Wednesday night sees the first big La Liga game of the season between two sides that will be right at the top of the table come the end of the season. Atletico’s La Liga trip to the Camp Nou last season was fruitless and it’s been twelve league games since they’ve beaten the Catalan team. They did however triumph in their Champions League tie last season. Atletico are outsiders at 9/2, whilst Barcelona are looking for a 13th straight win against their rivals and are at 20/33.
Barcelona thrashed Leganes in their game on Saturday 5-1, following on from their routing of Celtic in the Champions League last week. All three of their big guns, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar found the back of the net at the weekend, but for the first time in 52 games, Suarez was replaced before the end of the game. Priced at 49/20 to score first against Atletico, Suarez took his benching without complaint.
Like Barcelona, Atletico won convincingly at the weekend, defeating Sporting Gijon 5-0. Antoine Griezmann got them off to a good start, scoring after 2 minutes before Kevin Gameiro put them 2-0 up after 5 minutes. Notorious for his defensive structure, Diego Simeone’s side have conceded just once all season and have kept a clean sheet in four of their five games. He’s spoken about being more expansive, but he might resort to his tried and tested defensive method against a Barcelona team who’ve scored 13 goals already this season in La Liga. It’s also the first game that Atletico have played since he announced a reduction in contract length.
Match Prediction and Odds
Two Barcelona players came out after the Celtic game and said that they couldn’t afford to drop another point this season. This looks ominous for the rest of the league, but as the Champions League last season showed, Atletico have the capability to beat them. It’ll be tough though considering Messi, Suarez and Neymar have scored 13 of the last 14 Barca goals against Atletico.
Atletico have Griezmann however, and he’s been in prolific form so far this season with 4 goals. He also has form against Barcelona, scoring twice against them in April.
This game has goals written all over it and is a must watch game.