Athletic Bilbao will face Barcelona at San Mamés Stadium in the 23rd Round of Spanish LaLiga. Athletico Bilbao against Barcelona is always the match with big interest especially during this season and LaLiga positions. Review our thoughts on this match here below.
Athletic Bilbao
Athletic Bilbao made big progress from the beginning of the season, as they now stand on the 12th position of LaLiga. Despite, the last match against Real Sociedad was lost, Athletic show great form in 10 LaLiga matches. At home pitch, team this season lost only two games, however, conceded equal goals as scored. Bilbao showing very aggressive football and have a 74 yellow and 4 red cards and that is the first place in Spain for now. Bilbao scored at least one goal in last 7 matches in all competitions.
After the injury, Raul Garcia came back to starting eleven, however, Aritz Aduriz will probably miss the matches. This is a big loss because he is a leader and main striker. Inaki Williams could take leadership and play in main strikers role.
This season Los Leones are great at aerial duels and counter-attacks, as Williams is one of the fastest players in the world. Very likely that Athletic will attack down the right, play width and aggressive football. They have facing problems at protecting the lead, defending against long shots and defending counter attacks.
Barcelona
Barcelona this year is showing great football, but injuries do not give rest to the players. The constant rotation of the squad, on the one hand, is good, but not when it is done because of the lack of players. Barca now stands at 1st position and have lost some points after drawing with Valencia. Catalonians scored already 60 goals, for example, Real Madrid (the second place by scored goals) scored 37. We can see the big difference between all clubs and Barcelona this season. Barcelona has all chances to win LaLiga and fight for Champions league trophy too.
Two main squad players will miss the next match. Samuel Umtiti has a knee injury, and Jordi Alba has a yellow card suspension. Hopefully, Ousmane Dembele should back to the squad and please us with his skills.
Blaugrana is great this season at shooting from direct free kicks, finishing scoring chances, creating long shot opportunities, creating chances through individual skills and coming back from losing positions. Very likely that they will play possessional football with short passes through the middle. However, even the strongest team have weaknesses at stopping opponents from creating chances, defending against skillful players, counter attacks and attacks down the wings.
H2H
During the last two seasons, teams played 3 times. Barcelona won 2 times and in the first round of this season played draw. In every match, Barcelona scored at least 1 goal.