Villarreal vs Barcelona, La Liga: Team News, Match Preview.
An exhausted Barça face a monster challenge looking to stay perfect in domestic action.
Standings at time of writing
Competition/Round: 2024-25 La Liga, Matchday 6
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Ronald Araujo, Gavi, Ferran Torres, Andreas Christensen, Fermín López, Dani Olmo, Frenkie de Jong, Marc Bernal (out), Marc Casadó, Pedri (doubt)
Villarreal Outs & Doubts: Willy Kambwala, Juan Foyth, Gerard Moreno, Alfonso Pedraza (doubt)
Date/Time: Sunday, September 22, 2024, 6. 30pm CET (Barcelona), 5. 30pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 12. 30pm ET, 9. 30am PT (USA), 10pm IST (India)
Venue: Estadio de la Cerámica, Villarreal, Spain
Referee: Mateo Busquets Ferrer
VAR: Javier Iglesias Villanueva
How to watch on TV: ESPN Deportes (USA), Premier Sports 2 (UK), SuperSport (Nigeria), others
How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), LaLigaTV (UK), GXR World (India), DAZN (Spain), others.
Following their first defeat of the season away to Monaco in the Champions League opener, Barcelona have almost literally no time to rest as the Catalans return to action just 67 hours later when they travel to the home of the Yellow Submarine to face Villarreal at the Estadio de la Cerámica, forever known as El Madrigal in our hearts, for a huge La Liga game on Sunday evening.
Barça come into this one after seeing their perfect record end at the hands of a young, hungry, physical Monaco side that played against 10 men for 80 minutes and found a way to beat Hansi Flick’s troops late in the second half.
The Blaugrana fought and competed as hard as they could and had good moments of their own, but ultimately couldn’t handle the numerical disadvantage caused by an early error from goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen that got Eric García sent off and suffered their first loss of the campaign.
Now the Catalans have no choice but to move on, and thanks to the insane schedule given to them by both UEFA and La Liga they are forced to play again less than three days later with eight total absences due to injury and suspension while Villarreal got to rest for a full week.
And a well-rested Villarreal is an even tougher proposition than usual: the Yellow Submarine are off to a brilliant start this season, with the third-best attack in La Liga and an unbeaten record that only the perfect Barça and the two Madrid giants can match.
Marcelino’s side, once known for their tough defensive style, are loving life as a free-flowing, offensive force that’s scoring goals for fun and pressing high up the pitch to force turnovers and create chance after chance.
Sunday is the first time so far this season when Hansi’s reputation as a tactician and astute game-manager will truly be tested.
Barça won’t have the legs to keep up with a high-flying Villarreal, so can the coach and his players find a way to force the hosts to play a different game.
We’ll find out.
Marcelino knows his team has the fitness advantage over Flick’s exhausted Blaugrana troops, so there is zero doubt Villarreal will launch an early blitz to try and overwhelm Barça with intense, high pressing designed to force Ter Stegen and the backline into another early mistake to try and earn a quick lead and physically dominate the Catalans to the point where they simply can’t keep up with Villarreal’s intensity.
Flick has no real options to rotate and has to hope his players find some deep reserve of energy after the battle on Thursday, and maybe the coach will have no choice but to tweak his own gameplan to help preserve his team’s fitness to last the entire match.
Maybe Barça won’t press as hard or as intensily this time, and they might choose to purposely pass the ball around to kill time in certain periods instead of constantly looking to move it quickly and run fast from one end to the other.
Álex Baena, one of the best young midfielders in Spain, and Dani Parejo, still going strong at the age of 35, are the two creative forces while Ayoze Pérez is leading the line to great effect while club legend Gerard Moreno deals with some injury issues.
The defense is a clear problem, but the attack is on such a roll that it doesn’t really matter how many goals Villarreal concede right now.
They will continue to attack and look to outscore opponents, and that formula is working so far.
Let’s dance.
Even if our feet hurt real bad right now.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Ter Stegen; Kounde, Cubarsí, Iñigo, Balde; Casadó, Eric; Yamal, Pedri, Raphinha; Lewandowski.
Villarreal (4-4-2): Conde; Femenía, Albiol, Costa, Cardona; Yeremi, Gueye, Parejo, Comesaña; Ayoze, Baena.
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