Preview: Barça – Almería, Saturday 4pm EST, GolTV

By: Isaiah | October 24th, 2008

Translation:
Pep Guardiola: Three points in the bag…and on top of that I didn’t have to use the “easy way”.
The sign on Messi reads: Use only in case of emergency

I’m including this comic not because it’s particularly funny, but because it is particularly indicative of where we’re going with this season. Guardiola has so many options right now that he knows how to use that even in tough games without Leo Messi Barça comes out with 3 points. That’s fantastic and it’s nice to watch, as a fan of the beautiful game and Barça in particular.

Almería, however, are not Athletic and therefore should not be treated as such. Just because we won away to Athletic doesn’t mean we’ll win at home against a team performing 1W-1D-1L, 5GF 5GA away and sitting in a UEFA Cup spot. I haven’t had the pleasure of watching Almería much this year (about 45 minutes against Sevilla), but what I was was very, very dour. There was nothing going on in that game except a stalemate in midfield. While that could attest to the skills involved in both midfields, I was bored enough that I turned off the TV and went for a walk down to the waterfront. So I am no expert on how Almería plays or even who they play.

Thanks to Soccernet, I see that Negredo played against Sevilla, but man, I didn’t see him out there. He’s scored 5 goals in 7 games, which is pretty nice, actually, though it doesn’t make him pichichi — both David Villa (8) and Samuel Eto’o (6) are ahead of him and Negredo is also tied with Messi. Who would have seen Negredo scoring so many goals? Well, FIFA09 did cause so far in the 10 games I’ve played with Barça, Negredo has 9 goals. Hmm.

Of course, if we’re judging by FIFA scores, the one game where Negredo didn’t score was the one he played against my Barça — I think the score was 3-0, just another hat trick for Eto’o.

Anyway, here is a brief statistical breakdown of Almería for you stat junkies (aka me):
Overrall: 3W-2D-2L, 9GF 8GA
Home: 2W-1D-1L, 4GF 3GA
Away: 1W-1D-1L, 5GF 5GA
Rank: 6th, 11pts, 5pts behind 5th, 1pt ahead of 7th, 6pts ahead of relegation.

Note that of their 9 goals, more than half were scored by Negredo. Their last away game was a 2-2 draw at Getafe in which Almería came from 2-0 down to score in the 88th and 90th minutes (Negredo Chico).

I find their player Kalu Uche, to be a dangerous player whenever I watch him closely, but he has the worst goal scoring record last year I can remember for a player who played in 30 games: 3. Yeesh. He’s scored 15 times in 79 league games according to Wiki, but I can remember last year being impressed with him the times I saw him. Perhaps my “dangerous” assessment is off, but that’s how I see it.

Almería may be a team made up of mediocre individual talents, but as a unit they seem to do fairly well — think Villarreal, but not at the same level — so overlooking them would be foolish. They drew with Valencia in the only game the orangemen haven’t won. That’s got to say something for them, right? And even though Barça is no Málaga, Pep would do well to go into this game guns blazing.

Those guns sure were knocking down the stool pigeons (and mixing random metaphors) on Wednesday against FC Basel. A “manito” from the cantera would be nice to see once again, but I’ll take any scoreline that moves our winning streak from 8 to 9 (from 6 to 7 in the league). A home game, a pretty-well rested front line (Messi did play all 90, but Eto’o and Henry played 0 combined).

The last 6 games in the league, Barça has outscored opponents 20 to 6, including two 6-1 humdingers. I’m not sure I see Almería making much of a dent in that goal differential (14, for the math uninclined), though I also don’t see them failing to score. Despite my triple negatives, I’m going into this game positively, perhaps buoyed by the bombastic Basel beating. Any way you look at it, though, Almería better take their A-game to the Camp Nou or they’re going to find themselves in a deep, deep hole, scorewise.

Guardiola’s random lineup? Here goes my guess: Valdés, Dani Alves, Puyol, Pique, Abidal, Busquets, Keita, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Eto’o. Yup, Henry on the bench again, but so it goes.

Official prediction: 3-1. I know, I know, that scoreline has yet to happen in La Liga this year, but mark my words, we’re going to do it. Goals by Iniesta, Eto’o, and sub Bojan.

As always, Where to Watch will inform you, um, where to watch. I may or may not be at Nevada Smiths. If you’ll be there, post a comment or email me at barcelona[at]theoffside[dot]com and we’ll try to meet up.