A whole test for Barça before Bayern

Behind the short breath of a ‘clean week’, Xavi’s Barça faces a new challenge in LaLiga before burning his last options in Champions. The Barcelona team receives this afternoon, at a historically unfavorable time (4.15pm), one of the fittest teams in terms of to the quality of his football of the league. Before the very difficult test in Munich, Barça will face Manuel Pellegrini’s Betis, listed in the classification with four points more than Xavi’s team. Of course, with one less game for the Barça fans.

It’s been weeks since the margin of error is exhausted for Barça, after their consecutive setbacks against Madrid, Rayo (a defeat that cost Koeman the position), Alavés and Celta. Two defeats and two draws that they supposed to yield ten points that can be bitterly regretted later if Barça, indeed, rejoins the fight for LaLiga, as Laporta dropped the day before yesterday. The president assured that the team, despite being 13 points behind the leader, Madrid (with one game less, so that disadvantage would be of 10 points winning the pending game), he is still a contender for the title. Perhaps a triumphalist statement but that, in any case, forces the Barça team not to fail any more.

Pilgrims he took Betis in 2020 and he is in his second season at Villamarín. Despite his seniority (68 years), he has motivated the green-and-white team and tensioned from the start of LaLiga. Despite the fact that this week he played a Copa del Rey game, Pellegrini changed the whole team except Marc Bartra compared to the one who had played the weekend in the league championship, so he arrives in Barcelona with theoretically intact forces.

What’s more, the Betic set has a very positive trajectory in LaLiga, despite relatively recent defeats against Atlético and in the Sevillian derby. Has won in his last two League games against Elche and Levante and, before the two aforementioned setbacks, which stopped him, had linked wins against Alavés, Rayo and Valencia.

The Barça moment

The Barca has also won his last two games, against Espanyol and Villarreal, two hurried victories that suppose oxygen for Xavi’s team, which try to re-boost in LaLiga after a very hesitant career, contrary to that of Pellegrini’s group, more convinced than ever of being able to strike at the Camp Nou and reissue the triumph of the 2018-19 season, precisely with Setién on the green and white bench.

The victory for Barça is little less What a must if you want to keep the good course that the team has taken under the direction of Xavi. The goal is to keep the type and score points while the team evolves, troops such as Ansu Fati (practically ruled out even for Munich) are recovered and they await the possibility of reinforcing themselves in winter. Betis is a ‘bone’, the prelude to the Munich final, where is at stake qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League. Two more finals for Xavi, this time in just five days