Barcelona - Bilbao Preview

By: Isaiah | February 23rd, 2007

Coming off a harsh week that hasn’t exactly lived up to its potential (to put it in the best possible terms), Barcelona have a shot at not only returning to winning ways in La Liga and qualifying for the Copa del Rey semifinal when they play Real Zaragoza on Wednesday, but also of putting the word crisis back into its place. As we’ve seen, the word is bandied about just a little too much and it’s high time that pundits and laymen such as myself stopped using it.

[Quickly: I thought of a good example of when crisis should be used in relation to soccer: Leeds United. That was a crisis.]

The game this weekend is Sunday at 1pm ET at home against Athletic Bilbao. Because of the recent losses, I expect Barcelona to come out with guns blazing, though due to his red card in the game against Sevilla, Deco will be unable to play. That signals to me that Iniesta will pair up with Xavi in the midfield in a formation otherwise similar to that used against Liverpool. It was, after all, an effective attacking force, if also wasteful. The team will no doubt rebound and play aggressively; an angry Barça is certainly not what Bilbao needed to face after their second win of the season.

Bilbao has won 2 of their last 4 games, though they’ve lost the other 2. They beat Real Sociedad on January 28 (0-2) and Getafe (2-0) last Sunday. Bilbao have won only 6 games all season, but 4 of them have come since December 16 and 3 since the New Year began. (December 16 sounds a lot longer ago than it really was for Spanish teams: Bilbao has played 9 games including that 0-2 win over Deportivo on the 16th.) So for a team dwelling in the basement, though never quite the season the sub-basement where Nastic and Sociedad are currently plying there trades, this run of form comes as a very welcome string of successes and bodes well for the remainder of the season. After all, Bilbao is one of three teams that have never been relegated from the first division, ever. The other two are Barcelona and Real Madrid. Still, Bilbao are up against a much stronger side than either Sociedad or Getafe can field, so they have to be on top of their game and willing to take their lumps.

Prediction: 2-0 Barça.

The news about Ronaldinho’s weight is hardly a surprise to me. If you’re not playing like you were before, you get called fat. Ronnie is in some pretty serious company including, but not limited to, compatriot Ronaldo and Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard. That he didn’t train today (Spanish) means, unequivocally, that he’s fat. Obviously. Add “fat” to his Wikipedia entry, please, just to make it an official fact.

Ha! You just got schooled by a fatty!