Athletico Bilbao vs Barcelona should be one of the most interesting Copa del Rey Quarter-Final matches, which will be held at Estadio San Mames, in Bilbao. The winner of this duel will fight for the Final against Real Madrid or Real Sociedad. At the beginning of this season hosts already showed vert strong character against Barca and won the home game in La Liga with 1:0 result. 5 last meetings finished with 2 or even fewer gaols in total, what shows really strong confrontation and defensive game. Read our thoughts about this exciting and important for both Athletic Bilbao vs Barcelona Copa del Rey match and get the best betting advice here below.

Athletic Bilbao vs Barcelona

Athletic Bilbao

Hosts won over Barcelona at the beginning of the season, so this could bring and pluses and minuses to next their meeting. Athletic shows a very strong defensive game and have only one defeat during the last 10 matches in different competitions. Unfortunately, collecting points by playing draw hard enough, as they won only twice at the regular time. Great talented players and Basques ideology always very interesting to watch and follow. Last game in La Liga they lost to Getafe even playing at Estadio San Mames. Los Leones controlled the ball but failed to finish dangerous moments. In over side Getafe used counter-attacks as the main weapon which worked for this time 100%.

For the last 12 years, Athletic Bilbao met Barcelona in Copa del Rey final for free times, unfortunately, lost all of them. Hosts are second by the number of titles in this tournament (23), right after Barcelona (30). So this confrontation is very important for Basques for sure, as they know that compete against Catalonians in La Liga have no chances finding a great opportunity to fight in CdR.

Barcelona

For Catalonians, this is one more chance to give a rest for main players before facing Napoli in UEFA Champions League and continue fighting for La Liga 1st place with Real Madrid. During the last 10 games, Barca won twice and lost points in draw games 3 times. They have serious problems in defense, as they saved a clean sheet only in 2 out of 10 recent games. In La Liga, at the moment they stay at 2nd place with 3 points difference with Real Madrid.

Unfortunately, the next game very likely will miss Dembele, Neto, Suarez, Turan, and Vidal. Most of those players are a very important part of the first eleven, but we expect that Setien will give a rest to others too.

 

Article image is taken from http://www.sport.net/