Barcelona - Almería: Preview (Sunday, 2pm EST)

By: Isaiah | October 26th, 2007

Jornada 9 opponent: Unión Deportiva Almería
Location: Estadio Camp Nou, Barcelona
Time: Sunday, October 28, 8pm local time, 2pm Easter Standard Time in the US
TV: GolTV, live, barring some bureaucratic nonsense that stops transmission

The Southerners keep on coming, but this time they’re not quite as good. Not that you can overlook a team that is in 9th in the league with a record of 3W-2D-3L (11pts) with a goal differential of +2 (10 for, 8 against). They’ve beaten Depor, Murcia, and Osasuna while drawing with Mallorca and Athletic Bilbao. The teams they’ve lost to Valencia, Real Madrid, and Racing Santander. Altogether that’s not a bad run. They’ve lost to no one lower than 8th (Santander), which is pretty impressive for a squad that just achieved promotion this year for the first time ever. The team was founded in mid-2001 and has since risen to the Primera rather quickly.† Never take an opponent in the top flight lightly, that’s definitely one of the lessons here.

Who is Almeria? Well, they don’t have any superstars, per say. They’re leading scorer is Felipe Melo, a Brazilian I’ve never heard of before. 8 games, 3 goals. Other than Felipe Melo, they’ve scored a grand total of 7 goals, which is one more than Messi has scored so far in the league (take that baseball, we have inane statistical abilities in soccer too!‡) Their defensive record in their wins is perfect (6 goals for, none against), but in the other 5 games, they’ve allowed at least one goal; their worst defeat was 3-1 at the Bernabeu and it can’t have been fun to have Valencia visit and then go to Madrid over Jornadas 2 and 3. They’ve won two of their games on the road and most recently won last weekend’s game at home against Osasuna.

This is all getting a little complicated, so let’s just go to the Barcelona squad:

There is some news that Toure will start this weekend, though that’s still to be decided for sure. Zambrotta might make appearance and Marquez has returned to full training, but I don’t expect the latter to even sub on. The thing is, Messi is training by himself on a “personal recovery program,” whatever that means. He’s supposedly fit, but they’re taking good care of him (”fussing over Messi” is the headline on Sport today, while EMD more wisely just says there’s a danger he’ll get injured) at the training ground and he should start on Sunday.

If Toure does return, perhaps it’s best to keep Messi out and throw Gudjohnsen back on after his good showing against Rangers? It would help Messi not to strain himself too much before a game at Valladolid on Wednesday and another home game against Real Betis the following Sunday. While a 4-4-2 isn’t the normal Barcelona system, if we make it a diamond with Toure the defensive point, Iniesta the offensive point, Xavi on the right, and Ronnie on the left, that might help Henry and Guddie to create more chances. Or you could play a 4-5-1 with Guddie playing in the whole behind a roving Henry. That might work better, though I don’t know Almeria’s general tactical alignment, which does impede my ability to discuss the proper formation. However, Almeria should bend to Barcelona’s will, not the other way around. So whatever works tactically best on paper for Barcelona should be implemented this weekend, as long as the relative fitness of players is considered. While Messi has been instrumental in getting the team to where it is now, his absence may benefit the team in the long term as he’ll come back stronger in the future. I believe a team that has Henry, Gudjohnsen, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Toure, Puyol, Thuram, Milito, Abidal, and Valdes can beat basically anyone on earth, much less Almeria. That is, by the way, the starting lineup I expect, especially after Puyol’s good showing against Rangers on Tuesday.

Home sweet home, indeed, for Barcelona, who have 4 wins in 4 games at the Camp Nou. 12 goals for, 3 against. Pretty nice. I don’t expect that to change this weekend as they’ll win.

Official prediction: 2-0, Barcelona. Goals from Henry and Iniesta.

†According to Wikipedia they were founded in 2001, but have had 14 seasons, which is just a whole fun bundle of math. I have to assume that that includes previous incarnations of the team. Still, they’ve never been in the top flight before, I don’t think.

‡A World Series factoid: On Thursday night, when Ubaldo Jimenez and Curt Schilling started, they set a record for age difference between starting pitchers in the World Series. Good f-ing god, who keeps track of this shit? And when could you ever use that information in a useful way? He bats .245 against left handed pitchers in second week of April during home day games when it’s rained the night before and there are men on the corners with two balls and one strike.