Barcelona – Valencia: Sunday 1pm

By: Isaiah | May 3rd, 2008

There’s a Spanish word that I love both because of its meaning and the actual sound when you spit it out: venganza. Revenge, payback. You know what it means and we’ve got two straight weeks of it, starting with the visit from Valencia and ending with our own visit to the Bernabeu. While the sad fact is that we have no shot at winning the title, we still have 2nd place to fight for and these two games are what it comes down to.

The current top 4 looks like this:
Real Madrid – 75pts
Villarreal – 65pts
Barcelona – 61pts
Atletico Madrid – 55pts

While Atletico is looking over its shoulder at Racing Santander (53pts) and Sevilla (52pts), it is certainly possible that they could overtake Barcelona for 3rd. I don’t believe this is a likely scenario due to my faith in Atletico’s choking, but it is still a mathematical possibility so beating Valencia is not only good for the soul (revenge is sweet), but also for the fingernails (a 9 point lead over Atletico with 3 games left would ensure a 3rd place finish or better).*

As much as I like Valencia and as much respect as I have for Cesar, I have to hope that we win and win well. I would hate to see Valencia descend, but they’re 4 points clear at the moment and host 18th place Real Zaragoza next weekend at the Mestalla, meaning they control their own destiny. No relying on others, no need to hope for miracles, just beat Zaragoza and you’re good to go. And, to reiterate my point from a few weeks ago, Valencia won’t go down. I don’t even think they would have gone down with Koeman at the helm, but I doubt many Valencia fans would agree with that.

So we’re facing a team that bounced us from the Copa del Rey on their way to a championship, but are going to come out fighting to ensure their safety. So it won’t be easy, but they are in 15th for a reason, so we should be able to beat them at home. It all depends on which Barcelona shows up: the kind that demolished Valladolid 4-1 or the kind that lost 2-0 to Depor. I doubt that we’ll see a tactic like Ferguson’s in the Champions League semis from los Che, but you never know. Spanish teams have no reason to respect Barcelona’s midfield, so I don’t see that happening from a team with the attacking power Valencia has the capability of putting on display.

Here is the Barcelona squad listing:
Valdés, Pinto, Zambrotta, Oleguer, Thuram, Puyol, Abidal, Sylvinho, Xavi, Márquez, Edmílson, Deco, Gudjohnsen, Messi, Bojan, Eto’o, Henry, Gio.

The major absences are Iniesta, Toure, and Milito, but we get Gio and Márquez back from injury. Therefore, I expect the lineup to be: Valdés, Zambrotta, Thuram, Puyol, Abidal, Márquez, Deco, Xavi, Gio, Messi, Eto’o.

Hopefully this means that Gio starts on the left, though we might see a return to Bojan starting on the left instead. The thing that Gio provides is some of the width that we have been so badly lacking for a while. Without Toure, we might be a bit weak through the middle and with Gio we might be a bit weak on the left side, but there’s not much we can do about that other than dominate possession and create chances through Messi and Deco. Eto’o should be able find some more space if Messi and Deco can begin to combine a bit better than they have been lately.

By “combine better” I really mean “combine faster” because it’s the lack of pace and direction in the attacking third that has been lacking for the last 4 games (and thus, 0 goals in that period). I’m sure we’ll score this game…but only because I’m always sure we’ll score. There’s no reason to think that we’ll score when we couldn’t before, but Valencia needs the points so they might have to open up a bit and give us some room to play.

The first time we played Valencia was a 3-0 victory in the Mestalla, with Eto’o grabbing 2 and Gudjohnsen (!) grabbing another. There’s no way we’ll dominate the scoreline the same way, but I do think we’ll win. David Villa will be Puyol’s mark and we’ll have to really get into our tackles, but it’s our stadium and our standing in the table and we’re going to goddamned take it.

Statistics:
Barcelona’s home record: 13W-2D-2L 38GF 9GA
Valencia’s away record: 7W-3D-7L 19GF 24GA

Massive advantage to us, really, so let’s prove why. Predicted scoreline: 1-0 Barcelona. Goal by Eto’o.

*Atletico is playing Recreativo Huelva as I write this, so by the time I publish this or by the time you’re reading it, my own preview might be outdated…And Atletico just scored in the 22nd minute. Balls. Camacho grabbed the first goal of what should be many by the time he retires. And in the 26th minute Aguero has a goal incorrectly disallowed for offside. In the 53rd minute Aguero puts the ball away and it’s 2-0. Dammit.