Match Preview : Barça VS Real Betis- La Liga

It feels like I’m writing a match preview every day at the moment and that just sums up how ridiculous this schedule is right now fr Barcelona. But, yet again, Flick’s side are back in action again later this evening. This time, back at home Live from Montjuic at 9pm local time. It’s Barça against Real Betis.

Yet another tricky and challenging game against a very strong Betis side. The fact that this comes only 3 days after that hard fought game in midweek against Atleti, makes this a much more difficult game than it already would be.

Again, we have to be mindful of another huge game in a couple days time in the champions league. So rotations would be expected, but Betis are a very good team so we cant afford to rest too many of our big hitters. But the most important thing is that right now, competition is fierce, and that’s key in such a grueling run of games like we are going through right now. Let’s jump into the preview!

A Quick Look at our opponent:

As said above, and as we all know Real Betis are a strong side in the league. Manuel Pellegrini has been there for a while now, and has really built a side that is not only experienced bags a lot of promising talent too.

One big piece of news from this week in our favour is that their talisman, Isco, will miss tonight’s game due to an accumulation of yellow cards. And that’s a huge loss for Betis. He really does dictate and control the play. However, they’ve still got players who can step up in his absence. Vitor Roque is no longer playing for Betis, but there’s still a few familiar faces such as Marc Bartra in defence.

January loan signing, Antony has also had an impressive start to his time at the Andalusian club and will be key for them later on tonight. We’ve faced them already twice this season, once in the league and once in the Copa Del Rey, both with varying results.

Tonight will definitely be a tough test for us. Especially on the physical side, seeing as we were in action only a few days back.

Predicted lineup:

Ahead of a hugely important week in Europe, and after a very tough and demanding game last Wednesday against Atleti, i fully expect there to be a few rotations in tonight’s game. Possibly only a couple, nothing too drastic, but it’s definitely something we need to be mindful of.

Again, I’d be looking at either of Lamine, Pedri or Kounde to get some well deserved and needed rest. Kounde especially has played so many minutes this season. Lamine was physically Tested a lot against Atleti suffering a lot of hard kicks and blows. So possibly this could finally be the game where Yamal starts from the bench. Pedri should get some rest too, but again we cant afford to rotate absolutely everyone. So it’ll be interesting to see what flick will decide to. Of course with one eye on a hugely important week game next week against Dortmund.