yet. So id expect to see him on the bench tonight.
My starting 11:
Ter Stegen
Kounde- Cubarsi- Iñigo- Balde
Casado- Pedri
Raphinha- Olmo- Fermin
Lewandowski
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