Preview: Barça – Valladolid, Saturday 4pmEST, GolTV

By: Isaiah | November 7th, 2008

We’re back to La Liga now, as Valladolid comes rumbling into the Camp Nou once again. The last time we faced Valladolid was also at the Camp Nou, way back on March 23, 4 days after losing to Valencia in the semis of the Copa del Rey. Barça won that game 4-1 thanks to goals from Eto’o, Iniesta, and Bojan (2). And that, ladies and gents, is why our little one is pictured here. We’ve talked about him before, we’ll talk about him again, but this was a coming-out party, of sorts, where you just sorta knew that the kid was brilliant. He’d scored before, but man, he was good that day. It was also one of Kevin’s first ever match reviews. Check it out here.

Will he have a game like that again? Probably not, if Guardiola’s whole “I’m not going to play Bojan for 90 minutes in the league” thing holds. But if he does get out there, I like his chances of making an impact, since we’re missing Iniesta, so we’ll need Bojan to step up, if only as a sub.

Real Valladolid, then, should be someone we concentrate on. We need all the points we can before we head into our Stretch of Death. This little team, the Pucela, are a feisty bunch and don’t really lay down for anyone. They finished 14th last year, but took points off of us the first time they met us in el Estadio Jose Zorrilla in Valladolid (1-1), so don’t count them out just based on their record. Except I’m kind of going to do just that: their away record is 0W-0D-4L (1GF 6GA), making them one of two teams without an away win (the other being Numancia). That doesn’t bode well when they enter the gladiator-dome that is the Camp Nou. We’re the Russell Crowe to their Joaquin Phoenix, so to speak.

Feel free to take that image and run with it in the comments. Or suggest your own reference.

Barcelona, for their part, are 3W-1D-0L (15GF 4GA) at home, so Valladolid’s strike force has their work cut out for them. It’d be easy to get carried away and suggest we’ll win by like a billion goals, but of course we won’t. With Iniesta and Abidal on the sidelines, we’ll be a little clunky, a little out-of-sync, and needing a spark. That spark, as I’ve suggested, could come from Bojan, but could also come for more unlikely places, such as Sylvinho or Cáceres.

It almost doesn’t matter how Valladolid comes to play because we are, after all, at home and better. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but we’re going to stamp our authority on this match and Guardiola isn’t going to let another Basel-esque home flop happen. And yes, drawing 1-1 with Basel is a flop, just as much as drawing 1-1 with Valladolid would be a flop. I know that’s arrogant and dickish of me, but we’re in this to win it, baby, and I think that’s just what we’ll do.

No squad listing yet, but I’ll try to get one up soon. Without one, here’s my guess:

Valdes, Alves, Puyol, Pique, Sylvinho, Toure, Xavi, Hleb, Messi, Henry, Eto’o

I’m sure I’m wrong, but that’s what I see happening, especially before a Benidorm match in which Guardiola will probably start Bojan and Pedro. Valladolid’s coach, Mendilibar, has claimed on their official site that he won’t change how Valladolid plays — so if you know how Valladolid plays, and I don’t, then you know what’s going to happen. My guess is we’re going to beat them. Not beat the pants off of them, but we’ll beat them.

Official prediction: 2-0. Note that I didn’t guess 3 for us for the first time in a while. We’ll start off weak and build into our attack. I think it’s Eto’o and Bojan who get goals. We haven’t see the our Cameroonian score for a bit, so it’s time he broke that streak.

As always, here’s a list of Where to Watch our beloved troops take the field of battle. Kevin and whoever else lives in Chicago, we need some Chicago representation on this page, so suggest something!

And in case you missed it, the official squad photos are out. My favorite? The boys look good in pinstripes, but seriously, nothing beats this badass one. And then there’s the official stats page, which I’m super thrilled about.