Villareal - Barcelona: Preview (Saturday, 2pm EST)

By: Isaiah | October 19th, 2007

Game time: Saturday, 8pm local time, 2pm Eastern Standard Time†

With my presidential vote already in the bag, it’s time to turn to the other religion…except for religion. That’s the other religion, but this is the other, other religion: La Liga action returns after the international break with another big match for Barcelona. They travel a little south to the city of Villareal to take on “the yellow submarine” in a game that could change the look at the top of the league table. Or it could not. That’s why we play these games, I guess.

Villareal holds the third spot in the standings, 2 points and 9 goals behind in goal difference. Villareal has the same number of wins as Barca, but instead of two goalless draws with Osasuna and Racing Santander, Villareal lost to Real Madrid 0-5 at home and a 3-2 away loss to the very same Osasuna during the last jornada. So Villareal have lost their last game, but have shown a propensity for turning those defeats into a string of successes, or at least they have after their only previous loss. This team is here to play and they generally have played well throughout the year. They’ve scored 11 goals and allowed 8, but at home they are 2-0-1, with 3 goals scored and 5 allowed. That’s a skewed statistic, of course, as the Real game indicates. Barcelona, for their part, are 1-2-0 away from home, but they’re only win came against Levante (1-4).

And Villareal the last team to have beaten Barcelona in La Liga (April). In fact, they are the only team to have beaten Barca in the league during the calendar year of 2007. And Marco Senna thinks they’ve got a good shot at repeating their feat, for what that’s worth. There are a couple of things going Villareal’s way for the moment, which brings us to the squad list.

Ronaldinho returned from international duty with a question mark, fitness-wise. And that sucks. Despite the fact that it doesn’t look all that serious, Ronnie didn’t make the trip and Sport claims it’s because Rijkaard is saving Ronnie for the Champions League trip to Ibrox later on Tuesday. Ezquerro, of course, gets his place in the squad. Not that he’ll be used or anything. Check out the full squad list:

Valdés, Jorquera; Oleguer, Thuram, Puyol, Milito, Abidal, Sylvinho; Xavi, Deco, Iniesta, Marc Crosas; Messi, Henry, Bojan, Giovani, Ezquerro and Gudjohnsen.

Once again it’s a top-heavy lineup, but that’s to be expected now with Zambrotta and Toure still out. Gio just got back from international duty at 1am, so I don’t expect very many minutes out of him. Most of the first team was on international duty, bu they should be decently rested, it’s just that few of Villareal’s players went away for the week, so they’ll be even more rested. I expect a close game, with Senna being a particularly big reason of why this will end in a draw.

Official prediction: 1-1

†The game will be shown in Spain, so I expect it to be show on GolTV, but I am unsure of the exact time. Supposedly at 8pm Spain time, which would be 2pm Eastern Time, but GolTV has only a 1pm game listed, which is weird since there is no 1pm game in Spain this weekend. Interestingly, Valencia, Sevilla, and Barca all play the 8pm game while Real Madrid plays the 10pm game. That’s a pretty top-heavy weekend, especially if Sunday is Spain’s “footballing feast” as Phil Ball once referred to it.